I received this information via email from The Good saucer publication, but did not come with a URL. The post describes a forthcoming article which takes a novel approach to the voice referendum. The point is that the Voice attempts to codify the Uluru Statement from the Heart (USFTH) “in full,” as PM Albo said. But that, arguably, is a religious document. Yet there is an immediate conflict with section 116 of the constitution, at least prima facie, as it may be argued that this is implicitly establishing a religion, or religious observance. I know the bush lawyers (people like me) will get excited who don’t read past the black letters of the text, but the matter would have to be considered against High Court precedence and case law, and probably there is a counter; that the Voice itself is not religious as such. I do not know, but it may be worth the lawyers on our side mounting a High Court challenge on the constitutionality right now to see if the voice can be blown out of the water. It is worth a try.
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“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”
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So says Section 116 of the Australian Constitution. Yet that is exactly what Anthony Albanese's additional Canberra "Voice" will do.
I've just finished writing a chapter for Professor Augusto Zimmermann's and Professor Gabriel Moens' upcoming book about the "Voice", and it is clear to me that if anyone believes in the Separation of Church And State - however you define it - they must reject the proposed changes to the Constitution.
The changes are step one of Albo's election night promise to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart (USFTH) "in full".
The USFTH is nothing less than a religious text asserting beliefs in Aboriginal sovereignty being "a spiritual notion", appealing to their unique Creation myths and their belief that their spirits come from and return to "Country" (the land).
It will be impossible for a member of this new constitutional body to not subscribe to these beliefs.
When our founding fathers wrote our Constitution they took inspiration from America's First Amendment which not only described freedom of religion, but freedom of speech, a free press, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of protest. There is no way imaginable either Constitution's framers could have meant to make it permissable for a government to enshrine a particular religion as the official state religion. In fact, they went out of their way to prevent it.
Welcome to "Country", smoking ceremonies, excluding most Australians from more and more Aboriginal "sacred" sites, and now spiritual claims of sovereignty? When will Australians finally say no to the endless establishment of Aboriginal religion in Australia?
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