by KEVIN DONNELLY – THE Uluru Statement from the Heart recently celebrated its sixth anniversary and should be compulsory reading for all Australians eligible to vote in the forthcoming referendum.
The Statement calls for “the establishment of the First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution”.
- If the referendum is passed Australia will face an irreversible change to its constitution – and its character.
- Indigenous activists want to create two nations.
- They argue Indigenous deprivation, pain and suffering is never caused by their own actions – as whites are always to blame.
Prime Minister Albanese describes the Uluru Statement as a “gracious request” designed to “bring us all closer together as a people reconciled – and to lift our great nation even higher”.
In arguing the Uluru Statement unifies the nation the Prime Minister has either not read it or, if he has, is not willing to admit it creates two classes of citizens in perpetuity based on whether they are Indigenous or non-Indigenous.
IDENTIFY
Unlike the more than 96 per cent of Australians who are non-Indigenous, those who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander will be granted the unique privilege of being able to “make representations to the Parliament and Executive Government of the Commonwealth”.
No other citizen has that right enshrined in the constitution and, as admitted by Prime Minister Albanese, only a brave government would deny any request made by the Voice, no matter how costly, ineffective or counter-productive.
In addition to creating two classes of citizens and contrary to the Prime Minister’s plea to be on the right side of history, the Voice also represents an egregious attack on the nation’s Westminster inspired parliamentary and legal systems.
Make no mistake, if the referendum is passed the nation will face an irreversible change to its constitution – and its character.
Australia’s constitution has ensured more than 120 years of peace and prosperity and has led to Australia attracting millions from around the world seeking a new and better life.
Instead of being a modest change, as Prime Minister Albanese repeatedly argues, the Uluru Statement demands far-reaching “substantive constitutional change and structural reform”.
Similar to the independent Senator Lydia Thorpe, who wants to create a nation within a nation, the Uluru Statement also argues Indigenous Australians must control their own destiny and no longer be part of Australia as a unified nation.
The Uluru Statement argues Indigenous Australians define sovereignty is a “spiritual notion”, that it “has never been ceded or extinguished” and that it “co-exists with the sovereignty of the crown”.
Indigenous activists want to create two nations with the so-called First Nations having the unique privilege of having a direct line to executive government. As argued by The Australian newspaper’s Paul Kelly, the real agenda is all about power.
Those arguing both Indigenous and non-Indigenous nations will be treated equally also ignore the past judgments of the High Court where legal activism prevails. The reality, sooner or later, is that the Voice’s demands will be given priority. So much for popular sovereignty.
ABUSE
There is no doubt too many Indigenous Australians suffer poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuse but, instead of accepting those responsible must be held to account, the Uluru Statement blames Australian society for being structurally racist.
Drawing on woke ideology associated with the neo-Marxist inspired Black Lives Matter movement, the argument is that Indigenous deprivation, pain and suffering is caused by lateral violence. Individuals are not responsible for their own actions as white supremacism is always to blame.
The reason there is so much violence caused by Aboriginal youth in Alice Springs and why so many Aboriginal women and young girls face sexual abuse, supposedly, is because of events that happened over 235 years ago when the First Fleet landed and the British flag was raised at Sydney Cove.
Before the British arrived, apparently, there was no inter-tribal warfare nor violence and women were never treated unjustly as all lived in a pristine utopia where nature provided all that was necessary and peace and harmony prevailed.
The Uluru Statement, as well as presenting a black armband and mythical view of Australian history, also ignores the reality, compared to the Uyghurs in China, the Christians in the Middle East and the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq that Indigenous Australians already have a voice and are much better off.
ELEVATED
Indigenous Australians receive over $30b in tax-payer funds annually, according to the National Indigenous Australians Agency. They already have elevated rights in about 50 per cent of Australia’s land mass and have the same freedoms and liberties as other Australians.
Add the fact Indigenous Australian’s already have a voice represented by the 11 Commonwealth members of parliament and the thousands of Indigenous corporations and bodies across the nation, it’s obvious what is not needed is yet another expensive, Canberra-based bureaucracy.
The preamble to the Australian Constitution, the nation’s founding document, includes the words “have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth”. What the Indigenous Voice seeks to do is to cancel the enduring bond that unites us.PC
Dr Kevin Donnelly is a conservative author and commentator and editor of Cancel Culture and the Left’s Long March.
This morning while buying a coffee and something to eat a man nearby greeted me and we had a conversation about how good life is and the beautiful day it is today. Obviously an outdoor worker, well tanned and fit, interesting person.
He explained that he is a builder and has a project underway not far from the cafe, he is an Indigenous ancestry Australian. An example of the at least eighty per cent of Indigenous Australian descendants who are not disadvantaged.
How about concentrating on disadvantaged Australians and direct action where they are located?
Another remote in Canberra bureaucracy, or State based, is more waste of taxpayer’s monies that could be targeted where needed, not to support as the ATSIC mob were described “air conditioned Aborigines”.
I intend to vote no.
Recognition
The yes campaign continues to claim that their Voice proposal would recognise Indigenous Australians, but they are us, they are already recognised and vote.
If Labor and the Aboriginal Activists dropped the Voice campaign and focused on recording the history by recognising the “countries”, the now called “First Nations” peoples who were here when the British Fleet arrived in 1788 I believe most fellow Australians would support that being written into the Preamble.
I have a suggestion for voices to parliament for Australian voters who claim to have Indigenous ancestry, most I understand also have ancestors who arrived during or after 1788.
Continue to vote for a Member of Parliament/s in the electorate you live in.
If you need assistance go to your local MP and/or State Department of Aboriginal Affairs, and/or the many government resources established for Indigenous Australians.
Obviously the existing many voices or advisory groups to governments are not useful, so why would locking new voices into The Australian Constitution be any different? Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders Commission legislated by Federal Labor was also an expensive failure.
I am, you are, we are all Australians now.