The advocates of the Voice to Parliament say that the Voice will be "just an advisory body." But they also hint that it will become more and is in fact designed to do so.
“Part of the driving force behind the Uluṟu Statement and the
call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament to be enshrined in the Constitution,
as a direct and powerful expression of the wishes of the Australian people, is
that the moral and political weight behind it will make it extremely difficult
for future governments to whittle away the strength of such a Voice. Even
though the Voice would be an advisory body only to the government of the day
and the Parliament, with no power to veto policy it disagrees with, any future
government that did not properly fund, support and give due respect to its
representations would be judged accordingly.
With its continuity guaranteed in the Constitution, the Voice
would be able to mature and evolve as an effective part of the ongoing drive to
close the gap on the inequities built into Australian society over 235 years.
It could also make serious inroads on the dysfunction and trauma so starkly
reflected in the statistics that conflict dramatically with the image we like
to project of ourselves as a nation to the world.”[i]
This excerpt
is from The Voice To Parliament Handbook: All The Detail You Need, a
small information book which was put out by some official representatives of
the Voice to Parliament.
Look at what
they admit.
They admit
it will make the government's job harder. They admit it will evolve. They admit
that it will stand in judgement of every government policy the Voice
representatives desire. So already in their own information books they admit
that the Voice is just a start for their agenda, not the goal.
But we
should also ask, what will high court judges decide about such a Voice,
and how it should be listened to? Will they decide a proposed law cannot be passed
until the Voice has been heard? This could become an effective veto,
even if not an official one. We can't be sure, because we have no power over
how future activist judges will decide to rule. But we do know that this Voice
is intended to evolve.
In our
TikTok and social media driven culture something like the Voice could
grind government to a halt simply by its official representatives saying:
"We think this policy or proposed law is racist." This kind of statement could
bring our government to its knees. The Voice doesn't need to rise to the
level of a third chamber of parliament to have a deleterious effect on our
society. Our political leaders are already weak kneed, the idea of being told
on every policy, or even any policy, that they are working against indigenous
interests will have the effect of weighting our parliament towards prioritising
one small minority group far above every other, simply so they can avoid being
called racist.
The Voice
will not facilitate reconciliation. Because it cannot. It will very likely
build resentment amongst the Australian people because it is deliberately
designed to give one particular part of our society a favoured place at the
table, on top of everyone else. It could even be the worst policy decision to
ever effect the relationship between Indigenous Australians and the rest of us.
Isn’t creating different categories of Australians supposed to be anathema in
our modern society? How does Constitutionally enshrining separate categories
not create the conditions for ongoing building resentment? The ability of this
thing to close any gaps is all just theoretical. There is simply very little
proof that such a body could effectively close the gap between
indigenous Australians and the rest of society. But it resulting in creating
new divisions in society is guaranteed. Because these divisions are built into
the framework of the proposed change to our constitution.
And for
those who argue: the intention of the framers of this Voice is not for
this thing to have this kind of effect on society, or power over the
parliament. Ok, perhaps you are right. But is there any government bureaucracy that ever evolves to
become smaller, less powerful, and less invasive into people's lives? Isn't the
trend almost always in the other direction?
Voting
against this Voice to Parliament is a must. Because no one can be
certain how it will evolve, but it is certain that those advocating for it want
to go further, and would see a victory for their policy as the license to do
so.
List of
references
[i] Mayo,
Thomas; O'Brien, Kerry. The Voice to Parliament Handbook (p. 40). Hardie Grant
Explore. Kindle Edition.
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