Letter to The Editor - Gleeson claimed that the dispossession of the Aborigines "underwrote the development of the nation"

To The Age        It may be true that former High Court chief justice Murray Gleeson "delivered a landmark speech making the legal and ethical case for an Aboriginal voice to be enshrined in the Constitution" ("Joyce U-turn on Indigenous voice", 20/7), but how successful was it? His distinction between "a voice to Parliament, not a voice in Parliament" ignores the fact that the voice he recommends would have some of the influential power that the present two chambers possess. Moreover, it could be strengthened by future legislation, as he admitted - perhaps by a Marxist-inspired ALP government. It could also lead to findings by a politicised High Court against the true national interest. Gleeson claimed that the dispossession of the Aborigines "underwrote the development of the nation", but it can be said with more truth that their failure to defend their territory caused their loss and that the development was the result of the knowledge, skills and efforts of the newcomers. In general he failed to answer the cogent case that has been put against constitutional recognition by men of the calibre of John Stone, Keith Windschuttle and Andrew Bolt..
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave