this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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With a two-letter word, Australians have struck down the first attempt at constitutional change in 24 years, major media outlets reported, a move experts say will inflict lasting damage on First Nations people and suspend any hopes of modernizing the nation’s founding document.

Early results from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggested that most of the country’s 17.6 million registered voters had written No on their ballots, and CNN affiliates 9 News, Sky News and SBS all projected no path forward for the Yes campaign.

The proposal, to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution and create an Indigenous body to advise government on policies that affect them, needed a majority nationally and in four of six states to pass.

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[–] calhoon2005@aussie.zone 38 points 11 months ago (2 children)

After a definite disinformation campaign with a side of racist fear mongering...ffs. I'm embarrassed to be an Australian.

[–] Nudding@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

It's humanity bro. Humans are the baddies.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago

I would disagree i think you would be hard pressed to find a large amount of peole against an advisary body. You might see a very large pushback however if u wanted to make a devision based on race within the constitution.

[–] satanssultana@artemis.camp 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is a very sad day in Australia’s history. Many of us thought we were a more progressive nation than we are.

[–] ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We are more progressive. The trouble is the amendment was too vague and if anyone asked questions or suggested that they might vote no, they got called a racist and told to educate themselves.
The Yes campaign ended up mostly using the argument that you should vote yes because conservative are telling you to say no.

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's a toothless advisory body that could make (ignorable) representations to parliament about matters relating to the indigenous community. What else do you need to know?

[–] ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There were 2 main issues for me.

  1. The wording did not specify how they would be selected.
  2. The voice did not require that the members needed to be Aboriginal. So it would have been a bunch of non Aboriginal mates of politicians in the voice. Just like how Tony Abbott got to be the minister for women.

The yes campaign just said trust us it will do nothing so you don't need to worry. What was the point then?

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://voice.gov.au/about-voice/voice-principles

The Voice will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people based on the wishes of local communities

Members of the Voice would be selected by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, not appointed by the Executive Government.

Members would serve on the Voice for a fixed period of time, to ensure regular accountability to their communities.

To ensure cultural legitimacy, the way that members of the Voice are chosen would suit the wishes of local communities and would be determined through the post-referendum process.

I think it would be bad to specify that the members be indigenous - it needlessly restricts options, which seems unproductive if the indigenous community are doing the selection. If they choose the likes of Tony Abbott (not likely), that's their perogative.

The Voice establishes a constitutionally enshrined body, so beyond recognition, it facilities better input from the community into affairs relevant to them, and makes it optically bad for the government if they choose to ignore that input while forcing nothing. The point is to close the gap in outcomes between the indigenous and broader communities.

[–] ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is about ensuring it can't be abused. They could have specified how the members would be selected in the wording of the referendum.
They wanted to leave the door open for them to abuse it down the track.

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

How would it be abused, exactly?

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

tfw all those jokes about Australians being racist is put to a national referendum and turn out to be true.

[–] fruitleatherpostcard@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

A toxic mix of the social heritage of brutal colonialism, domestic racism, and the trolling money from China and Russia.

[–] Hogger85b@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Follow the money.....fossil.fuel and other mining extraction companies would lose if the first nations took more control of parts of land

[–] 01011@monero.town 2 points 11 months ago

Relying on scared white supremacists to not be white supremacists is foolish.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah that tracks.

[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 months ago

Every news article I see anymore makes me lose a little more faith in humanity. I don’t have much left…

[–] elouboub@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Marketing, image, and ads are everything with these kinds of things. Seems like the "Yes" campaign fucked that up.

[–] dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

From the article it seemed that a big criticism of the amendment was that it was too vague. There were people from different political beliefs and some aboriginals who didn't like how vague it was, though the aboriginals wanted it to further.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That's because it was a constitutional amendment.

The legislation (details) that would come out afterwards has been out for 6-7 months now.

[–] jagungal@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The Yes campaign did a shit job of publicising it though. I've consistently heard that people were told to educate themselves which is generally a bad way of getting someone to agree with you when the opposition is all to happy to fill in the gaps with disinformation. The fact that we are still telling people why the wording was vague should be enough to tell you that the Yes campaign failed.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

There's quite a few things they did poorly, sure. Which is a shame, since they did everything else well.

[–] ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry. I did heaps of reading about this and I couldn't find any details. If it was out they did a terrible job of making it available.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Did you check Wikipedia?

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

(It's there, under "Structure and powers of the Voice")

[–] ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It even says in the Wikipedia article that they would design it after the referendum. They just had a couple of ideas about how it might work.

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Now, that's not what they said, as much as you wish it.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Supporters of the Yes vote had hailed it as an opportunity to accept the outreached hand of First Nations people and to work with them to solve problems in their most remote communities – higher rates of suicide, domestic violence, children in out-of-home care and incarceration.

Constitutional experts, Australians of the Year, eminent retired judges, companies large and small, universities, sporting legends, netballers, footballers, reality stars and Hollywood actors flagged their endorsement.

Aussie music legend John Farnham gifted a song considered to be the unofficial Australian anthem to a Yes advertisement with a stirring message of national unity.

Kevin Argus, a marketing expert from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), told CNN the Yes campaign was a “case study in how not to message change on matters of social importance.”

Argus said only the No campaign had used simple messaging, maximized the reach of personal profiles, and acted decisively to combat challenges to their arguments with clear and repeatable slogans.

Maree Teesson, director of the Matilda Center for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney, told CNN the Voice to Parliament had offered self-determination to Indigenous communities, an ability to have a say over what happens in their lives.


The original article contains 945 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This is a very deceptive headline a majority of australians support the idea of a reccomandary body for indiginouse peoples (the voice what was proposed). However, the reason i beleive it failed is because it would have direcrly made a devision of race within our constitution. I would define any devision of race regardless of purpose as textbook racism but i seem to get a lot of pushback from such an idea. I think the thing that ultumatly caused it to fail was not the concept but the unesaasary implementation within the constitution.

[–] vantlem@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The thing is though, Indigenous Australians ARE distinct from other races in Australia. They are indigenous, and they have been colonised. They have strong justifications to seek the right to determine their own future in this country.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They have a vote like everyone else. Im all for the concept of the voice itself just not within the constitution.

[–] vantlem@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why not within the constitution? The only distinction is that it can't be removed by the Liberal party, again.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

Putting it in the constitution devides race in the constitutuion i dont compromise of equality. Plus heres the history of the variouse bodies and why they where abolished https://lemmy.world/comment/4547041

[–] AreaSIX@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You keep replying to people rephrasing the same dumb lie. No, the majority of Australians clearly don't support an advisory body, as demonstrated by the vote being discussed. The fake nuance you try to apply to the vote is transparent and it's fooling no one. A majority of Australians are racist against the native population, and that's painfully obvious to anyone who's spent time there. A beautiful country, but the racism is absolutely blatant. You just refuse to acknowledge that.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Are you saying the 11th most ethnic and culturaly diverse nation in the world is blatantly racist? Im not sure if ur a CCP shitposting bot ur just think that australians not voting for a racial divide in the constitution is racisist. We must fight the racial divide with another racial divide sounds like doublethink to me. Its a bold statemwnt to go and call an entire nation racist one i would hope u can back (and no the vote for the voice does not count that was about wether its in the constitution nothing more nothing less).

[–] dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Australia is just US without the introspection.

[–] batmangrundies@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Australia is way more racist than the US. And more right-wing.

The US just doesn't have compulsory voting, which means a minority of nutjobs can dictate politics. And even then, Trump lost.

Australia has compulsory voting and voted this way lol.

US is going through a labour organising revolution right now. While unions are left in the cold and experience dwindling power in Aus, even with the Labor party in power.

[–] blazera@kbin.social -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So, what does a right way to accomodate indigenous groups look like? Has any country accomplished it?

What rights or opportunities are these groups lacking?

[–] STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

A good way to start would be making sure they have adequate political representation. Shutting them out of the politically. When you don't get a groups voice in when making decisions that can lead to consequences. Big issues that aboriginals face in extremely high unemployment, decaying infrastructure and high incarceration rates.

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[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world -5 points 11 months ago

I love democracy