What bothers you and why?

MORE THAN APPREHENSIVE ABOUT ‘THE VOICE’

At the moment in Australia, we have a controversy between “Yes“ and “No“.

The Australian government in its wisdom has decided to hold a referendum later this year, requiring people to vote yes or no to the question of enshrining an Aboriginal (Indigenous) I Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

The voice would be a body that could advise the Australian Government and possibly its Departments on how policies having an impact on Aboriginal Australians would play out if bills became law.

Today, the Australian Electoral Commission has released the pamphlet that argues for the ‘Yes’and ‘no’ campaigns. This pamphlet will be circulated physically to every house in Australia at least two weeks before the referendum date is set. However, the documents are now available online from the Electoral Commission and also through various newspaper outlets.

A major issue raised by the no campaign and seemingly felt (if voting intentions being polled are accurate) by a majority of Australians is that the Voice is a concept without any structure.

So Australians have been asked to vote yes to the concept and the recognition of the Voice in the Constitution. The shaping of the Voice and the way it will operate will be determined by parliament beyond the referendum if the yes vote gets up.

The subject of “The Voice“ was first announced at the Garma Indigenous Festival in East Arnhemland in August 2022. The Prime Minister who had recently been elected (Anthony Albanese) announced that an organisation called “the Voice“ would be brought into existence to give Aboriginal Australians a better opportunity to be heard and to say what they needed to legislators.

Many of the things that the Voice seems to be wanting to look at, have been dealt with over many decades with some success but a lot of failures. At the end of the day, people have to be persons who want to help themselves; it cannot be all done for them. Without going into the whys and the wherefores, I am going to be voting “no“ for the Voice because I do not believe in voting for something which is an aspiration without shape and substance.

The Voice has been presented with about as much substance as a holograph or the bare bones of a skeleton without any coverage of what it’s going to do, how it’s going to look, how it will be chosen, what its representation will look like. That will all be left to the future.

The Australian Government is asking people to vote yes to the voice as a concept and it will not become an entity until that is provided for in parliament beyond the referendum.

This whole issue is a constant worry to me. It concerns me greatly and will continue to into the future.

Now is not the time to go on with pros and cons for that is not really what the topic asked. But yes, I have deep and ongoing concerns about the voice as being a way forward into Australia’s future.

Note, if anybody is interested in material about the voice that has been handed down through the Australian Electoral Commission office and in our newspapers, feel free to request in a reply to this post on my blog. I would be happy to send you this material.