A great sorrow is upon our land.
The week of silence after rejection of the Voice is now over, but the grieving doesn’t end there.
Will Peter Dutton and his Liberal-Nationals coalition members now seek a rapprochement with First Nations people after the ‘victory’ in convincing fellow Australians to slap away the generous hand of friendship?
It seems not. Having used disinformation to demonise the Voice, supported eagerly by his allies in the Murdoch media, he appears to want to double down on his negativity, judging by his actions in parliament last week.
Former PM Tony Abbott, Dutton’s old boss and now Murdoch lackey, applauds Dutton’s ‘brave decision’ and in an article in The Australian, insists we now need a full policy reset.
British-born Abbott says, ‘Meanwhile, if the people’s vote is to be respected, it should mean abandoning or at least scaling back, recent concessions to separatism: such as flying the Aboriginal flag co-equally with the national one (as if Australia is a country of two nations); and the routine acknowledgement of country by all speakers at official events (as if those whose ancestry stretches beyond 1788 are more Australian than everyone else).’
If Dutton has his way in the future, there will be no truth telling, no treaty and of course no voice. As with Abbott, assimilation would still be the order of the day.
Small consolation
It was a small consolation to learn that 67 per cent of the people of Byron Shire voted ‘Yes’ to the Voice. The ‘Yes’ vote went to a high of 75 per cent in enlightened Suffolk Park. The more conservative areas of the Richmond electorate dragged us down into a majority ‘No’ vote.
So, what happens now? Politically perhaps not very much. Anthony Albanese has expended a lot of political capital and many millions of dollars courageously fulfilling his promise to bring the Voice to a referendum.
It may well have succeeded if Dutton hadn’t used First Nations people as political pawns. The blizzard of lies from the ‘No’ side would not have been as heavy if it had been bipartisan.
Shrill campaign
Pauline Hanson and virulent racists would still have run a shrill campaign, and perhaps Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart would have funded it, but the Murdoch media would have been more circumspect.
Now there’s an urgent need to pass legislation to ensure truth in advertising, particularly during publicly-funded election campaigns.
Those saddened by the result can take some comfort from knowing 40 per cent of Australians weren’t fooled by the lies, including the spin that First Nations people didn’t support the Voice when the results clearly show the majority did.
It’s up to us as a wider community to listen to our Aboriginal sisters and brothers and acknowledge how deeply damaging this has been for them.
We can start the healing right here in Byron Shire, by listening and acting.
Changing inappropriate names could be a start. Byron Bay is actually Cavanbah, meeting place, and was for thousands of years.
It has only been named Byron Bay officially since 1894. Captain Cook named Cape Byron, as he passed in 1770, after fellow global navigator Captain John Byron, grandfather of poet Lord Byron.
Julian Rocks were supposedly named after Captain Cook’s nephew and niece, Juan and Julia.
This is an important Aboriginal sacred site and is actually Nguthungulli (Father of the World).
Cape Byron is really Walgun.
It’s time to dump these old colonial relics of names and return to their real names. Cavanbah was and is a peaceful meeting place for many people who travelled, and still travel, great distances to experience this healing area. There’s a desperate need for peace in other parts of the world right now.
The significant Israeli population in Byron Shire is in agony over the slaughter that has taken place in Israel and now in Gaza.
I have talked with local Israeli friends whose families have been impacted by the tragedy. The shocking massacre by Hamas is now leading to another huge slaughter of innocent Palestinians, who just want to live in peace like everybody else.
Collective punishment, which is evidently happening right now in Gaza, is a war crime. Western leaders, including President Biden and Anthony Albanese, are caught in a cleft stick. They have supported Israel in their right to defend themselves, but they surely cannot now support the mass killing of civilians. It’s an impossible situation with no obvious solution. There’s a desperate need for peacemakers, not warmongers.
We can start a healing process with our local First Nations people, and each other, straight away. Let’s meet at Cavanbah and discuss what we share and start to heal our differences, peacefully. Let us all come together as a community. We all need to be friends, regardless of widely varying opinions. Let us listen to and respect each other.
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is a ceramicist.
“the generous hand of friendship? ” is already costing tax-payers more than thirty thousand million dollars a year. With friends like these who needs enemies?
As the whole case for ‘the voice’ is, of course, totally racist in its conception, the majority of decent Australians have dismissed this absurd assault on democratic principles. We have voted and that is the end of it.
Richard would be well advised to have great caution when referring to “The blizzard of lies from the ‘No’ side” when everything you are advocating is prepositioned on a tissue of lies, including ‘land-rights’, which were only ever justified in the “Torres Strait” where the people were traditional enemies and had little to no cultural ties.
Cheers, G”)
Hi Ken,
Perhaps you should fact check your thirty thousand million dollars, and see if it’s possible that you have inadvertently proved Richard’s point about perpetrating lies and misinformation. This has been done for you so just look up the abc fact check on this.
The Voice would have saved money by ensuring money intended to address disadvantage would be used more effectively.
Oh sorry Rod ,
Have checked with ABC ‘fact checker’ and to quote “about $33 billion in spending, which social media users have attributed to spending on “dedicated Indigenous bodies”.
So… it’s thirty-three thousand million, not counting the general spending that every citizen enjoys.
Thanks for your correction, Cheers, G”)
The amount spent by the tax-payer (which includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tax payers) on “Indigenous bodies” is considerably less than $6 billion.
See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-15/fact-check-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-already-33-billion/102856660
Which states
“While the report showed that direct government expenditure on Indigenous Australians was $33.4 billion in 2015-16, the vast majority ($27.4 billion) of that was simply the Indigenous share of “mainstream expenditure” — that is, expenditure “provided for all people”, including spending on schools, hospitals, welfare, defence and “public order and safety”.
The remainder ($6 billion) was spent on “services and programs … provided to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community specifically”.”
The Voice would have made this expenditure, intended to address disadvantage, more effective by listening and responding to the actual needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
ABC fact checked its self and determined it was right. Skynews fact checked its self and determined it was right.
You’re funny. Everyone knows Sky doesn’t check facts or have fact checkers.
For several years they even adopted the motto: “Sky News, never wrong for long” due to their common inaccuracies. They figured the news cycle moved so quickly people would forget so it didn’t matter.
We if you ‘just know’, then that is Gnosticism, so it’s a religious belief. I think you would find, with a critical eye, that Sky and ABC are functionally equivalent. I argue with both.
Of those two, only the ABC is accountable.
Not Gnosticism, self-evident & publicly admitted.
Senators have been trying to bring the ABC to account for its behaviour, and nothing gets done. It is protected, as is the BBC and CBC. That’s how it works with government broadcasters.
Christian, the Indigenous Expenditure Report 2017 at https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/indigenous-expenditure-report/2017 is the source of the figures quoted in the ABC fact check . Are you saying that this report from the productivity commission contains incorrect information and conclusions?
Rod, I seriously doubt whether “our” Ken missed that point inadvertently.
Obviously a “typo” Rod & Keith.
We’ve all done them.
This site doesn’t allow for editing, post comment.
But you can post a new comment to correct the ‘typo’ business.