On October 14th, Australia will have a very important vote that will greatly impact how they perceive themselves as a country.
If the proposal called the Voice is approved, it will acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution. It will also create a group for them to give advice to the government about things that affect their communities.
Supporters of this change say it’s a small but important step that will enable Indigenous Australians to have a rightful role in their own country. In the past, Australia has been slow to face its history, and this change seeks to address that.
However, critics of the proposal see it as a drastic idea that will create a long-lasting separation in the country by granting First Nations people more rights than other Australians. Legal experts argue against this claim.
Is the Voice really extreme, and how have other countries dealt with recognizing Indigenous people.
According to Prof Amanda Nettelbeck, Australia is different from other countries that were settled by colonizers because it has never made an agreement with its Indigenous people.
The constitution has never acknowledged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first people of the land. They were not included in the population count until 1971 and they do not have specific seats for them in the government.
By 1962, they were finally allowed to vote in elections that determined the leaders of the whole country. But the desire for more control over our own lives has been around for many years.
A document to King George V asked for a First Nations representative in parliament, and it got 1,800 signatures from First Nations people in the 1930s.
William Cooper, who fought for the rights of the Yorta Yorta people, led the effort, hoping the paper would be given to the ruler. It never was.
Nearly 40 years later, a request was made by the Larrakia traditional owners in Darwin asking for discussions about a treaty and rights to their land. This request reached Buckingham Palace, but unfortunately, it was not responded to.
Australia had a vote in 1999 to decide whether to officially recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the beginning of the constitution. The change, which was one of two changes connected to the vote on becoming a republic, did not succeed.
Today, a paper called the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which contains the Voice, asks for something similar.
More than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders from different parts of the country created a document in 2017. This document asks for the creation of a special group that has legal support, as well as a process for making agreements and telling the truth about the past.
Since the 1970s, Australia has had different groups of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who give advice, but they don’t last very long.
All of these were made to help fix the big differences that First Nations communities still have in health, money, and education. But sometimes, they had problems with the people who make rules and disagreements within the group, and eventually came to an end.
Supporters of voice argue that if the organization is officially established in the constitution and exists for a long time, it will be protected from facing the same problems.
A person or thing that is very different from others is called an outlier.
The No campaign believes that the Voice is a risky and untested idea. Their main argument is that there isn’t enough information about how it would work.
If the reform is approved, parliament would have the authority to create the Voice and modify it as needed. The constitution will not provide specific information about the body.
Experts also mention that other countries have also had similar groups that give advice to Indigenous people for many years.
Each country with a history of colonization and a liberal democratic system has certain mechanisms in place, especially on a national level. According to Dani Linder, an Indigenous woman and legal expert at the University of Queensland, Australia doesn’t offer anything.
The Sami people have lived in northern Scandinavia for a very long time. They have their own governments in Finland, Norway, and Sweden since the 1980s and 1990s, and their rights are protected by the laws of all three countries.
The parliament controls the elected bodies and gives advice to lawmakers on how to solve problems that affect the Sami communities. Supporters of the Voice propose that it can work in a comparable manner.
In New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed when the country was colonized in 1840. By 1867, special seats for Māoris were set up in parliament. Since 1975, there has been a committee called the Waitangi Tribunal which helps Māoris have a voice in decisions about policies that affect them.
Indigenous peoples in Canada have legal rights stated in the constitution, including agreements with the government and the ability to govern themselves. And in 1982, a group called the First Nations Assembly was formed. This group is made up of chiefs who represent their communities. They meet directly with federal lawmakers to discuss important matters.
According to Prof Nettelbeck, indigenous representative bodies have been working peacefully with national or federal parliaments for a long time and are not seen as problematic.
The fact that this proposal is causing a lot of disagreement in Australia shows that we are very different from other countries around the world.
However, one reason why people disagree about the Voice is that advisory groups are not typically made into official parts of the constitution.
Some people believe that adding the Voice to Australia’s main document could make it too powerful. They think it will make it harder for the government to make decisions and cause a lot of arguments in the courts.
But important legal experts, including the federal solicitor general, disagree with that. And the Voice won’t be able to reject laws.
According to constitutional law expert Prof Anne Twomey, Parliament and the executive government are not required to listen to the Voice’s advice.
This simply allows for a group to share their opinions with the government and lawmakers. Anyone or any group in Australia has the ability to do the exact same thing.
Effects of the vote
Australia’s constitution can only be altered through a process called a referendum. Over time, only eight out of 44 suggested changes to the constitution have been approved. Those who succeeded had support from both political parties. The Voice does not.
The only two surveys done with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voters showed that over 80% of those asked supported the change. But in surveys across the country, the amount of support is dropping quickly.
The No campaign is saying that if the Voice is not approved, it should not be seen as the end of the fight for Indigenous constitutional recognition. People have different opinions on whether there should be another vote to discuss the issue again.
Warren Mundine, who spoke out against the No vote, believes that without the Voice, a treaty process might have a better chance of success.
“The Bundjalung man said that if there is a vote against something, that is when the actual work begins. ”
But people who have learned about the long journey that led to the Voice say that if the outcome is a No, it would erase all the hard work and effort that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have put in for many years.
The Uluru Statement said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples want to be recognized and have their voices heard. If this referendum doesn’t pass, it means there is no official authorization for another referendum on a different matter, according to Harry Hobbs, a legal expert who specializes in studying how treaties are formed.
The conversation has been filled with mean and false words that could hurt people for a long time.
“We are witnessing a decline in the way people communicate in public, similar to what we observed during recent elections in the US and the UK Brexit referendum,” said Prof Sana Nakata, a political theorist from the Torres Strait Islander community, in an interview with the BBC.
“The amount of false information and conspiracy theories going around is worse than anything I have witnessed in the past 20 years of closely monitoring Australian politics. ”
First Nations communities feel like they are being closely watched and talked about politically and socially.
“We have to explain why we belong in this country and why we are important. It will take us some time to feel better after this. ”
As the debate is coming to an end, the Yes campaign wants to convince millions of people who haven’t made up their minds yet that the Voice is a chance to make big changes in history.
Noel Pearson, a leading advocate for the Voice, said last week that many of us have grown up feeling like strangers.
This referendum is like a big mirror for our country. It’s a choice for us Australians – we can either move forward or stay stuck in the past.