Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
A few of the arguments or concerns voiced by Australian’s included:
-A Voice with no power is pointless
-Lack of detail in the proposal
-Separating Australian’s by race is divisive (note there’s already constitutional race powers, which I disagree with and hope will be scrapped)
-ATSI people would have more representation than others (they actually have proportionally higher representation in Parliament today than their percentage of population)
-Leaving the exact details of the Voice to legislation means any future government could gut it without violating the constitutional amendment
-concerns this is the first push on a path to treaty and reparations as a percentage of GDP (which WAS discussed as a possibility by the people who worked on the Uluru statement)
I’ve left out the outright lies, though I guarantee someone will take issue with me simply mentioning the talking points to give you context.
Just as long as we’re all aware that while those are all reasons put forward, they are all false / lies / misleading.