Later this year we will be asked if we agree to establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Opinion polls show that opposition to the Voice proposal is growing.
The polling trend against the referendum can be explained in many ways, from an innocent misunderstanding of its constitutional effect through to outright racism, but the strongest factor is undoubtedly the misinformation being pumped out by the usual suspects.
When you encounter a question you lack the knowledge to answer, a good rule of thumb is to look at the kind of people who have gathered on both sides of the argument.
The referendum proposal is an attempt to realise the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
It is supported by charities, sporting organisations and progressive political groups. It is also backed by federal and state Labor and the Greens, by many federal Liberal backbenchers and by the Liberal parties of NSW, WA and Tasmania.
Apart from a handful of First Nations people who say the proposal is irrelevant to their aspirations, the ‘No’ case is supported, financed and exaggerated by right-wing politicians, white supremacists, the Murdoch media and reactionary Christian groups.
Creatures as soul-damaged as Peter Dutton, Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer are leading the negative campaign, which should tell you all you need to know about its motivation.
They have latched on to a typical culture war cause: they pretend the Voice is damaging to the interests of ordinary Australians, that it curtails their rights and gives Indigenous people privileges.
It is the same lie that far right populists constantly proclaim: we are the aggrieved parties, we are the victims here – not the children in detention, not the Aboriginal people murdered by police – we are the oppressed, who will suffer terribly if something, anything, is given to ‘others’, to people who are not us.
When improving the lives of a small number of ‘others’ is represented as damaging to the wellbeing of a larger entitled group, what is intended by this lie is the maintenance of inequality.
The populists won’t hear of positive action, even if everybody gains – as is the case when improving the health, welfare and education of minority groups massively benefits the community as a whole.
Another argument against enacting any progressive agenda, an argument favoured by John Howard, is that the present generation did not have a hand in whatever historical crimes may have been committed against First Nations peoples, and so their predicament today should not cause citizens any guilt, or inspire any remedial action.
A little reflection shows the difference between ‘fault’ and ‘responsibility’, and that responsibility falls on us if we are beneficiaries, however innocent, of a fault. A whole continent, with all its riches, did not become our inheritance by accident, and we cannot deny present obligations by wilfully forgetting the past.
Looked at with ordinary human empathy, the answer to the question posed by the referendum is a simple ‘Yes’. For more detail see www.voice.gov.au.
David Lovejoy, Echo co-founder
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