The Voice - thegoodwills.com

The Voice – dismissed but not silenced

Yes, I did say I’d write the occasional piece, but not always on a Friday. Just deal with it!

Before and after the Voice referendum, I was reading an Australian classic, Coonardoo, by Katharine Sussanah Prichard.

This dark novel resonated more as we left on the day of the referendum for a western Queensland caravan trip.. At that stage, we did not know that 60%+ of Australians would vote No to the Voice.

Our first stop was Girraween national park where mobile reception is hard to find. It took a day or two for news of the referendum result to filter through. In our oft-described naivety for having positive regard for disadvantaged minorities, we did perhaps fail to see how hard the wind was blowing the other way.

In our electorate, Maranoa, the No vote topped 82%. This overwhelming response was no doubt helped along by an official endorsement from the Federal member and National Party leader, David Littleproud.

Maranoa extends 729,897 square kilometres across the Southern Outback and is socially conservative. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation finished ahead of Labor on preference count at the 2016 and 2019 elections.

Not that I ever agreed with editorials in The Courier-Mail, still the only State newspaper, but the headline in the Friday before the referendum, “Voice Care Factor Nil”’ revealed a poll showing the Voice referendum was number 17 in a list of issues rated as important. The ‘exclusive’ poll revealed an apathetic mood and gave the newspaper an opportunity to headline its editorial ‘the vibe is not enough’.

This late summary which tested the mood of the people came hard up against the difficulties of passing referenda in Australia. Only eight of 44 referenda held since Federation have succeeded. The most recent one – to decide if or not we should become a republic – happened 24 years ago. Young people voting for the first time had no adult memories of the issue or why it failed.

As I overheard a bloke saying at the petrol bowser on the Tuesday after the referendum “Aussies just don’t like change, eh?”

If you’ve not read Coonardoo, I should warn that it was shocking and controversial when first serialised in The Bulletin in 1928. It is no less disturbing a read in 2023; a work of fiction overlaying a factual environment. The story deals with a then-taboo love affair between a white station manager and an Aboriginal woman (or ‘gin’ as they are more commonly referred to in this work).

In a preface to the edition I read, Prichard defended the book as a work of fiction, but overlaid with historical and social accuracy.

“Life in the north-west of Western Australia,” she wrote, “is almost as little known in Australia as in England or America. It seems necessary to say, therefore, that the story was written in the country through which it moves. Facts, characters, incidents, have been collected, related and interwoven. That is all.”

Prichard first published the novel as a series in The Bulletin, using a male pseudonym. It caused a stir then and later, when ‘re-organised’ and published as a novel. It was the first book by a European author to portray Aboriginal people positively, at least in some ways, with insights into their language, culture, natural abilities working the land and loyalty to the station managers for whom most of them worked. As Hugh Watt, the central character explains to his new wife, Mollie, “the blacks are not servants, and we don’t pay them’’. (Which, to me, sounds tantamount to slavery. Ed) Watt is described in positive terms in relation to his treatment of blacks, doling out rations like meat, flour, salt, sugar and tobacco. He doesn’t work the ‘gins’ after noon, in recognition of the fact they have their own family and cultural obligations.

Coonardoo is an ugly read, introducing me to a term I had never heard – ‘gin shepherder’ to describe Hugh’s amoral neighbour Sam Geary. He collects ‘gins’ as mistresses and is fond of quoting the Old Testament (Solomon) to justify his exploitative behaviour.

It was well known in the period of colonisation that white station managers and workers used Aboriginal women as a sexual convenience. What was shocking about Coonardoo was the intimate portrayal of a love affair between a white man and an Aboriginal woman.

Post-referendum, as we spent a week travelling short distances between Girraween, Tenterfield Texas, Yelarbon, Goondiwindi, Millmerran and Crows Nest, I found myself seeing these towns through a different lens.

Walking around the old Council boardroom at Goondiwindi (now a museum), I could not help but dwell on Wikipedia’s sobering report of frontier conflict with the Bigambul Aboriginal people. Resistance was finally quelled in 1849 by pastoralists aided by the newly formed mounted Native Police, with up to a hundred Aboriginals killed in a “skirmish”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goondiwindi

After a night at the Millmerran showgrounds, we set off as tourists, checking out the town’s murals, which depict early colonial days on the farm. The museum was only open by appointment, so we took a walk through the library grounds which includes a walk past plaques commemorating early settlers. We asked an older woman walking the same path why there was no mention of the original inhabitants.

“Too long ago and it’s too divisive” was the answer.
Some 5.60 million people in Australia voted Yes. The majority of us rent or own properties on land which as they say, ‘always was and always will be’ Aboriginal land.

Conservative people who grew up on the land were encouraged to be believe the Voice was a ‘land grab’. Just as the conservative parties of the time whipped up similar fears about Mabo and the Apology, this is now and always was a furphy.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott is credited (or discredited) with spinning the much-repeated false hood that the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) spends $30 billion a year on programmes for indigenous peoples.

A spokesman for the NIAA told the RMIT’s fact checking department that the agency administers programs through the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) and had “provided grant funding from the IAS of $1.6 billion in the 2022-23 financial year”.

https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/factlab-meta/niaa-does-not-spend-$30b-on-indigenous-programs-annually

The Voice proposal was simply a change to the Constitution to give an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander committee a say in laws that affect them.

Proportionately small as it was, the Yes vote was broadly represented across Australia, as opposed to the notion that only ‘inner city elites’ supported the proposal. As one example, the deeply conservative New South Wales electorate of New England returned a 75% No vote, as claimed in a headline in the New England Times. Another way of looking at it is that 28,565 people in Barnaby Joyce’s electorate voted Yes.

In Maranoa, David Littleproud’s vast electorate, the No vote was declared ‘decisive’, as opposed to divisive.

While Maranoa itself returned a Yes vote of just 15.8%, the Yes vote was proportionately higher in the towns of Stanthorpe and Warwick.

One of the positives for us during the Yes campaign was that we formed a collective of like-minded people who distributed pamphlets, put signs up in their front yards, volunteered at polling booths and dared to wear a Yes badge when out shopping.

We, the people who voted Yes for a positive change, can keep the momentum rolling. We can do it in small ways. Laurel wrote a letter of support to Cr Wayne Butcher, Mayor of Lockhart River Aboriginal Council in FNQ. He was commenting on the Queensland Opposition leader David Crisafulli’s announcement that he would not support Treaty if his party won the next election.

She received a positive reply the same day – building bridges across physical and metaphysical distances. For my part, I spotted a copy of Sally Morgan’s classic ‘My Place’ at the pop-up library in Millmerran. As you can see (above), a surge of empathy motivated me to give the book a more prominent display.

https://johnmenadue.com/australia-has-shown-itself-to-be-a-selfish-nation-that-lacks-empathy/

(a broader explanation of the $30b citation, which proves, I believe, how the No vote made mischief with this data)

https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-30-billion-spent-every-year-on-500-000-indigenous-people-in-australia-64658

Referendums and why they often fail

referendums-fail-free speech — Photo: (Ed: this is not Peter Dutton, says She who says Yes (in this instance)

You’d have to give the Internet prize this week to the wag who posted a photo of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton (against a background of jubilant Australian soccer players).

“Peter Dutton needs more details before he will support the Matildas,” the satirical headline read.

The Matildas meme most accurately portrays the intransigence of the Opposition Leader’s approach to the Voice referendum, saying No because he doesn’t have enough ‘detail’.

Mr Dutton, perhaps unfairly, has been tagged the poster boy for the No vote. There are many others and some far more to the right than the LNP Leader and that’s saying something. But as a friend said during a discussion last week, those who say they are going to vote No cannot mount any form of rational argument as to why.

The Voice is a national vote to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia. The advisory body would give advice to the Australian Parliament and Government on matters that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

On the face of it, you’d have to wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, in 1967, 91% of Australians voted to change the Constitution so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population. As such, the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. At the time, the thinking was that if Australians did not pass this referendum, we would be viewed as a Pariah state, as South Africa was at the time.

As of 2023, 44 nationwide referendums have been held, only eight of which have been carried. Since multiple referendum questions are often asked on the same ballot, there have only been 19 separate occasions that the Australian people have gone to the polls to vote on constitutional amendments, eight of which of which were concurrent with a federal election. There have also been three plebiscites (two on conscription and one on the national song), and one postal survey (on same-sex marriage). Australians have rejected most proposals for constitutional amendments. As Prime Minister Robertt Menzies said in 1951, “The truth of the matter is that to get an affirmative vote from the Australian people on a referendum proposal is one of the labours of Hercules.”

The sticking point with referendums is that to be passed they need to return a majority in each State, not just a majority nationally. (Votes from those in the ACT and Northern Territory count as part of the national vote.)

Of the 44 referendums which have been held, there have been five instances where a ‘yes’ vote was achieved on a national basis but failed to win because some States voted against. Some issues arise again and again.

Votes on whether or not to adopt daylight saving time have been held in three States. Daylight saving (where clocks are wound back one hour for the summer months) is now observed in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory. Daylight saving is not observed in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia.

In WA a referendum was held on 16 May 2009, the fourth such proposal put to Western Australian voters. The 2009 vote followed a three-year trial period.

After trialing daylight saving in Queensland for three years, a referendum in 1992 resulted in a 54.5% ‘no’ vote. Popular myth is that the referendum failed because ‘people out west’ feared it would fade their curtains.

In 1977, a plebiscite was held to vote for a national song. The choices included Waltzing Matilda, Song of Australia and God Save the Queen (the latter garnered only 18.78% of the vote). The dirge we now call our National Anthem topped the poll with 43.29% of the popular vote and was enshrined as the anthem.

After the Voice referendum is run and won or lost, Australians may not have an appetite for another. But surely at some stage we will be allowed to vote for I Am, You Are, We are Australian, which was not a choice in 1977, primarily because Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton had not written it yet.

And, although Prime Minister Albanese says now is not an appropriate time to revive the Republic debate, we do note the appointment in May 2022 of Matt Thistlewaite as Assistant Minister for the Republic, among his several ministerial appointments.

On the latest Voice polls, six of 11 are showing a ‘No’ result. This is being widely construed as a sign the referendum will fail. What the polling does not take into account is that nobody under 42 has ever voted in a referendum (the last one being the failed Republican vote in 1999). Are we game to take a gamble on which way Australia’s 4.6 million Generation Zers might vote? And how many of them are voting for the first time?

The outcome of referendums has been notoriously difficult. In the lead up to the 1999 Republican referendum, the proposition was looking like a shoo-in. But there was too much difference of opinion amongst Republican factions about how a president would be elected.

In 1916, then Prime Minister Billy Hughes was reportedly ‘devastated’ when the government’s push for conscription failed. Despite Australians not being obliged to vote in those days, the turnout was high and the vote was narrowly defeated. Perhaps it was due to the complexity of the question, which did not explicitly mention conscription.

Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service, for the term of this war, outside the Commonwealth, as it has now with regard to military service within the Commonwealth?

The reference to existing military service meant the requirement for compulsory military service within Australia for all men aged between 18 and 60 (in existence since 1911).

No-one seems to be overly worried about the cost of the referendum, a figure for which has been reported as high as $169 million. If you’ll forgive a rather loose calculation, on that basis Australia has spent more than $7.5 billion on referendums, only eight of which have been won.

We both decided this weekend to throw our hat into the ring, so to speak, posting selfies wearing a Yes cap from the 1999 campaign. If you are going to vote Yes it is obvious why – you have empathy for indigenous people and the hand they have been dealt and want to stop future governments from undoing all the good work that has previously been done.

The Australian Financial Review summarised the reasons why people may vote No.

“…understanding and awareness of the Voice remains poor as the Yes campaign struggles to convince undecided voters to vote for the Voice. Polling shows many Australians still don’t understand what the Voice means, or they are concerned that it risks dividing Australians or giving Indigenous people special rights.”

After they helped write the constitution at the end of the 19^th century, Sir John Quick and Sir Robert Garran sought to make sure future generations understood safeguards that would allow the document to be changed only in precise circumstances. Referendums were designed with a double majority needed, in order “to prevent change being made in haste or by stealth”.

If you are still confused about what those ‘special rights’ might be or not be, here’s some intelligent thoughts on what Albanese hopes to achieve:

And (to be fair), here’s both sides of the legal debate, including a belief it will erode a fundamental principle of democracy – equality of citizenship.

(Ed: I’m constrained to say I completely disagree with the implied notion that Indigenous people already have ‘equality of citizenship’.)

The cost of having a say in world politics

cost-global-politics — Sydney Opera House, venue for the cancelled Quad. Image by Patty Jansen www.pixabay.com

On the eve of what was to be Australia’s first time as host of the Quad meeting, let’s reflect on the proposed cost – some $23 million according to Budget papers. It is understood more than 20% of the budget was allocated to the Federal Police, to ensure the security of invited dignitaries.

The planned Quad meeting, with the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US to be arriving in Sydney, was scrapped after President Biden cancelled owing to ongoing debt ceiling negotiations at home.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Albanese continued with plans to host an official visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Modi arrived in Australia on Monday, with his arrival in Sydney causing great excitement in the suburb known as ‘Little India”. Coincidence or not, SBS reported this week that after a community appeal, the suburb of Harris Park is to be officially known as Little India.

A high proportion of Sydney’s 188,000-strong Indian population live in or around Harris Park. On Tuesday night, Mr Modi attended a rally of 20,000 at Qudos Bank Arena in western Sydney. Modi is a polarising figure, though, both here and at home. Indian Muslim community groups have already declared they do not welcome the visit, citing human rights violations against minority groups in India.

This is Prime Minister Modi’s first visit to Australia since 2014. His two-day stay will include holding talks with Mr Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. I should point out Modi came to Australia via Papua New Guinea, where he met with Pacific Islands leaders.

The Australian Financial Review said Mr Modi and Mr Albanese are expected to build on a communiqué issued after the first annual leaders’ summit in New Delhi in March (which Mr Alabanese attended).

There will be talks on economic co-operation, Australia’s status as a critical minerals supplier, and India’s opportunities for low-cost manufacturing in green technology. Defence co-operation will also be on the agenda, with Australia preparing to host India’s naval war games.

So that’s India covered. What about the other Quad members?

The Quad is a strategic security dialogue amongst Australia, India, Japan and the US, maintained by talks with member countries. One could argue that much of this business could have been done at last week’s G7, the big brother of international talk-fests.

I don’t usually watch the ABC’s Sunday Morning political talk show, ‘Insiders’, but on occasions come in at the end for Mike Bowers’ entertaining ‘Talking Pictures’.

Mike and a guest cartoonist go through their selection of the best political cartoons for the week. Not surprisingly, David Pope’s detailed drawings often feature, as do the works of Cathy Wilcox, Peter Broelman, Jon Kudelka among others.

David Pope’s cheeky depiction of US president Joe Biden swiping a maxxed-out credit card tells the story of President Joe cancelling his proposed attendance of the Quad in Australia.

Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese caught up last week at the G7, another expensive talk fest, both for the host country (Japan) and the countries sending delegations. This year, the G7 was held in Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities obliterated by a US-delivered atomic bomb in August 1945.

Biden and Albanese reportedly held close talks at the G7 about climate change. Albanese has been quoted as saying that action on climate change was “the entry fee to credibility in the Indo-Pacific”.

The US president said in turn that the two nations were launching a new joint initiative to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

By that, as The Guardian reported, Biden meant building more “resilient critical mineral supply chains”.

Biden said action on climate and clean energy would be another central pillar of the Australia-US alliance. He said he looked forward to hosting Mr Albanese for a State visit in Washington DC later this year.

That’s all very well, but that will also mean another (expensive) international VIP trip for the PM and a team of hand-picked Ministers and advisers.

As we can tell by the tabling of former PM Scott Morrison‘s travel expenses in his first year in office (2019), it’s a costly business.

SBS News did a bit of digging (they submitted Freedom of Information requests), to publish a report in November 2019.

Scott Morrison served as Australian Prime Minister from August 2018 until May 2022. SBS found that Mr Morrison racked up more than $1.3 million in travel costs. He made 12 international trips, visiting 17 nations, in the first 12 months since he had taken office in August 2018.

It is hard to argue that an Australian PM and indeed senior Ministers should not travel to other countries for diplomacy, negotiations and photo opportunities. Our is a vast, isolated continent surrounded by water and many hours’ distance from even our nearest neighbours.

But when you consider the proliferation of international meetings and conventions on climate change, security, the economy, peace and stability, the five-star hotel chains and limo hire companies must be doing OK.

When the G7 was held in Cornwall in 2021, the cost to British taxpayers was put at 70 million pounds ($A131,112m). It’s more difficult to establish what the G7 cost Japan. Al Jazeera reported Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to ‘send a strong message’ about the need for a world without nuclear weapons, hence using Hiroshima as the host city.

It’s interesting to think how much money was saved during the first 18 months of the Covid lockdown. Conferences and meetings were universally held over internet portals such as Zoom, where the biggest expenses were cyber security and bandwidth.

Michelle Grattan had a bit to say about politicians and travel last year. By June 2022, Mr Albanese had visited Indonesia, took part in a Quad meeting in Japan, was about to attend a NATO summit in Madrid, and, despite some internal advice to the contrary, visited war-torn Ukraine. Not to be thwarted, Albanese also visited Paris, at a time when the Australian government was in ‘mauvaise odeur’ over Scott Morrison’s decision to cancel a submarine contract with France.

Grattan defended the right of a PM to visit foreign shores.

“International conferences give an opportunity for the new PM to meet multiple leaders, gather information and signal continuities and change (for example on climate policy) in Australia’s national priorities.

By she added that a newly-elected Prime Minister must be careful in deciding how much foreign travel to undertake. In mid-2022, ordinary Australians were finding the rising cost of living a challenge. The situation has worsened in mid-2023.

“At some point, being away too much stirs criticism,” Grattan wrote.

Despite the cost of staging global conferences, the Group of Seven agreed upon strong moves against Russia, including sanctions and export controls.

Still to come this year, the G20 in New Delhi (September) and the climate change summit, COP28 (Expo City, Dubai) in November. Somewhere in amongstall that, the PM and his troops would do well to stay home and work on the most important (domestic) issue of all – the Voice to Parliament referendum.

As The Conversation observed earlier in May, the latest polls suggest 54% Yes and 46% No. (Come on, Queensland, come on, come on. Ed)

Much work to be done at home.