Showing posts with label Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament. Show all posts

Tuesday 28 November 2023

Confirmation that X Corp (formerly Twitter Inc) closed and left closed, accessible channels for the public to report misinformation/disinformation & malignant falsehoods found on its social media platform "X" during the Australian Voice to Parliament Referendum

 

Confirmation that X Corp (formerly Twitter Inc) - and its 95 shadowy equity partners - closed and left closed, accessible channels for the public to report misinformation and disinformation on its social media platform "X" during the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament national referendum period from its initial announcement through to polling day.


Digital Industry Group Inc. (Digi), Media Statement, 27 November 2023:


Complaint By Reset Australia Against X (F.K.A Twitter) Upheld By Australian Code Of Practice On Disinformation And Misinformation Independent Complaints Sub-Committee


A decision by an independent committee in relation to a complaint by Reset Australia against X (f.k.a Twitter) under the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation (ACPDM) has been reached today.


The Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI) is releasing this decision in its role as the administrator of the ACPDM. Eligible complaints made by the public, via the complaints portal that DIGI administers on its website, are escalated to an independent Complaints Sub-committee. These functions and the committee’s composition are detailed on the DIGI website here.


On Thursday, 5 October 2023, DIGI received a complaint from Reset Australia (the complainant) claiming that X (f.k.a Twitter) had breached its mandatory obligations under the ACPDM, in particular Outcome 1C.


DIGI assessed the complaint as an ‘eligible complaint’ – under the ACPDM’s Termsof reference for Complaints Facility and Complaints Sub-committee (ACPDM complaints process) – and, on Friday, 6 October 2023, notified the independent Complaints Sub-committee of the complaint concerning a material breach of the code. The complaint was handled in accordance with the process set out in the ACPDM complaints process.


DIGI has today published the public statement written by the independent Complaints Sub-committee, which includes information about its findings and the process it undertook. These statements, set out below, have been written by the independent Complaints Sub-committee, and are being released by DIGI in this media release and on the DIGI website in line with DIGI’s role as the administrator of the ACPDM.


Statements Attributable To The Independent Complaints Sub-Committee:


The finding of the ACPDM governance Complaints Sub-Committee into the complaint by Reset Australia against X.

Under section 12 (v) of the Complaints Sub-Committee Terms of Reference, X committed a serious breach of the code and has refused to cooperate with DIGI or undertake any remedial action.


As will be outlined in detail below, no further investigation of the breach is warranted, and X should not be extended any opportunity to remedy the breach. In the Sub Committee’s opinion, no correction made now could remedy the breach in relation to this complaint, the ACPDM code, and the wider community.


The complaint related to X closing and leaving closed, accessible channels for the public to report mis and disinformation on the platform during the Australian Voice to Parliament Referendum.


Accordingly, the Sub-Committee’s deliberations focused solely on the issue of a publicly available system to report a platform’s breaches of their policies and not on any content that might have been seen as mis or dis information.


The Sub-Committee’s Terms of Reference state that if the Complaints sub-committee determines the issue is serious, and the Signatory refuses to take remedial action or co-operate in an investigation or a correction is not possible, withdrawal of signatory status is available as a sanction.


The Sub-Committee noted that the example given in the Terms of Reference succinctly summarises X’s breach: For example, if the Signatory has, without reasonable excuse, failed to provide a mechanism to the public to make reports of breaches of its policies for an extended period.


Therefore, the Complaints Sub-Committee has decided to withdraw X’s signatory status of the ACPDM Code.


Background:


On Friday, Oct 6, 2023, the independent Complaints Sub-Committee was advised that Reset Australia had lodged a complaint about X with DIGI.


In part it said: It is no longer possible on X for users to report content that violates X’s Civic Integrity policy. To be clear, content that violates X’s published policies around ‘Misleading information about how to participate’, in an electoral process, or violate rules around voter ‘Suppression’ and ‘Intimidation’ cannot be reported using publicly available tools.


The code states “Signatories will implement and publish policies, procedures and appropriate guidelines that will enable users to report the types of behaviours and content that violates their policies under section 5.10. 5.12.”


The Sub-Committee, DIGI, Reset Australia, gathered for a Zoom meeting on Monday, Nov 13. X’s relevant executive was given adequate notice to attend and had confirmed as much but withdrew less than two hours before the meeting citing ill health. No written submission was provided to the meeting by X. Under the Complaints Sub-Committee terms of reference, DIGI attended as observers and acted in its administration capacity as secretary of the complaints Sub-Committee.


Reset, in their evidence, confirmed the claim in their complaint, that the accessible channels for the public to report mis and disinformation in the politics category was not available at the time of their complaint and remains unavailable.


This situation was confirmed by DIGI upon receipt of the Reset complaint. Additionally, at the request of the Complaints Sub-committee, an independent comprehensive survey of the X website was undertaken by RMIT Cross Check, following the commencement of the sub-committee’s investigation.


The survey also confirmed the absence of publicly accessible channels to report mis and disinformation in the politics category. As of the writing of this report, the publicly available tools referred to above remain unavailable.


X promised documents in their defence would be lodged the day after the meeting, but the documents were never submitted.


A list of questions from the Sub-Committee was sent to X following the November 13 meeting with a response date of November 21. No response has been received and no explanation offered for the failure to respond.


Repeated attempts to engage with X by DIGI and Reset Australia have failed to elicit any response to the complaint. The sub-committee has had no contact with X in relation to this matter.


On Monday Nov 27 the Sub-Committee met with DIGI and conveyed their finding noting that X’s refusal to engage in any way with the process was disappointing and irresponsible.


Complaints Sub-Committee,

27th November 2023


<Statements attributable to Complaints Sub-Committee end>


NOTE:


The ACPDM was developed in response to policy announced by the Morrison Coalition Government in December 2019, in relation to the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry, where the digital industry was asked to develop a voluntary code of practice on disinformation. DIGI developed the original code with assistance from the University of Technology Sydney’s Centre for Media Transition, and First Draft, a global organisation that specialises in helping societies overcome false and misleading information.


Unfortunately, being a voluntary code originally entered into by twelve large international technology companies along with five associate members and, with X Corp expelled for having chosen to ignore the complaint received by DIGI, full membership has now fallen to eleven companies - Apple, Discord, eBay, Google, Linktree, Meta, Snap, Spotify, TikTok, Twitch and Yahoo!.


Tuesday 31 October 2023

'Statement for our People and Country' delivered to the Prime Minister and every Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament, 22 October 2023


The Lowitja Institute has published online the full text of the Statement for our People and Country, referred to in the Australian media as an 'open letter' and selectively quoted by news outlets since 21 October 2023.



Statement for our People and Country


22 October 2023


To the Prime Minister and every Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament



This is an open letter which will be circulated to the Australian public and media.



Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have observed a week of silence across Australia since the outcome of the Referendum last Saturday 14 October 2023. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags have flown half-mast and we have refrained from media commentary, even as politicians, governments, media commentators and analysts have spent a week exonerating – and indeed, lauding – the nobility of the 60.8 per cent of Australians who voted to reject Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia.



These are the collective insights and views of a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, community members and organisations who supported Yes:



1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are in shock and are grieving the result. We feel acutely the repudiation of our peoples and the rejection of our efforts to pursue reconciliation in good faith. That people who came to our country in only the last 235 years would reject the recognition of this continent’s First Peoples – on our sacred land which we have cared for and nurtured for more than 65,000 years – is so appalling and mean-spirited as to be utterly unbelievable a week following. It will remain unbelievable and appalling for decades to come.



2. We thank the 5.51 million Australians who voted Yes to recognition. This represents approximately 39.2 per cent of Australian voters on 14 October 2023. At the 2022 Federal Election the Australian Labor Party received support from 32.58 per cent of voters, the Liberal Party 23.89 per cent, the National Party 3.6 per cent and One Nation 4.96 per cent. We thank those Australians who gave Yes more support at this Referendum than they did to any political party.



3. We acknowledge the resounding Yes vote in discrete and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The high levels of support for Yes in our communities exposes the No Campaign’s lies, taken up by the media even in the last week of the campaign. The situation of these communities needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.



4. Australia is our country. We accept that the majority of non-Indigenous voting Australians have rejected recognition in the Australian Constitution. We do not for one moment accept that this country is not ours. Always was. Always will be. It is the legitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country that requires recognition, not the other way around. Our sovereignty has never been ceded.



5. The Constitution still belongs to those who the founding fathers originally intended it for and remains unchanged in our exclusion. We were asked to be recognised over a decade ago; we sought to be included in a meaningful way and that has been rejected. In refusing our peoples’ right to be heard on matters that affect us, Australia chose to make itself less liberal and less democratic. Our right to be heard continues to exist both as a democratic imperative for this nation, and as our inherent right to selfdetermination. The country can deny the former but not the latter. A 'founding document' without recognition of First Peoples of this country continues the process of colonisation. It is clear no reform of the Constitution that includes our peoples will ever succeed. This is the bitter lesson from 14 October.



6. The support for the referendum collapsed from the moment Liberal and National Party leaders, Mr Dutton and Mr Littleproud, chose to oppose the Voice to Parliament proposal after more than a decade of bipartisan support. The proposal was tracking 60 per cent support compared to 40 per cent opposition for several years until the National and Liberal parties preferred wanton political damage over support for some of this country’s most disadvantaged people. There was little the Yes campaign could do to countervail this.



7. Lies in political advertising and communication were a primary feature of this campaign. We know that the No campaign was funded and resourced by conservative and international interests who have no stake or genuine interest in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We know this funding supported multiple No campaigns that intentionally argued in varying directions to create doubt and fear in both non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities. This included resurrecting scare campaigns seen during the 1990s against land rights, but the scale of deliberate disinformation and misinformation was unprecedented, and it proliferated, unchecked, on social media, repeated in mainstream media and unleashed a tsunami of racism against our people. We know that the mainstream media failed our people, favouring ‘a false sense of balance’ over facts.



8. There has always been racism against First Nations people in Australia. It increased with multiple daily instances during the campaign and was a powerful driver for the No campaign. But this campaign went beyond just racism. ‘If you don't know - Vote No’ gave expression to ignorance and licensed the abandonment of civic responsibility on the part of many voters who voted No. This shameful victory belongs to the Institute of Public Affairs, the Centre for Independent Studies and mainstream media.



9. Post-referendum commentaries that exculpate those who voted No were expected as the usual kind of post-election approbation of the electorate. The truth is that the majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not, and there is nothing positive to be interpreted from it. We needed truth to be told to the Australian people.



10. We will maintain the vision of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. We will continue to uphold the outcomes of the Uluru Dialogues to which more than 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the country contributed – culminating in the Uluru Statement signed by 250 people on 26 May 2017. It is evident that many Australians are unaware of our cultures, our histories, or the racism imbued in the Australian Constitution. That so many Australian people believe there is no race or division on race in the current Australian Constitution speaks to the need for better education on Australian history and better civics education. We have faith that the upswelling of support through this Referendum has ignited a fire for many to walk with us on our journey towards justice. Our truths have been silenced for too long.



11. We want to talk with our people and our supporters about establishing – independent of the Constitution or legislation – an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to take up the cause of justice for our people. Rejection of constitutional recognition will not deter us from speaking up to governments, parliaments and to the Australian people. We have an agenda for justice in pursuit of our First Nations rights that sorely need a Voice – we will continue to follow our law and our ways, as our Elders and Ancestors have done.



12. We will regather in due course and develop a plan for our future direction. While this moment will be etched into Australia’s history forever, today we think of our children, and our children’s children. Our work continues as it has always done. We will continue to fight to seek justice for our peoples. We are three per cent of the population, and you are 97 per cent.


Note: The public version of this letter doesn't have signatories and elsewhere it has been stated that it is intended to be shared by those people and organizations that support it.


Tuesday 24 October 2023

The NSW Northern Rivers regional community profile contains many social & economic facts and figures telling the world who we are and where we came from. This October 2023 we added a very shameful set of numbers.

 

For the record......


As at 1:15:12 PM AEDT on Monday, 23 Oct 2023, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) official ballot count for the 14 October 2023 national referendum polling places  within the two federal electorates encompassing the NSW Northern Rivers region  revealed that a combined total of 62.32% of all formal ordinary, pre-poll & postal votes were marked “NO” and only 37.67% marked “YES”.


An est. 15% of all persons on the federal registry eligible to vote in either the Page or Richmond federal electoral divisions on Monday 18 September 2023 either did not cast a vote or are yet to be included in the AEC ballot count results.


As of yesterday afternoon the percentage of voters in the Northern Rivers region who denied Australia’s First Nations formal and enduring recognition in the Australian Constitution by way of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament was markedly higher than both the national (60.6) and NSW state (59.49) majority percentages for “NO”.


Not a set of numbers to make a region proud.



SOURCES:


AEC 2023 REFERENDUM TALLY ROOM

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumNationalResults-29581.htm


PAGE DIVISION COUNT

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumDivisionResults-29581-138.htm


RICHMOND DIVISION COUNT

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumDivisionResults-29581-145.htm


.iDcommunity: demographic resources, NORTHERN RIVERS REGION COMMUNITY PROFILE

https://profile.id.com.au/northern-rivers



****************************





Statement by Central Australian Aboriginal Congress on the result of the Referendum to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice


23 October 2023


Central Australian Aboriginal Congress is saddened and disappointed that last week’s Referendum to alter the Australian Constitution to recognise First Nations people and establish a First Nations Voice to Parliament has been defeated.


A majority of people voted ’No’ to the Voice in every State and Territory except the ACT. In the Northern Territory only about 40% of voters said ‘Yes’.


However, Aboriginal people overwhelmingly supported the Voice: about 75% of voters in remote areas of the Northern Territory voted ‘Yes’. Some Aboriginal communities recorded ‘Yes’ votes of over 90%.


Congress supported a ‘Yes’ vote because we know from our own experience that when we have a say in the issues and programs that affect us, the outcomes are better.


The Voice would have helped to improve the health of our communities, building upon successes we have already achieved.


It would have made Australia a fairer and more inclusive nation.


However, despite the millions of Australians who agreed with us and voted ‘Yes’, the rejection of the place of First Peoples in the nation’s rulebook is a setback for Aboriginal people and for the nation as a whole.


Our peoples have faced many setbacks before.


But we are still here.


Resilience in the face of adversity is part of who we are.


In the face of this result, Aboriginal people – with the support of our non-Indigenous brothers and sisters – will stand strong and support each other as we have always done.


On behalf of our Board of Directors, Congress would like to thank everyone in Central Australia and across the country who voted ‘Yes’. It means a lot to us that so many non-Indigenous people chose to stand with us on this issue.


We would also like to express our appreciation and respect for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates who met at Uluru in 2017 and drafted the Uluru Statement from the Heart which first called for the Voice.


Their invitation to the Australian people to recognise our First Nations in the Constitution and give us a Voice was both wise and generous.


Initially that invitation was well-received: a year ago, two-thirds of Australians were in favour of the Voice.


However, the deliberate strategy of deception and misinformation adopted by prominent ‘No’ campaigners turned many previously good-willed people against us.


In doing so, they gave permission for racism to run wild.


Given the result of the Referendum and the conduct of the ‘No’ campaign, there are now serious questions about whether reconciliation is still a viable strategy in Australia.


Nevertheless, one thing remains certain: sooner or later the nation state must deal with the enduring fact of Aboriginal sovereignty.


In the meantime, our struggle for equality, justice and self-determination will continue.


***************************





Land Councils joint statement about the Referendum outcome

21 October 2023


Through the Uluru Statement, Aboriginal people asked to be recognised in the Nation’s founding document and for a formal process to be established to inform government decision making on policy that affects our people and our communities


Thank you to the supporters who stood with us during the campaign. The Prime Minister showed courage to take the proposal to the Australian people, through a referendum. Campaigners were steadfast in their support.


On referendum day the majority of Australians denied this simple request.


The mistakes of the past will be continued with the latest mandate. In effect it is an attempt to silence Aboriginal people which is likely to further disadvantage our communities. The request for a voice was simple. Listen to us before you make decisions about us.


We are disappointed, but not surprised”, said Northern Land Council Chair Dr. Samuel Bush-Blanasi.


We recognise the result of the referendum cannot be separated from a deep-seated racism. It is fair to say that not everyone who voted “No” is racist but also fair to say that all racists voted “No”. The vitriol and hatred that were part of the campaign existed prior to, but were given licence through the process. The overarching theory we are incapable of managing our own affairs is dehumanising and degrading and most of all, deeply flawed.


It is clear remote residents across Northern Australia overwhelmingly supported the referendum proposal. Eager to break the shackles of poor government decision-making, a proposal for a new system to engage with government was the opportunity to break from the past.


Chair of the Tiwi Land Council Gibson Farmer Illortaminni said that “this outcome underscores the pressing need for us to find a way forward, one that ensures our voices are not only heard but respected when crucial decisions are being made by the government, decisions that directly impact our lives, lands, seas and culture.”


With an eye on the future, we remember in the Northern Territory, we make up 30% of the population. We control 48% of the land and 85% of the coastline. We remind the public and we remind politicians, prosperity in this jurisdiction relies on us. “We ask for and will continue to expect engagement and partnership”, said Tony Wurramarrba, Chair of the Anindilyakwa Land Council.


In response to the referendum outcome the Northern Land Council, Tiwi Land Council and the Anindilyakwa Land Council say:


We are the oldest continuous living culture on the planet, and we will continue to assert our traditional and legal rights and land title to strive for improvements in social and economic outcomes.


We will continue our journey toward self-determination.


We are strong and resolute.


The Northern Land Council, Tiwi Land Council and the Anindilyakwa Land Council will continue to champion the rights of our constituents, particularly those in remote areas – through political, legislative, policy processes & advocacy.


Every successful step toward recognition and equality has been hard won and we will continue to fight for the rights of our people and the right to be heard.


***************************


Tuesday 17 October 2023

AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY: and "No" vote in the October 2023 national referendum continues to grow as ballot count continues

 


Election analyst with public broadcaster ABC Antony Green


Current Yes/No percentages by vote type. No% has lifted 4% with the addition of Pre-Poll and Postal votes, the biggest shift I've ever seen.” 


@AntonyGreenElec



Monday 16 October 2023

It is hard not to view the results of the 14 October 2023 national referendum as a deliberate & brutal slap in the face to Australia's First Nations

 

The "No" Map of Australia
Green = NO Orange = YES
The Sydney Morning Herald
15 October 2023






As at Sunday, 15 Oct 2023 8:52:10 PM AEDT the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) national referendum vote count majority percentages stood at:


NO – 60.69%

YES – 39.41%.

[https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/ReferendumNationalResults-29581.htm]


None of the six Australian states returned a majority Yes vote and of the two mainland territories only the ACT returned a majority Yes vote of 60.78%. 


According to the senior economics correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald by Sunday afternoon the vote count confirmed that 6 of the 78 federal electorates held by Labor had voted "Yes" and 55 of the 56 federal electorates held by Coalition MPs in the House of Representatives had voted "No" in the referendum.


In New South Wales the majority percentages stood at:


NO – 59.52%
YES – 40.48%.


In the NSW Northern Rivers federal electorates of Page and Richmond the majority percentages at Sunday, 15 Oct 2023 3:45:05 PM AED:


PAGE – No 68.04% and Yes 31.96%

RICHMOND – No 56.79% and Yes 43.21%


From where I stand this is a shocking response at national, state, territory and regional level to the invitation contained in the Uluru Statement From The Heart.


In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”


I can only read the 2023 national referendum result as a deliberate and brutal slap in the face to the more than 983,700 First Nations people of Australia [ABS 2021] and, especially to the majority of those 534,209 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of voting age who were enrolled to vote. [AEC June 2023].


First Nations people make up est. 4.8% of the Northern Rivers resident population [.id community 2021]. There is no assessment of the First Nations vote in this region during the referendum period. However, mainstream media has offered some broad statistics covering some polling catchments in the 2023 national referendum.


UPDATE


********

The Guardian, 15 October 2023, published 5:25pm:


Regions with a high proportion of Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly voted yes in the referendum – including the community where prominent no campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s family is from.


The yes vote in polling catchments where Indigenous Australians formed more than 50% of the population was, on average, 63% in favour of enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament, according to political analyst Simon Jackman, who estimated the proportion of Indigenous Australians at each polling area based on data from the 2022 election.


But the referendum was defeated under the weight of much of the rest of the country voting no. Nationally, only 39.6% of the population voted in favour, while 60.4% ruled it out.


This was so important for Indigenous people,” said Yanyuwa woman and Labor senator for the Northern Territory, Malarndirri McCarthy, on the ABC on Saturday night, as the reality of the defeat sunk in.


I want to emphasise the point of that to all Australians, that this was always going to be about the 3% of the population who are asking for an advisory body to the constitution.”


In the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, which takes in Alice Springs and where 40% of the population is Indigenous, 58% voted against the voice and 42% voted in favour.


But 74% of the 11,000 people that live in Lingiari’s remote areas voted yes, according to figures provided by Labor MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour.


The highest vote in support of yes was in Wadeye, at 92.1%. The Tiwi Islands voted 84% in favour, and Maningrida recorded an 88% yes vote.


Only one of the 20 mobile remote polling booths in the seat recorded a majority no vote.


In Yuendemu, the community home to the family of Price, shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, three in four people voted yes.


If only people down south had seen what Aboriginal people in the bush were voting for, then maybe we would have had a different result,” said Scrymgour.


We can’t change last night, but we can change what happens going forward.”


Some regions in Queensland, where only 31.3% of the state’s population voted yes, showed a similar break away trend for communities with a high Indigenous population.


McCarthy pointed out early polling results from Queensland showed on Palm Island, where the population is 93% Indigenous, three in four voted yes.


On Mornington Island, where 77% of the population is Indigenous, McCarthy said 79% voted yes. And in Lockhart River, where almost 80% of people are Indigenous, 66% voted in favour.


The overall result was at odds with claims made by Price on Saturday night during her speech celebrating the no camp’s win, in which she said a vast group of Indigenous Australians did not support the proposal.


It was suggested that 80% of Indigenous Australians supported this proposal, when we knew that that was not the case,” Price said of the figure often quoted by the yes camp to prove to Australians Indigenous Australians backed the proposal that came from Indigenous leaders.


When I knew, having spoken to people throughout the Northern Territory, to Indigenous people from the Northern Territory and right across the country, particularly in my role as the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, that a vast group of Indigenous Australians did not support the proposal.”


Price also questioned the impartiality of the commission’s delivery of remote polling, saying “remote communities are exploited for someone’s else’s agenda”.


An AEC spokesperson rejected suggestions of interference at remote polling, telling Guardian Australia “the ability to campaign at any polling place, including in remote communities, was of course the same for everyone”.


We were pleased to have delivered the largest remote voting offering ever with a 25% increase in the number of votes taken in remote communities,” the spokesperson said.


This was off the back of record rate of enrolment overall, as well as for Indigenous Australians.”


Scrymgour said the number of young Indigenous Australaians voting in the referendum was greater than recent government elections.


I don’t want them to feel depressed or to feel alienated or to feel that their vote went nowhere,” she said. “So we just need to make sure we continue to give them hope. And that tomorrow things will get better.


This is a setback, but we’ve had many setbacks over many years, and we’ll continue to fight.”


Friday 13 October 2023

Two perspectives on how the ugly truths of Australia's journey to nationhood still shape our society, as well our individual and collective response to the proposal for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Voice to Parliament

 

For the reader's consideration......


******************************************


The Saturday Paper, 7 October 2023:


John Hewson

The enduring stain of the White Australia policy


The White Australia policy stands out as probably the most significant blemish on this country’s national character and unity, as well as its global reputation, with continuing consequences today.


It has been said that latent racism, carrying echoes of White Australia, persists across the country and all walks of life. We have seen it emerge at football games and other events. Politicians have been known “to play the race card” when they believe that appealing to prejudice will afford them some political advantage.


In light of Australia’s colonial history, it should come as no surprise that race would become a dominant undercurrent in the public discourse about the upcoming referendum, with the “No” case appealing to those who believe the White Australia-era Constitution should not be amended. How else can we make sense of many of the misrepresentations and claims of opponents of the Voice to Parliament? How are we to understand John Howard’s call for people “to maintain the rage”, if not for its racial connotation?


Our Constitution was drafted by protagonists of White Australia, strongly supported by zealots such as Alfred Deakin, who became our second prime minister.


First Australians were not recognised as it was assumed they were a “dying race”. Among the first pieces of legislation passed after Federation was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, which was initiated just nine sitting days after the Duke of York officially opened the Australian parliament. The law’s aim was essentially to ensure a predominantly British population, by restricting non-white, and particularly Asian, immigration and enabling the deportation of undesirable migrants. It is difficult to understand by what standards their desirability would have been judged, given the British settlements were primarily penal colonies.


I would hazard a guess that Pearson’s address, unlike a couple of others on this theme of the referendum, will be studied in schools in the future. It was a speech for the ages. It mattered.


Aboriginal Australians were also targeted. A range of policies was directed at so-called protection and assimilation of Aboriginal people into white society, one of which was the removal of Aboriginal children from their families and culture. By 1912, the government was working to remove all people of mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous descent from reservations across Australia, with the goal of forced assimilation into the white community. It is not too much of a stretch to claim that these policies were designed collectively to destroy Aboriginal society.


As Barry Jones has pointed out in this publication, at the time of the arrival of the First Fleet, Australia’s Indigenous communities had well-established traditions and practices, art and mythology, spoke roughly 500 languages and dialects, and made and traded tools, weapons and goods. So much of this was lost in the ensuing violence and generations of repression and neglect that followed. Non-Indigenous Australians still have so much to learn from First Australians about land and river and water management, among other things.


The initial focus of immigration on Britain was subsequently widened to southern and eastern Europe, to the Middle East and just a few Asian countries. After World War II there was an attempt to re-emphasise the “favoured” British immigrants, with the Assisted Passage Migration, or “ten-pound Pom”, scheme. This program invited Britons to come to work in Australia to help meet the country’s postwar industrial development and infrastructure needs.


The White Australia policy was unwound in a number of steps, starting with the Holt government’s migration review in 1966, which shifted the focus of the program to migrant skills and their capacity to contribute to the country’s priorities. In 1973, the Whitlam government formally renounced the policy and shifted the focus to multiculturalism.


However, a racial dimension to immigration policy was raised again by then opposition leader John Howard in the 1980s, when he called for a slowdown in Asian immigration, and again with the arrival of Pauline Hanson on the political scene, in her maiden speech to parliament in 1996 and subsequent statements about Muslims.


These attitudes are at odds with the fact Australia has become probably the most successful and tolerant multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious society in the world – the envy of many. It is a tragedy that our nation hasn’t come to terms with its history and built on a recognition of the world’s longest continuous civilisation, with 65,000 years of history. We cannot conceive of the vastness of the opportunity that is being lost through this myopic, frightened governance. If the referendum fails, the world will see we have missed this opportunity.


For many years I have travelled widely for both business and academia, and it has always troubled me greatly that I am so often questioned about whether this country still upholds the White Australia policy. This is still a common perception, and its persistence should bother us as a nation.


In 1967, when I was a student at Sydney University, there was no significant presence of Aboriginal people. Having been taught nothing about Indigenous history in high school, my only awareness of Aboriginal issues was some knowledge of the 1965 Freedom Ride that was designed to bring to the attention of the public the extent of racial discrimination in Australia. This publicity provided something of a basis for the 1967 referendum that finally led to the counting of Aboriginal people in the census.


I would like to imagine that in 2023 our university campuses are more engaged, and that the obvious need for First Australians to be properly recognised and heard is readily embraced and understood, without being swayed by the fear and hatred propagated by many in the “No” camp.


The most disturbing point in this campaign for me has been the vilification of people such as distinguished academic Marcia Langton, who had the courage and good sense to draw attention to the racial undercurrents of the “No” campaign. It was not racist of her to point this out. She was stating facts. Yet many who criticised her had been running a fear campaign claiming that the Voice would racially divide our nation. The treatment of her was abhorrent and emphasises why the country so badly needs to come to grips with its history and acknowledge the need for proper recognition.


The recent speech of leading “Yes” campaigner Noel Pearson to the National Press Club hit the mark. He spoke eloquently about his vision for the future, a better future. He laid out what sort of country we should aspire to be.


He rejected the argument from the opposing camp that the Voice could divide Australia by race: “We’re not a separate race – we’re humans,” he said. “It’s just that we are Indigenous. And you go to some parts of the world and indigenous people are blond and blue-eyed. This is not about race. This is about us being the original peoples in the country.”


His comments contrasted sharply with those of Nyunggai Warren Mundine in the same forum the previous day, in which the “No” campaign leader described the Uluru Statement from the Heart as a “declaration of war”.


Only love can move us now,” Pearson said. “It’s the love of home. Our Australian home is the source of this love.”


I would hazard a guess that Pearson’s address, unlike a couple of others on this theme of the referendum, will be studied in schools in the future. It was a speech for the ages. It mattered.


In an important sense, the referendum provides an opportunity to clearly move beyond our White Australia past by responding positively to the wishes of First Australians – that is, their request as to how best to be recognised, as expressed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Giving them an advisory Voice can also help our leadership do better than the failed attempts of the past to develop effective policies to deal with Indigenous disadvantage.


This is not about guilt but a positive expression of love and unity for our national future.


This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on October 7, 2023 as "The stain of White Australia".


******************************************


ABC News, 7 October 2023:


Laura Tingle

The bitter politics and hypocrisy of the Voice debate will mark it as yet another ugly chapter in Australia's history


A usual plaudit for a book is that a reader "couldn't put it down". But a plaudit for David Marr's new book, Killing for Country, which documents his family's history as professional killers of Aborigines in NSW and Queensland in the mid-1800s, is that it is one you have to keep putting down.


It's not just the brutality of the large-scale killings Marr documents that requires regular pauses, but the voices of white people discussing it — either in the most cold-blooded pragmatic terms, or in terms of horror.


The chilling fact is that, no matter what was actually known or protested about at the time, the killings didn't stop.


Marr's history documents events which were not just cases of rounding up Aboriginal people accused of crimes, or events that just happened in the early years of white settlement, but the systemic shooting and poisoning of people living on land they had been living on for thousands of years, or who may have adapted to living peaceably on stations, or even in working in towns.


It continued at least into the 1890s.


The immediate horror of the story clashes horrendously with our image of ourselves, and with the lofty ambitions of those who oversaw federation, and the writing of our Constitution, as the former chief justice of the High Court, Robert French, observed in a speech to the National Press Club this week.


Noting resonances with the current referendum debate, French quoted some of the opposition to federation and the constitution at the time, with one contributor observing that "the people aren't ready to federate; they don't know what it means; [and] their leaders and their newspapers are not brainy enough or honest enough to try to teach them what it means".


He quoted the then premier of Queensland, Samuel Griffith, observing that "there is no doubt that here, as everywhere, there will be timid men who are afraid of launching into something new; but when was ever a great thing achieved without risking something".


French observed: "The Australian spirit evoked by the 'don't know, vote no' slogan is a poor shadow of the spirit which drew up our Constitution. It invites us to a resentful, uninquiring passivity."


Linking the past with the future

The headlines from the former chief justice's speech focused on his affirmation that, in his view, the Voice posed no constitutional or legal risks.


But his speech also manages to link up, in a way which has often not successfully occurred, the past and the future embedded in the Voice debate.


"It does not require a black armband view of history to conclude that colonisation did not bring unalloyed benefits to our First Peoples," he said. "Nor does it require rocket science logic to conclude that we live today with the cross-generational effects of that collision."


Whatever your views on the idea of the Voice, it is not just the ugly racism exposed by the debate about it — which has seen Indigenous people on both sides of the debate subjected to abuse and death threats — it is the spectacular failure, hypocrisy and opportunism that has been on display on occasions among our politicians that has already marked it as another ugly chapter in our history.


The willingness of some sections of the media to perpetuate misinformation, and of other sections of the media to get lost in attempts at false balance, has made nigh on impossible a reasonably rational debate about what a permanent advisory body to the parliament and executive, whose actual remit would be defined and controlled by the parliament, might mean both symbolically and practically to Indigenous Australians.


Once again, it seems our leaders and newspapers "are not brainy enough or honest enough to try to teach Australians what it means".


And this is not because those leaders didn't know.


Conflict over how to help Indigenous people


French quotes John Howard — now a vocal campaigner against the Voice — from 2007, saying:


"I believe we must find room in our national life to formally recognise the special status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first peoples of our nation. We must recognise the distinctiveness of Indigenous identity and culture and the right of Indigenous people to preserve that heritage. The crisis of Indigenous social and cultural disintegration requires a stronger affirmation of Indigenous identity and culture as a source of dignity, self-esteem and pride."


Now, Howard says, people should vote no to "maintain the rage" against the Voice, which he says would create "a new cockpit of conflict about how to help Indigenous people".


Conflict over how to help people — if conflict was what the Voice produced — is apparently a worse outcome than possibly addressing "the crisis of Indigenous identity and culture".


Howard's self-described political love child, former prime minister Tony Abbott — who has always claimed a special interest in, and affinity for, Indigenous people — said this week that, rather than pursue the Voice, "we should end the separatism, which has bedevilled Indigenous policy for many decades now".


"Aboriginal people are fine Australians," he told ABC RN, "and they should be encouraged to integrate into the mainstream of our society."


What "integration" means is as unclear now as it was when Abbott advocated the "mainstreaming" of Indigenous services when he was prime minister.


And if there is any model that currently defines how Indigenous policy is executed at the federal level, it is the one imposed on us by Abbott as prime minister when he insisted on bringing Aboriginal affairs into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet — a department with no experience in service delivery.


Blocking change, no matter what the truth is


No campaigners regularly now rage about some mysterious bureaucracy which allegedly worthlessly chews up billions of dollars in wasted funding to Indigenous people.


That would be the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the body set up by the Morrison government and which morphed out of the structure set up in PM&C by Abbott.


The Coalition also appointed an Indigenous Advisory Council "to provide advice to the Government on Indigenous affairs, [focusing] on practical changes to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".


The inaugural, government-appointed chair of the council — which sounds like it had a job pretty much identical to that proposed for the Voice — was another prominent No campaigner, Warren Mundine.


That the policies that many of the prominent politicians leading the No campaign are actually campaigning against come from their own side of politics, or are based on their own previous statements, and their own policy legacy, is just one more depressing aspect of what has proved a very flawed debate.


Coalition figures from Howard to Peter Dutton insist their difficulty is not with constitutional recognition but with the specific proposal for the Voice.


Robert French on Friday reflected that the very act of recognition proposed by the referendum "is the creation of the Voice".


"I do agree with John Howard that recognition in the Constitution is a strong affirmation of Indigenous identity and culture," he said.


"A stronger and practical affirmation will give content to that recognition by the creation of the constitutional voice to Parliament and the Executive Government," he said


After many months of bitter debate, his words remind us that we are back at a point where it seems that, no matter what the truth may be, we will not let it lead to any change.


Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.


******************************************