Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
Thanks to the media shovelling fear, misinformation and lies into our minds. I blame Facebook, Twitter and Murdoch for this one.
The conspiracy theories around this issue were fucking wild. Ranging from the UN taking control of our government, to abolishing all land ownership and giving them the right to have your home demolished, to some bizarre thing about the pope or some shit.
Don’t just dismiss those that disagree with you as conspiracy theory believing nut jobs.
The Yes campaign majorly dropped the ball. They alienated the voters.
If the Yes campaign are serious about the Voice to the nation being important to the Indigenous people, then no-one is standing in the way of making it happen. The vote to enshrine it in the Constitution failed, but the body can still be created and can still function primarily the same.
The whole topic is now radioactive. No politician will touch it for at least the next 10 years.
yeah until the Liberals dismantle it. again.
No until it turns corrupt like what most of these bodies inevitably do. But I guess it’s racist to ask if there will be a framework to oversee and manage corruption.
Yeah mate, the lnp is concerned about corruption. That’s what leads them to tear down every proposal. It’s corruption.
It’s always so funny when Americans on here, including me, are openly willing to discuss how shitty, racist, and full of bigots the United States is. Around 40% of the population is complete filth and we’re happy to openly acknowledge that.
Meanwhile, Canada, the UK, and Australian users, even if they’re on the left, try to find excuses to not acknowledge that their general public is also significantly racist and bigoted. And always have been.
yeah nah cus. we’re racist as and generally the progressives are willing to admit it.
Our cities don’t have shit like the stark divide I saw over in Atlanta Georga usa where there’s like the black side and the white side (was 20 years ago, better now?) but like even in sydney we have the red rooster line. Beyond that the wealthy east likes to assume everyone on the other more non white migrant side is an ignorant moron.
But especially to blackfellas we’re horrible. I remember being told not to walk down streets because an “abbo” lived there as a kid. Like what the flying faaaark?
Lefty Canuck here - Very willing to admit my country is full of racist pieces of shit. And so is every other country. 30% of the world is made up of trash humans who would fuck over their mother for a dollar, or to get to their destination 10 seconds faster.
:’(
Sadly unsurprising.
I personally didn’t pay close attention to the campaigns, and think it pretty obvious Australia has a fair way to go on indigenous issues, but my impression is also that the Yes campaign was poorly executed and thought through, failing, in part, to recognise how much of an uphill climb it was going to be and how easy the No campaign was going to be. For instance, while reading the ballot, I was taken aback by how vague and confusing the proposal was, despite having read it before.
Otherwise, I’m hoping there’s a silver lining in the result where it will prompt an ongoing conversation about what actually happened and get the country closer to getting better at this.
Even 10 years ago the topic of this referendum would have been political suicide. Remember Rudd got crucified for apologising. It’s actually pretty positive that this referendum, as poorly executed as it was, actually happened.
There was a massive, heavily funded FUD campaign by the “no” proponents. Sadly, it was very effective.
Oh fuck.
The title is hugely misrepresenting the referendum.
Not even our conservative party, the liberals, opposed recognition of aboriginal and Torres islander people as the traditional owners of the land.
The neo liberal progressive party, labor, put in a change to political process. This is what people disagreed with.
It wasn’t a change to political process. It was to be another advisory body, of which we have many over several decades.
Yep very misleading. There’s recognition, and then there’s the advisory board question. The Yes campaign did a shoking job and alienated everyone by calling people racist who asked questions about the Voice.
I remain hopeful. Even though a vast majority voted no to establish a body, I certainly hope that we have a government that can put something into action and that the Libs stay stuck in the weeds until they find what they stand for again.
Is there currently an Australian equivalent to the BIA? If not, is a Constitutional Amendment required to establish one or can one be established by legislation?
Wow. I just looked at the front page and that’s actually amazing.
Short answer - no. Australia does not have such a thing, especially with that much support. We have some indigenous people in government but they represent their seat, not specifically indigenous affairs. There is currently no body that represents indigenous affairs as a whole.
It can be established by the government of the day, which it was back when Kevin Rudd was our PM (Labor Party). However, this body was then abolished by the next government, run by Tony Abbott and others since (Coalition).
Now, we have Labor in power again and this referendum was called to have a voice enshrined in our constitution so that it couldn’t be abolished by future governments. Since we nationally voted no, our current Labor government can establish something like the BIA, however there is a high risk that this will be yet again abolished like last time.
Hmm, maybe it’s because in our western states Indian tribes are a larger percentage of the population, or maybe it’s because our mistreatment of the various tribes has led to countless wars and atrocities; but I couldn’t imagine a scenario where one party established this branch and another removes it. But I’m not from Australia.
A sad day for Australia. It was cool to see a lot if Australian celebrities come out in support of a yes vote.
This is shameful. I’m sorry.
Yeah this fucking sucks. I have to admit I was expecting Yes to win by a landslide, but I guess I give people too much credit.
Saw a post about that yesterday. We already knew the results, but it’s sad to see it happens anyways.
How grim.
This is a victory for racists, and bad-faith actors, some some of which have received lots of money from China and Russia to help destabilise another Western country.
Yet again, I’m sorry. And yet again, that’s not enough.
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We just proved 60% of the country are dumbass racist hicks, we don’t need dumbass racist hicks armed with assault rifles. It’s bad enough here with the spiders and snakes.
As for the no voting, the US could certainly take a leaf from our book. The republicunts would evaporate overnight if you had mandatory voting with ranked choice and meaningful minor parties.
