by DAVID FLINT – INSANITY, Albert Einstein famously said, is doing the same thing over and over – and expecting a different result.
We see this in the great issue of the day, the referendum on the first new and tiniest chapter in our constitution, a blank cheque hidden under that misleading title, “Recognition of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples”.
- This will occur if a referendum is not held by December 16.
- It is likely that his inner circle is presently considering whether or not to pull the plug.
- Don’t be surprised if Albo abandons his blank-cheque referendum.
Despite doing the same thing over and over, the political class has failed dismally for many decades to close the Gap.
The latest attempt will be at the highest price ever paid, making Australia ungovernable.
ASSIMILATION
And yet the solution – assimilation – was there under the great governor-general Paul Hasluck.
This ensured Aboriginal people enjoy the same rights and obligations as all Australians. Menzies’ 1965 referendum was to celebrate this.
When this lapsed, his successor, Harold Holt rolled over to opposition leader Gough Whitlam’s demands and, abandoning assimilation, included the federal takeover of Aboriginal affairs in the referendum.
Menzies had argued these be left with the States, with the grants power used to ensure full assimilation prevailed.
Without a No case, the change was hardly noticed.
And just as Menzies warned, it led to the creation of a massive and wasteful Canberra-based bureaucracy.
Assimilation was replaced by segregation and with Whitlam winning government, welfare dependency – “sit-down money” – came in.
This package is the direct cause of increasing moral and criminal anarchy with a truly shameful level of violence to and abuse of women and children, even the youngest, in remote Australia.
Nothing the politicians have done since, the billions poured in, the intervention even of High Court judges and the recent advice of the Productivity Commission, has closed or could close the gap.
Apart from being an even more attractive target for the far Left than even the departments of education, the Voice will assuredly make it worse as will the rest of the program to which the Albanese government is tied, a treaty and reparations.
As John Howard says, the idea that a sovereign country makes a treaty with part of itself is both “preposterous” and “constitutionally repugnant”.
Howard, undoubtedly speaking for the mass of Australians, is totally opposed to reparations.
The recent Western Australian outrage, which barely reached the mainstream media in the rest of the country, demonstrates how Australians feel.
Noting that the colonisation of Australia was “next to inevitable”, Howard believes the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British.
Not that they were perfect, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonisers than other countries.
CONQUEST
Howard is right. Indeed, is there any part of the world not subject to colonisation whether by conquest or settlement?
Slavery was a universal institution which the British not only abolished, but then also used the Royal Navy to kill-off the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
To return to the Gap, it is, officially, the discrepancy in life expectancy, health, school attendance, incarceration, etc, between Aborigines and the rest of the population.
The real gap seems to be between the rank-and-file 20 per cent of Aborigines living in remote communities and the Aboriginal grandees including the “Lord of the Manor”, as historian Keith Windshuttle designates one Aboriginal leader on ADH TV.
In the unlikely event that the Australian people, unlike most of the elites, approve the Voice, it will be the most glittering target for the far Left neo-communists since they took over control of the education bureaucracy.
A take-over that resulted in massive increases in funding while delivering what we know from comparative international testing are dramatically declining literacy and numeracy standards, with history replaced by indoctrination.
But the Voice will not only fail to close the gap, it will make the country increasingly ungovernable.
At the time of writing, the Prime Minister has still not announced the date of the referendum.
This secrecy is consistent with the government’s refusal to reveal full details and the attempts to advantage improperly the Yes case.
It is also consistent with keeping the option of letting the referendum lapse.
This will occur if it’s not held by December 16. He says he is going ahead.
PULL THE PLUG
This of course is no guarantee, and it is likely that his inner circle is presently considering whether or not to pull the plug.
From reports that the Prime Minister has three overseas trips scheduled in late October and until mid-November, many think it likely that October 14 is his preferred date.
No doubt to frighten those who support the concept but are unhappy with the form of the Voice, Albanese is using the fate of the republic as a threat.
Admitting there will never be a second republic referendum, the glib “If not now, when?” has been effectively changed to a threat “If not now, never”. Many will agree.
Most polls suggest the Voice referendum is lost.
Among the few groups indicating a Yes vote in the latest Newspoll are those where the language spoken at home is not English, a surprising 55 per cent to 34 per cent.
Many come from countries which are anything but democratic. Indeed this is often the reason they have come to Australia.
TRUST
They are countries where the last thing you would do is to tell the government, a pollster or indeed anyone you did not trust their views on anything political.
The tendency in these countries is to assume not answering will raise suspicions.
Any answers should be ones which the government will like. When such voters see the powerful, for example, the banks and rich corporations, being mainly on side with the Yes case, the prudent thing will be express a view consistent with them.
In private and, I am sure, trusted conversations with some such voters, I have found little support and much suspicion about the Voice.
I suspect the universal view would be why should they pay reparations?
The views of the young and university-educated supporting the Yes case reflect the takeover of education by the far Left which, too often, Coalition governments have done little to change.
Surely this is an incentive for future Coalition governments to wake up and do their duty to restore standards in education.PC
“Those hidden details: ” The question – like much of the messaging from the Yes campaign – has been carefully constructed to place emphasis on the appealing, uncontraversial and benign aspect of the proposal (recognition) while giving no clue about what the Voice itself would look like in the Constitution and therefore in our society”.
“The question, clever in its obfuscation and avoidance – has been carefully curated by individuals and rubber stamped by the Parliament with the intention to dupe the people”.
“The third problem lies with the conduct of the Constitutional Expert Group. The eminent members of the expert group is chaired by the (Labor) Attorney General as a member of the Government. In other words the expert group is an extension of the Government”.”
Louise Clegg, a Sydney Barrister in Weekend Australian
In this ballot, the people’s primacy be damned
“TREATY?
Following the referendum, it’s expected attention will turn towards a Makarrata commission. This will facilitate a process of agreement making between governments and First Nations people to recognise Indigenous sovereignty.
Labor allocated $5.8m towards a national Makarrata commission in October to oversee truth and treaty negotiations with the Commonwealth. Mr Albanese said the government would not seek to establish the commission in its current term.
Senator Lidia Thorpe, who is against a constitutional Voice, has called for immediate truth-telling about Australia’s “brutal past and ongoing colonial violence” in addition to a treaty for each Indigenous clan.”
Multicultural nation and including Australians who claim Indigenous ancestry who have ancestors who were not Indigenous.
Today it is claimed that 300-plus “First Nations countries” remain around Australia. Aboriginal Land Councils manage and control 55 per cent of Australia for communities. State governments have primary responsibility, for all but NT which answers to the Commonwealth.
How would a new additional group of advisory voices succeed when so many existing have, according to the political agenda, failed in the past and the present?
A new ATSIC with many extra and locked into the Constitution powers, to be called ATSIV?
One of the Message Stick Walk participants from Cape York to Canberra in 2019 explained (Alwyn Doolan) … “My mob can’t speak for your mob. Your mob can’t speak for my mob”.
The 300-plus different countries of communities with their own cultural beliefs, languages/dialects, Native Title traditional lands and Land Councils, already taxpayer funded per capita more than other Australians receive.
Direct Action within communities is the best way to help. But also note that most communities are far from government services, the people choose their traditional cultural lifestyles.