Rebekah Barnett gives her take on the Voice referendum, taking the No side. She responds to the week of silence that the indigenous radicals have called for, and which the prime minister is apparently granting too, which I think could be in some ways a good thing, not to hear them all for a week. Could they extend it to a month, or how about, forever? Not discriminatory; all of them, of all colours, need to give it a rest, especially the prime minister. Enough of this ear-bashing and black arm band woes.
Anyway, the statement by the indigenous elites is "Recognition in the constitution of the descendants of the original and continuing owners of Australia would have been a great advance for Australians. Alas, the majority have rejected it." But as she points out, this was not what the referendum was about. It was to write into the constitution a whole new chapter that would create the Voice body, and all the laws necessary for its operation. There was constitutional law debate about just how far this power would go, whether there would be any limits to it at all. Barnett goes into detail for those interested in the division that existed even within the indigenous communities over this referendum. And even if they all supported it, it would have still been right to reject it for all the reasons given by the No side in the debate, and summarised at the Alor.org blog throughout the long and winding road of the so-called debate. They would simply have been wrong!