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March 29, 2023

The Voice

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Call for Labor government to reinstate logging moratorium – now

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I’ve been ruminating and researching on how best to support a ‘Yes’ response on the Voice referendum. I always come back to principles… devoid of details.

To me the overarching principles are:

What do Indigenous folk need to give them hope and a pathway to better lives?

How can Australia as a nation best acknowledge and begin to correct the injustices that flowed from the false assumption of British sovereignty in 1788?

If successive governments have failed to close the gap effectively isn’t it time for a different approach?

Should a Constitution be able to ‘move with the times’, as far as practicable, and leave it to the governments of the day to adapt to changing circumstances?

If you agree with these principles then your choice is obvious. 

Frank Lynch, Wilsons Creek

Read Storylines – the Voice, it’s time 


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19 COMMENTS

  1. Nicely put. The doubters try to cloud the argument demanding details that would be discussed and voted upon in parliament. The constitution is unfortunately considered by some as some type of religious treatise, unchangeable, when actually it is a document of principles that needs updating when applicable.

  2. They have to find their own way, you can’t do it for them.
    You can’t run around trying to fix history.
    No government can close that gap, nor can any amount of money.
    Trying to use the constitution as a replacement for legislation will get you all the catastrophe direct democracy has wrought whenever it has been tried.

        • The legislation will follow regardless of the referendum result. Did you not learn about the history of democracy in school? China is a democracy, Xi just got re-elected. I can use a hammer to build or destroy. Now insert capitalism, firearms, drugs, democracy, etc. Tools are what you makes of them, but I wouldn’t try hammering a nail with a hand grenade, nor direct democracy with a media driven population.

          • You really should research the People’s Democratic Republic of China. Democracy simply means you don’t have inherited rulerships. dēmos ‘people’ and kratos ‘rule’, doesn’t even need elections to be a democracy. A republic is ‘a state without a monarchy’. These are just preprogrammed trigger words meant to make you feel certain things when you hear them. The word ‘regime’ is used to make you feel the opposite.

      • You won’t know what this third house of parliament is until they design it. Even then you won’t realise what its real effect is until it plays out. Its the war on drugs, poverty, etc all over again. Just leave them alone.

        • That is just repeating Sky news garbage & right wing lies & nonsense. The detail is already there & has been from the start.

          As Frank says “If you agree with these principles then your choice is obvious”. Respect.

          Likewise those who advocate against it & attempt to justify their warped reasoning &/or lack of respect

          • Communism was vague on specifics, but the principles sounded good. Then it killed 148 million unarmed civilians. Why not let Aboriginals govern themselves in their own communities, instead of some glorious central committee ruling them from Canberra. This third house won’t just advocate to exempt Aboriginals from the law, it will also give cover to make restrictions that ONLY apply to Aboriginals. And it will be controlled by the same people that control the other two houses. Attempting to strip them of their personal agency is not respect, it’s wokism.

  3. Honestlystop repeating turnballs misinformation on a third house. It has nothing to do with communism. Go and read the Uluṟu statement and stop repeating sky misinformation.

    • Mr Steinberg, you should have more sense than repeat Lidia Thorpe, she is nothing more than a distracting show pony, nothing she is espousing is going to see the light of day anytime soon, she is even too radical for the Greens, I bet they’re glad to see the arse end of her.

      • But she is the future. She is simply 10 years ahead of the rest of you as Skynews is 25 years behind. You’re all on the same undeviating path traveling at different speeds to the same ends. Thus the crys from all sides that I’m off the fairway, tis but the huen cry against the Realpolitik required for Realism.

    • CS, I’ve not heard of read Senator Thorpe say the the Voice is a third house of parliament.
      Please supply the supporting details.

      • A parliamentary house is any elected group that is in the legislative chain. This would not include an advisory body, which is your contention. However this committee will have powers instituted by the other two houses, and is subject to change over time. Once established, it will, like all other government entities not constitutionally limited, gain ‘responsibilities’ over time, as the public acquiesce via familiarity.

        ‘What direction will this gradualism take?’ people are asking. Well Linda Blair has been spilling the beans by calling for all of these items to be instituted immediately instead of introduced over time. Not only are veto powers planned, thus putting it in the legislative chain of federal parliament, they are intending to include it in the national cabinet, with veto powers, thus making it de facto third house in all state parliaments other than QLD.

        I’ll also point out that the same mechanism could be used to strip it of powers and funding in the future making its inclusion in the constitution pointless anyway. QLD has a senate in law, but it’s unfunded and elections are never called.

        • CS, I didn’t request more makings up.
          Senator Thorpe was my query, the supporting information please. It sin’t that hard. Or is it?
          Senator Thorpe; she either said that the Voice is a Third House as you claim in which case you can simply supply the details; or she didn’t say the Voice is a Third House in which case, just admit that you making stuff up.

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