Letter to The Editor - reconciliation needs no tampering with the Constitution

to SUNDAY AGE
     The Government is right to have rejected the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s recommendation for a constitutionally enshrined ‘indigenous Voice to Parliament’ (‘Coalition contempt for our first peoples’, 5/11).  The proposal is fundamentally inequitable and endangers the integrity of the nation.
     A distinction needs to be made between ‘the Aboriginal people’ (meaning those of the past, the present and the future) and living Australians who have some or whole Aboriginal ancestry.  No one has dispossessed anyone in the latter group; nor are they the only indigenous Australians.  As for the dispossession of ‘the Aboriginal people’, it is a fact of history that no-one can undo in any way.  No one living today can justifiably be blamed for it.
    There is widespread goodwill towards contemporary Aboriginals, and Aboriginal culture and history are rightly recognized and celebrated throughout the land.  Thus reconciliation needs no tampering with the Constitution.
     NJ, Belgrave, Vic