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The Voice debate is yet another ugly chapter in Australia's history
(www.abc.net.au)
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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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I'm looking over your replies and I'm feeling very confused. Something I wonder is if you are expecting constitutional changes to be more specific than they are.
I'm sure like most sane Australians you haven't actually read the constitution. It's not exactly particularly relevant to most if us. Let's have a look at it now though to get an idea of how it's worded. For example, lets look at provisions on electing senators, that seems important!
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter1/Part_II_-_The_Senate#chapter-01_part-02_09
Huh... that seems vague? now there's a little more there interspersed between a few sections laying out the 6 year term and elections as an entire state but that's pretty much it.
Crucially this isn't about laying out exactly how it should be carried out because things change, it's about laying out what the government can and can't do in broad strokes.
Now imagine we didn't have that section "shall be uniform for all the States" and we're holding a referendum over it. The text of the referendum would just be like "should blah section be ammended to add 'shall be uniform for all the States' yes or no?"
The yes side would be making grand proclaimations about equality, fairer society, less vulnerability to governments dominated by party members from one state with rivals in another etc. There are no concrete details yet about how elections will change etc, just that they'll have to be fairer.
That's kinda what we're looking at with the voice. The broad strokes are vague because times change and needs change, but what doesn't change is that people need to be heard if they're going to be respected and helped. We haven't been hearing the indigenous people very well, sometimes deliberately maliciously as when bodies are abolished, sometimes because people were just massively wrong about who knew best.
The yes campaign is saying "look at all this good stuff that'll happen" because it'll mean there's a requirement for there to be a body which can't be completely ignored or abolished, and that'll force a record of what was said even if it's totally ignored which can help make people accountable.
I think that's a bit disingenuous because if you look at the page you link there's a lot more detail than just the excerpt you provided, including at the very top that they are voted upon by the people of the states. It has provisions for different cases as well.
The voice proposed change has none of this detail.
I would like to see some accountability included in the proposed change and I think that's why a lot of people are skeptical. The way it is now still leaves a lot of room for political sabotage at any future point as long as there is a "body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" that exists. There is nothing in the amendment that even specifies who makes up this body, how many people, how they get chosen, term lengths, etc. These details are at least considered in our current constitution for senators.
It's not that any of this would make me vote no. I do support this type of cause and I'm glad that steps are being made. It's just that, as far as I can tell, there's no constitutional protection that would stop, say, PwC from being assigned the role of "the Voice".
Sorry, I was trying to focus specifically on the means by which they are elected. Not trying to mislead, I think there's parallel because like the voice just says it has to be a body and not how it's made up and senate elections more or less just say "you have to have them, figure out how".
So there's a lot of leeway in the constitution in general, like to my knowledge there's nothing stopping senate electing laws being like a 2 hour window in the state capital except that if a government tried to do that presumably they'd be challenged on either going against the intention of the constitution, established practiced, or worse case there would be revolts. There's a few risks to making something too specific, what if things change and you need to like have another referendum to say hire a new person?
It certainly is vulnerable to say appointing the board of PwC as the voice, except of course that's the status quo now (inasmuch as advisory bodies on indigenous affairs go) although nobody could argue that the government was going against the spirit of the constitution doing so. So this can really only be thought of as massively strengthening the situation we have now.
If we look at how divisive even this change is, you can imagine the sort of polemic criticism a more prescriptive change might apply. If the voice fails to be satisfactory and vulnerable to being hijacked then we can always go to referendum again, we wouldn't be worse off than we are now. Legislation is a lot more flexible, which is a weakness and a strength but in general keeping systems flexible helps us fix things and keep them relevant as times and goals change. If the people want this, then the people have an interest in it working correctly after all.
Excellent points. Thank you for putting in the time to discuss this with me. You, and others here have been invaluable to me. It's too hard to find quality information like these replies through searching. I'm the kind of person that likes to understand things in an extra level of detail so when I discuss things with people I can know what I'm talking about. Knowing only the bullet points makes it hard to back up opinions when talking to people of differing opinions.
You are welcome.