With the Voice to Parliament Referendum date announced to be October 14 2023, this thread will run in the lead up to the date for general discussions/queries regarding the Voice to Parliament.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

Past Discussions

Here are some previous posts in this community regarding the referendum:

Common Misinformation

  • “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is 26 Pages not 1” - not true

Government Information

Amendments to this post

If you would like to see some other articles or posts linked here please let me know and I’ll try to add it as soon as possible.

  1. Added the proposed constitutional amendment (31/08/2023)
  2. Added Common Misinformation section (01/07/2023)

Discussion / Rules

Please follow the rules in the sidebar and for aussie.zone in general. Anything deemed to be misinformation or with malicious intent will be removed at moderators’ discretion. This is a safe space to discuss your opinion on the voice or ask general questions.

Please continue posting news articles as separate posts but consider adding a link to this post to encourage discussion.

  • ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Something I have not seen discussed anywhere.
    They do not specify that this group will be elected. That mean they will be appointed. I just can’t see future for this other than a punch of politicians mates from the inner city. Completely out of touch with the needs of those they represent.
    I’m still leaning towards voting yes but I don’t see this actually helping. It’s probably just going to cost the tax payers a bunch of money and do no good.
    If they were elected then they could be held to account.

      • ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        It’s very relevant. We need to decide if we want to irrevocably change the country. We need more than “don’t worry about it”

        • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          if we want to irrevocably change

          The composition of the Voice is not irrevocable. The vote in the referendum is whether you support the notion that there is a constitutionally-mandated Voice, and not whether you approve of the specific model being proposed. Parliament can change the specific model at will, regardless of whether it is the current Labor Government or a future LNP one. The only thing that will be irrevocable is the fact that some Voice exists.

          • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            Which makes the voice completely irrelevant. When the LNP are in power the voice will be 1 spot held by some white idiot like Barnaby Joyce or Scomo. If One Nation ever got in power the voice would be some white racist saying that the indigenous people want to all be shipped off to the middle of the country and left alone in a fenced area with no contact with the rest of the country.

            • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              It doesn’t matter its still a step in the right direction.

              Besides its just asking to be heard and that’s it, the voice doesn’t have the power to make any rules or changes. So it really doesn’t matter.

              What does matter if it it’s voted down now it will never comr back meaning one nations people will have no chance at a well legislated voice in the future.

              So if your argument is no because its not set up well enough thats shit, because we need to crawl before running.

              • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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                1 year ago

                This doesn’t make your voice heard any more than any of the existing indigenous advisory boards. It just gives you one more voice to be ignored, and to be used as a political tool by the government of the time. LNP get in and make some cronie the single person in the voice who makes recommendations that harm indigenous people - how does that help you?

                Your argument is basically “it’s better than nothing and will lead to more”. My argument is that it is nothing, and if it goes through it will be pointed at for decades as a way to go “look we gave them a voice, we don’t need to do any more”.

                • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  1 year ago

                  Sorry mate this is kind of absurd.

                  When new legislation is passed by government, yes there is (rightly) much debate between elected representatives around exactly how that legislation should work.

                  Once legislation is passed there is rarely much meaningful change beyond incremental improvements / adaptions.

                  You’re suggesting that every newly elected government will just discard legislation from the previous government. If this were likely, every new government would have been doing it with every contentious issue throughout our history.

                  • samson@aussie.zone
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                    1 year ago

                    This isn’t much of a thing in this country but it’s not impossible. Fear radicalisation and trivial legislation. Not an argument against the voice though.

            • samson@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              Untrue. The high court would have something to say about an aboriginal voice being composed of non Aboriginals.

              • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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                1 year ago

                Would they? There’s nothing in the proposed constituational amendment that says that the body has to be made up of indigenous people and indigenous people only.

                • samson@aussie.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  Constitutional interpretation relies on all sources used to draft the document. Intentions must be gathered as this is a founding document, therefore all Acts spring forth from it. Explanatory documents, the Uluru statement itself, and documents by the referendum working group all support the idea of the A&TSIVoice being for ATSI people only.

          • RealVenom@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            And that’s where I can see people having concerns. By voting Yes, you are opening the door for a model that you may not agree with. I can see people being hesitant about it, like it’s a trap. But that’s just my devil’s advocate opinion, the fact is that this will unlikely affect anyone who isn’t ingenious in a tangible way.

            It’s well overdue for us to genuinely celebrate our indigenous heritage and ensure our constitution allows us to embed this culture into our country’s DNA.

            • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              This isn’t “celebrating” our indigenous heritage. If anything it’s doing it a disservice by having the white people go “here you go little fellas, you can have a high chair up with the adults at the big table, but just shoosh and let us decide what’s best for you”.

              • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                1 year ago

                If anything it’s doing it a disservice by having the white people go “here you go little fellas, you can have a high chair up with the adults at the big table, but just shoosh and let us decide what’s best for you”.

                Then why not ask Indigenous Australians what they think? Vote Yes if it’s what they want, vote No if they don’t.

                (The answer, by the way, is that about 80% of Indigenous Australians are in favour.)

                • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  The actual number bounces around depending on sample size and timing, but tends to land somewhere between the 80% in an Ipsos poll of 300 First Nations people in January of this year (this poll was commissioned by 89 Degrees East, where I am research director) and the 83% in a YouGov poll of 738 First Nations people conducted this month – the largest and most representative sample I know of to date.

                  🤣 Sorry but those polls being used to say “80% of Indigenous Australians are in favour” is pathetic. Just over 1000 people, potentially significantly less with crossover, means you can throw that statistic in the bin.

                  The largest poll being only 738 people is absolutely mind boggling. Imagine using that number to extrapolate out to an entire population of a country.

                  • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                    1 year ago

                    Tell me you don’t understand how polling works without telling me you don’t understand how polling works.

                    Even nation-wide polls often use a sample size less than 5 times that, and I shouldn’t need to tell you that the Indigenous population of Australia is less than 20%.

                    The polls’ conductors would admittedly tell you that obtaining a representative sample of Indigenous Australians is rather difficult, but this is accounted for in their margins of error, which are less than 10%. 80% ± 10% is still a pretty overwhelming majority.

          • samson@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            Not entirely true. HC will likely set some sort of minimum standard for composition eventually, probably minimum standards for how they can provide representations if parliament decides to make it hard for them to do so.

            • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              It might do that. Or it might not. The inter-state commission is a good example of that.

        • Nonameuser678@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          If you are not an Indigenous person then the voice will not really be advising on things that are relevant to you. And the voice is fundamentally an advisory group that will present their concerns to the government. The government will then act on this advice. It will still be the government making laws and policies. It just needs to be constitutional so that it can’t be terminated like previous advisory groups have been.

          Considering the level of disadvantage that Indigenous Australians experience, don’t you think it’s reasonable that they should have greater say (a voice) on how to address the issues that are relevant to them?

          • ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            The problem is that those people who will be given the voice will actively work against the needs of those they pretend to represent. Just like all politicians.
            How will that help anyone?

          • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            The government will then act in this advice

            Or they just won’t, because nothing in this change to the constitution makes them or even says they need to even consider any advice. That’s one of the problems lots of us have with it - it changes literally nothing.

            • Nonameuser678@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              I think this is one of the most valid criticisms of the voice proposal. I agree it doesn’t go far enough in ensuring that governments listen to the voice. This is a big part of why I was on the fence with my vote for a while.

        • ⸻ Ban DHMO 🇦🇺 ⸻@aussie.zoneOP
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          1 year ago

          We’ve already decided on that through the previous federal election. Theoretically, the voice will be legislated in a way which appeals to the majority of Australians.

          Remember: bad politicians and parties only get into parliament because, we, Australians, put them there

          • ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            The rich put them there. We Australians don’t really have a choice. The Libs are complete garbage and Labor have abandoned their principles just to get power. They are only slightly better?
            What other choice do we have?

            • ⸻ Ban DHMO 🇦🇺 ⸻@aussie.zoneOP
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              1 year ago

              We live in a democracy, we voted for them. I think if political advertising was prohibited then we would have way more independents in parliament

    • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A reminder, the PM is basically appointed. We don’t get to vote on the PM, just the party, and they pick who is going to lead us.

      As for a “bunch of money” - it’s almost nothing.

      If conservative voters actually cared about money, they wouldn’t waste money on American nuclear subs we can’t refuel, or broken French contracts, or spending more triple on a subpar telecommunications network that Labor is having to spend more on to fix.

      No, it’s not about money, and it isn’t about elections.

      • ReverseThePolarity@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        I am one of the biggest critics of the Libs but I don’t think the whole AUKUS debacle can be 100% blamed on them.
        The whole thing screams the US forcing Australia to buy the subs to ensure long term control.
        If the government doesn’t do what they are told then the US can refuse to maintain the subs.
        Remember the last prime minister who looked out for Australia’s best interests rather than the US’s interests got kicked out of government and an unelected lib Prime minister replaced him.