It was only a matter of time, but even under the Libs the Aboriginal recognition referendum was certain to emerge. The details, straight from the horse’s mouths, so to speak are here:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-10/indigenous-constitutional-recognition-to-go-to-referendum-wyatt/11294478
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/wyatt-presents-road-map-for-recognition/news-story/4c6f799fedfe4f5002a78ba7736c932c
“Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt will lead a historic push for a referendum in this term of parliament to recognise Aborigines in the Constitution, vowing to put forward a “pragmatic” model that will receive broad public support. Australia’s first indigenous cabinet minister yesterday declared he would “walk with people on all sides of politics” to find a consensus model that could achieve the required support of a majority of people in a majority of states for a successful referendum. In his speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, the West Australian MP, who was given the ministry by Scott Morrison after the May 18 election victory, also revealed the government would create an indigenous voice to parliament, which would advise government on Aboriginal issues.
The body could be created by legislation without being part of the referendum process that would seek to recognise indigenous Australians in the nation’s founding document. “The world is an oyster in terms of options that we have to seriously consider,” Mr Wyatt said. With Labor and indigenous leaders pushing for the voice body to be enshrined in the Constitution, Mr Wyatt warned he would cancel his referendum plans if the final model was too controversial. He said he would need to navigate the requests of indigenous activists and people who were sceptical of the need for constitutional recognition, including “reticent colleagues” in his own partyroom. “I’ve got to find common ground,” Mr Wyatt said. “And there are diverse views. It is about how do you bring the majority to common ground that is acceptable that we can win a referendum? That is the challenge. And I am up to that and I am prepared to walk with people on all sides of politics and all sides of the community to hear their view and reach a point which we can agree.
“Sometimes we can aspire to an optimum outcome but we also have to accept there is a pragmatic element to constitutional referendums. I would rather us, in the psyche of this nation, have a win on a referendum than have a loss.” Opposition spokeswoman for indigenous Australians Linda Burney said Labor wanted the indigenous voice enshrined in the Constitution, as recommended by indigenous leaders in the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. “Labor has been saying clearly that we would like a voice entrenched in the Australian Constitution, and I know that there are many people on the government benches that also believe that,” Ms Burney said. “I think that is ultimately what we would want to see.” She acknowledged there would be “points of difference and we will have to work through those points of difference”. “Bipartisanship is not a race to the bottom,” she said. While leaving the responsibility for treaties between indigenous people and governments with the states, Mr Wyatt said he would investigate the establishment of a “truth-telling” agency that would raise awareness of historical atrocities committed towards Aboriginal people. “History is generally written from a dominant society’s point of view and not that of the suppressed and therefore true history is brushed aside, masked, dismissed or destroyed,” he said.
Mr Wyatt said he would undertake a period of “co-design” with indigenous communities and consult on the best form of constitutional recognition. He would also call on corporate Australia to get behind the recognition push. “Constitutional recognition is too important to get wrong, and too important to rush,” he said. “I plan to establish a working group of parliamentary colleagues of all political persuasions to assist me in considering the role of engaging on many levels to bring forward a community model.” Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, who has been a vocal supporter of a constitutionally enshrined voice, was among the Aboriginal figures who praised Mr Wyatt’s commitment to a referendum. “I think that Ken has achieved bipartisanship and nothing at all will be achieved without bipartisanship,” she said. Professor Langton would not say whether Mr Wyatt should put forward a constitutionally enshrined voice in the referendum. “I don’t think we are at the stage where we can answer questions like that yet,” she said. “Everything hangs on this co-design process now. He has committed to that so that indicates to me that he is being utterly genuine and he has achieved more than any other politician because he understands the problems ahead of us.”
Ms Burney sounded a note of caution, declaring she was not sure a consensus was possible. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull rejected the voice proposal when it was presented to him by the Referendum Council in 2017. He said the body would become a “third chamber of parliament”, a phrase repeated by Mr Morrison early in his leadership. Mr Wyatt said if the referendum failed, the issue would “gather dust” like the republic. “I don’t want to proceed if we don’t have the right question,” he said. Indigenous academic Megan Davis, who was on the Referendum Council, said the voice was the “only constitutional model on the table”. Mr Wyatt said he would listen to the concerns of people opposed to constitutional recognition, including One Nation leader ¬Pauline Hanson, who claimed that she was indigenous because she was born in Australia.
This is all so predictable given the history off the referendum proposal, and the fact that it attracted total support from the new class elites. Basically, the idea is to get this one in to begin the big politically correct changes to the constitution, and maybe clean up with the republic referendum if necessity. What will be created is a separate Aboriginal parliament, that will examine all laws, but it will be the new class elites that will impact upon that. It is likely that something like a hyper-section 18 C will find its way into the constitution at some point, if not explicitly, then implicitly by judicial interpretation. I can see open borders being eventually pulled out of any change made to the black letters of the constitution, for there are no limits to what lawyers can do. Australia could eventually become far worse than the former Soviet Union. Some are already saying this about the USA:
https://www.thenation.com/article/rather-russia-america-fear/
The core argument against any change is that in the present culture, even if there were historical injustices, we cannot trust the fanatical politically correct new class elites, who have an agenda of their own to rewrite the constitution on their road to total power, and this is that will be done by even the change of one word:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intellectuals-Road-Class-Power/dp/0151778604
Intellectuals seek to obtain power by their monopoly over knowledge which they use as a political weapon; this is standard sociology from gurus such as Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Zygmunt Bauman. The sociology of knowledge tells us that intellectuals, such as the new class, seek to further the power of their own class, so, expect the referendum to reflect these power relations, and not truth and justice. That follows from left wing sociology itself. I even looked the bs up on Wikipedia, a reliable scholarly research tool. Oppose it with all your strength, for this is truly the end. The same sex vote was a warm up to how the new class intends to roll over the deplorables, and we should not be deluded about how dumbed down Australians have now become, as uncomfortable as this truth may be to conservatives, who cannot bear too much reality. They trashed us on that last one, so it is time to get off our butts and do something.
What I suggest is that leaders of the main freedom groups get together ASAP, and behind closed doors begin planning. There needs to be a joint effort here as immigration and all the other issues are going to be affected by constitutional change. Can the leaders of the League get onto this please! Make this the subject of house meetings, because if we lose this one, it is time to abandon Australia! I would say that losing this would mean that there is going to be a domino effect, and we will also lose the republic referendum coming up. If so, we are really just going through the motions here, and may as well leave Australia. Chile might be a nice place to retreat to, if I can improve my Spanish: pelear o perder, est es el final del juego.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2019/07/the-cure-for-aboriginal-grievance-syndrome/
Here is some hard love published in Quadrant, “The Cure for Aboriginal Grievance Syndrome,” which stronger than a libertarian type such as myself would put, but a point of view well worth discussing:
“Program after program has been established to improve Aborigines’ lot, costing many billions of dollars over the years. Some were partly or wholly run by Aboriginals for Aboriginals. Some achieved some benefits, but most failed completely. The result to date? Apart from assimilated Aborigines who live their lives much the same as most non-Aboriginals, the lot of the rest has steadfastly failed to improve. Why this complete and never-ending failure? The answer is staring us in the face: the key to the solution is in the hands of the activists, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. What follows is addressed to them. The foundation to eliminating the disadvantages plaguing contemporary Australian Aboriginals is the full and uncompromising acceptance that the continent was colonised – accepting it without extolling romantic myths and quixotic endeavours to reverse that long-ago, unalterable occurrence. Rephrasing that in the colloquial: get over it. Failing to do so is irrational — indeed, it is insanity — and does great harm to those whom it supposed to help. Relinquish the notion that it is the responsibility of present day non-Aboriginal Australians to remedy the adverse effects of British colonisation. Such remediation is an impossibility by any and all means due to the utter falsity of the premise on which it is based. It is in the realm of fantasy, together with the concept of a time machine, which would be the piece of essential equipment for its implementation.
Abandon the notion that Australian Aboriginals are entitled to exclusive and perpetual rights and privileges on account of their ancestors living here before white colonists’ arrival. There is neither logical nor moral justification for that stance. Most importantly, it normalises the intolerable concept of there being different classes of Australians with different rights and privileges. That is a malignant cancer eating away at Australian society, rendering truly harmonious coexistence impossible so long as that mindset prevails. Cease the glorification and incessant promotion of Aboriginal culture, much of it confected. It is obvious that the culture was perfectly suitable for the life of Aborigines up to the First Fleet sailing into Botany Bay, but what is presented today is a grotesque caricature which fuels a quiet resentment in many non-Aboriginal Australians. The ubiquitous “welcome to country” opening dialogues at almost all public events, usually delivered by professional spruikers for a set fee, are utterly meaningless for most audiences. Smoking ceremonies, performed for fees of up to $8000, are redolent with irony. Is it not bizarre that self-proclaimed atheist social justice warriors, who routinely ridicule Christianity, attend with reverence these celebrations of animism? Worst of all, the relentless exaltation of Aboriginal culture fosters a disproportionate sense of social importance in Aboriginal Australians as distinct from other Australians, enhancing their feeling of entitlement to the benefits and privileges available to them. Their sense of righteous victimhood is also fostered by it. That is hardly the recipe for social harmony. It is also very likely that people with only a smidgen of Aboriginal blood are further motivated by it to flaunt their Aboriginality in order to enhance their eligibility for the advantages that come with the distinction.”
All of these aspects of the cultural wars need to be pinned upon the referendum issue, because they provide a philosophical basis to it. Go to it!