And the ushering in of a new organised and quasi party political platform for dark money in politics a la the USA. Chrissy Porter’s legal fees will look like chicken feed.
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Aren’t states going ahead with their own ‘voices’ or ‘treaties’ anyway? Maybe we can get some good outcomes through those bodies (even if the referendum gets up)
The transcript article in Simmo’s post just above is a good read.
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Postal voting application is open.
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The Libs are just so comfy with hypocrisy…
News item:
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- Racist
- Stupid
- Both
- Neither
0 voters
The AEC has recommended requesting a postal vote online from the AEC as the alternative to a political party sending a form and harvesting personal information.
The AEC has also stated that voters should have reasons for postal and pre polling voting.
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She’s a lib. That’s all you need to know. Like Mundine she’ll do and say what it takes to advance her own interest$
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Context for Price’s opinion. She stated that it was formed by the experience of her own indigenous side of the family, referencing her grandfather. She also equated indigenous to convict ancestors.
Other indigenous have voiced their disagreement that colonialism was beneficial, including intergenerational to the present day.
As to equating indigenous to convicts, she neglected to observe that convicts, once emancipated, had much the same rights as so called free settlers ( if not social status() their descendants had equal rights under Commonwealth and State Constitutions, including education and voting rights. Additionally, they are not subject to Federal Intervention in the NT or had their children taken from them under assimilation policies.
I wouldn’t label her racist or stupid. She’s playing a political game.
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Do you think that it might undo some of her No campaign work by putting off-side a number of Indigenous supporters? A comment like that can create a sense that she is supporting right-wing positions of white settlement.
Price isn’t talking to indigenous people though, and No can quite plausibly win without any indigenous support at all.
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Price represents country liberal party doesnt she? Shes pretty right wing.
Her comments often have nothing to do with the voice.
I dont think people opposing the voice arent being particularly clear about why they oppose it,
Its not about calling anyone a victim, its not about making australia any more racist it’s just about recognition.
The real reason i think they are against it is the voice over the short to long term threatens to replace all the indigenous groups already in Canberra and elsewhere as the most relevant.
It creates less purpose for people like Mundine or Price.
They don’t want to submit to a different organization to apply political influence.
Its what I really dont get. The voice will change a lot over time. It will always be about the different people getting involved in it.
But as a proposal it becomes representative not on race but on community.
People like Burney/Price/Mundine/Thorpe cant possibly represent all the different indigenous communities.
Thats whats actually racist to think they can. Their remit is to the seat they hold in parliament.
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About 30% of the NT population is indigenous, the highest in Australia . However, the NT has only 150k enrolled voters, won’t make much of a dint in the total vote in the referendum.
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Well I was hopeful 
Liddle, the SA indigenous Lib Senator, was uneasy in a TV interview about Price’s colonial benefits, her own mother would speak from a different experience ( I think stolen generation experience). However, Liddle is a No voter for different reasons.
Price’s opinion could be cited as an additional for the non indigenous No voters who subscribe to the lifters and leaners philosophy.
Fancy opposing something whose intention is to do good will by the communities they represent.
To be an enduring body to ensure those communities flourish instead of flounder and self destruct.
What sort of a person are you that it is such an issue to put your knickers in a knot over to say No, I’m not giving it a go.
I just dont get it.
My only fear around the voice is it doesn’t work.
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Barry Jones having his say in today’s (unpaywalled) article in the Saturday Paper “ The Voice is our Brexit Moment”. It includes a quote by Dan Tehan, shame on him . His mother was a decent Lib politician and I knew him as a decent person when he was in DFAT.
It’s not a simple ad that @handypoint ……One of the issues Price has is she doesn’t subscribe to a centralised elitist group of city based indigenous leaders running indigenous bodies and leading indigenous policy for remote communities. She believes they’re the reason why the gap never seems to close. They aren’t my words just recounting hers. Price believes there is a victimhood mentality and an ‘aboriginal industry’ that makes $$$ and prospers by maintaining a narrative that aboriginals are victims - Price believes that’s their job keep these people downtrodden and patronise them as poor indigenous peole who need help/fixing. That’s what she’s fighting against.
Price is also a big believer in shining a light on the very high rates of DV and sexual abuse amongst the indigenous community. Many on here don’t like to discuss it or highlight it (one poster in particular) but it’s a fact and a reality. Price recounted a harrowing story about Sharon in her speech at the PC and has previously told the story about her indigenous niece who was raped by her father and her cousin who gave evidence against the rapist was attacked with an axe for giving evidence against the rapist that finally put the purp away.
Again these aren’t my words. Many in here see it as a right wing vs left wing political issue. I see Price and Liddle as having a different way of looking at and addressing the issues facing indigenous Australians.
Personally I believe our treatment of indigenous Australians over many decades including across governments of ALL persuasions is nothing short of shameful - we as Australians should be utterly ashamed of the way we have failed our indigenous people - let’s hope the Voice gets up and we’re all honest enough to address all of the issues facing indigenous Australians including poor health, low education levels, drugs, alcoholism, lack of opportunity, racisim, sexual assault and DV. All of us have to be more honest and accountable on these issues
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I agree that the quotes from Dan Tehan are a similar style of dishonesty to that used in the UK Brexit campaign and that dominates US politics and is being promoted for ongoing use here.
Two nitpicks:
It wasn’t unpaywalled - the Saturday paper demanded my email address before I could finish reading the Barry Jones article.
But it was archived 2 hours earlier so it is now unpaywalled
Barry Jones is surprisingly inaccurate about Australian history.
From the first week of the Commonwealth’s establishment in 1901, executive power was in the hands of a prime minister and cabinet (not mentioned in the Constitution) and Australia operates as a democracy (a word missing from the Constitution).
By any definition democracy requires at least representative and accountable government ie that the executive government nominally appointed by the Crown is in fact accountable to a legislature that is in fact representative of the people.
That did not occur until 3 months later:
The English-born Earl of Hopetoun was appointed Australia’s first Governor-General. On 31 December 1900 he swore in the first federal ministry, with Edmund Barton as caretaker Prime Minister. The following day, 1 January 1901, Hopetoun proclaimed the Commonwealth of Australia at a ceremony at Centennial Park, Sydney.
The first federal election took place on 29–30 March 1901, with Barton continuing as Prime Minister. The first federal parliament was opened by the Duke of York in the Melbourne Royal Exhibition Building on 9 May 1901. One of the first things it did was enshrine the White Australia policy in law.
Explicitly racist policy was a product of Australian democracy, in direct opposition to British colonial policy.
On the substance, Barry Jones is advocating that the YES campaign rely less on indigenous representatives and focus very much on Australian racism dating back to colonialism and double down on the current theme:
“No” is a confession of failure, of the belief that if we attempted anything new, we’d muck it up. So we remain prisoners of the past, back in Plato’s cave, surrounded by pessimism and apathy.
“Yes” is a vote for optimism, confidence, a vote for the future, an assertion that we are capable of great things, of acting with decency, courage and generosity.
Surely the choice is simple.
Barry Jones seems to genuinely not get it. Jacinta Price is making an accusation that her opponents refuse to confess their failure and cannot be trusted to fix it. She is explicitly targeting as people who have failed, not only the government and bureaucracies but also the very indigenous “representatives” that produced the Uluru statement and are currently at the forefront of the failing campaign.
Barry Jones tacitly admits that the YES campaign’s indigenous spokespeople are failing and explicitly advocates that the party hacks and celebrities should step up more prominently with an emphasis on imaginary indigenous people pleading “please listen to us” instead of the real live ones that are loudly saying they want people with “ears” not more of the same.
In the campaign for constitutional recognition through an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the burden of arguing the “Yes” case has fallen on Linda Burney, Patrick Dodson, Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Thomas Mayo, Marcia Langton, Pat Anderson, Pat Turner, Tom Calma, Ken Wyatt, June Oscar and others.
This is a dangerous strategy. The referendum involves all Australians, not just First Nations people.
The “No” case asserts the “Yes” campaign promotes division, that it’s framed as special pleading from an elite minority: “This is what we demand.”
In reality, the case is far more modest: “Please listen to us.”So far, advocates from the 96.2 per cent have adopted a “small target” strategy. Leaders of the Commonwealth government, from all six states – five Labor and one Liberal (Tasmania) – as well as from both territories, have been deferential and courteous, leaving the “Yes” case to First Nations people.
If the YES campaign followed the opposite of its previous strategy, as Noel Pearson now recommends, it might recover. But I don’t see much likelihood of reprogramming the 40,000 canvassers that are starting their door knocking now in the time available. Barry Jones isn’t stupid or racist but he just doesn’t get it and other campaigners won’t either.
They could be issued new scripts, sounding less like above from Barry Jones, but they would not be able to respond convincingly to expressions of distrust in the people who mucked up and won’t admit it, because like Barry Jones, they do truly believe they can fix things by talking to themselves instead of actually learning about the real problems marginalised indigenous people face.
We agree on both parts of that. She is a conservative National Party politician and a shrewd political operator.
It doesn’t take much skill to get the usual suspects to denounce her as racist, stupid or both, thus damaging the YES campaign and reinforcing her message about it. But she does it so effortlessly at the same time as handling a 1 hour National Press Club with half an hour of questions mainly from journalists strongly supporting YES.
Reminds me of another conservative woman politician who enjoys watching the “splodey heads keep sploding”.
What you don’t get is that a large part of the NO vote is from people who think “good intentions” won’t work, especially when those intentions are evidenced only by blathering about intentions and provide no indication of what they want to do to actually fix real problems.
Instead you focus on other NO voters lacking “good will”.
You could avoid associating with them by voting informal and leaving it up to those with good intentions and those with bad will to fight out a symbolic gesture among themselves.
Vote WHY.
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