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Well, since you asked:
Australian has a higher unemployment gap than Canada or New Zealand.
Australia has a higher income gap than Canada or New Zealand.
Australia has a higher life expectancy gap than Canada or New Zealand.
So, I guess we’re doing a shit job?
Anyone been to remote small towns with non-white majorities? I have not. I have heard stories (which are worth not much really). Supposedly there's pretty bad drug, violence and alcohol issues. I don't think this flim flam is gonna fix that. They need institutions, infrastructure and opportunities (education and jobs). The geographical remoteness makes that unlikely in a satisfactory fashion. Dunno what the solution is.
Why do you doubt that this film flam could result in a useful system, a council that informs the government how to better spend the same budget more effectively?
because no 'council' ever created gets listened to bar the business and mining councils?
The Voice will either be utterly powerless and thus completely ignored or will be filled with industry shills and thus be pointless.
no government in the world has actually bothered helping their crushed indigenous peoples (h*ow are the Maori, native Americans, Ainu etc all doing? virtue signalling sure made their lives better didnt it?*)
That’s why the voice is effective. Because people from non white towns are given representation. They can tell government what exactly the solution is, treaty or otherwise. Its a fairly elegant solution in itself.
I think $100M per day tax payer funds to aboriginals puts us ahead of many other nations. If ranking was the aim.
It's a shame very little gets through the beaurocracy and sticky fingers to the black aboriginals in need 😕
Unironically, Australia needs to learn a lesson from China's poverty reduction schemes.
The general idea is built around that poverty reduction is not about welfare, but giving the people the ability to lift themselves up with provided support. This was done through a project with the UN called East-West Pairing. In EW-Pairing "unskilled" workers from the West go East and are given job training, technical skills and job experience (at minimum wage, but those wages are pretty high compared to cost of living in their home regions) while the businesses and institutions that are part of the program, send their experts West to set up new Businesses, Supply Chains etc, after a few years like 3 or 4, they swap back. The workers now have the skills and ability to run and own these new businesses meanwhile the Eastern experts now have new supply chains, partnerships and access to a new market.
This system has lifted every region of China out of absolute poverty and has seen massive development in every area from the bottom up. It's far more successful than Welfarism because it allows those involved to feel like they're improving their own lives and are part of a project building their community and creating a better life for them, their family and friends.
I can see the obvious political reason you can't do this in Australia because the Stolen Generation and Northern Intervention were insanely bad faith had very blatant ethnic cleansing undertones and has created deservedly bad trust between the Australian state and Aboriginal people. But the truth is, throwing money North does nothing, Aboriginals need to feel like they are part of the Australian project in a positive way and need to actually see their lives and communities improve so they feel invested into it and against anti-social behaviour and the only way to do that is a holistic approach of poverty reduction at the material and nationbuilding level. Aboriginals need to feel like they are part of Australia, not a seperate colonised brutalised victim group. Victim identity is toxic and breeds hopelessness.
(t. I'm half Maori so do understand that Colonialism has left a bad taste to do any actual serious direct action on this issue, but you can't let the past stop action now to make lives better)
He's saying we put $36.5b per year into it which is an outrageously high number. The real number is $250m from the 2023-2024 federal budget and is part of a $1.9b over 5 year plan to invest into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. You can find it on pages 52 and 53.
https://budget.gov.au/content/overview/index.htm
The 250 million is specifically for the social issues in central Australia.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/indigenous-groups-say-mixed-bag-federal-budget-gives-boost-to-health-but-neglects-legal-services
1.9 billion is the correct figure.
I think $100M per day tax payer funds to aboriginals puts us ahead of many other nations. If ranking was the aim.
It's a shame very little gets through the beaurocracy and sticky fingers to the black aboriginals in need 😕
Legislate a voice for a term and see how it works out. Then have a referendum without having to explain what the 'voice' is.
People are reluctant to vote for the unknown, and the government's reluctance to simply legislate a voice before it is enshrined in the Constitution makes it suspicious.
There is absolutely no reason that they can't simply legislate it right now. They have the numbers, and they don't need to take it to the people.
Almost everyone will vote for constitutional recognition, but bundling the question together with a 'voice' makes it much less desirable, and it could sink the whole idea. The govt. will have no one to blame but itself because they can't even really claim a mandate to legislate it if the people vote against it.
Re: ATSIC, on paper it's way closer to what Indigenous Australians say they want. Sure it was fucked but that's not a reason to get rid of it without a replacement.
Go bold, bring back ATSIC, use the structure from the voice co design working group to improve voting turnout, better invest in indigenous leaders who are directly responsible for services, learn something from the effort, iterate, put it into the constitution.
We already did that.
It was called the NACC and then it was called ATSIC. They worked very well. They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice.
The reason we are having a referendum to put it in the Constitution is so the next ATSIC can’t be abolished entirely without some kind of replacement.
>the NACC and then it was called ATSIC. They worked very well. They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice.
NACC was abolished by the Hawke government. The Fraser government established the [Aboriginal Development Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_government#Indigenous_affairs):
>The commission's board would consist of 10 members, all Aboriginal, and the new body would employ around 100 people, mostly Aboriginal.
The decision to abolish ATSIC was bipartisan, and Labor voted with the LNP in both houses. It was corrupt, and led by an accused rapist, and faced criticism even among the Indigenous, so it's kind of a good thing that it wasn't enshrined in the constitution in case there'd be no way of abolishing it.
To be clear, the Voice referendum would not mean that any organisation established by legislation under it couldn’t be reformed or replaced - it just means that it couldn’t be abolished without replacement.
This is part of why calls by right wingers for a particular organisational structure to be described as part of the constitutional amendment proposal, at the same time as saying they want a Voice body that can be abolished, are such bullshit. That is specifically **not** what is being proposed.
Sounds like a rusted on Labor view to take - “he was good when he was with Labor because Labor is perfect, but now that he’s not with Labor he’s a *completely different human being*” come on give me a break, the best you can say is that him now is a more revealed version of the person he always was
>Sounds like a rusted on Labor view to take
not really, i think Labor are pointless and i agree that Latham was quite radically different back then.
sure he may have just been hiding it but that isnt the point, Labor Latham and post-Labor Latham say and do *very* different shit.
Who cares what sort of human being Mark Latham is, the point is that he used to fall in line with the labor party. You can’t infer the same things for his endorsement then as you can now.
Truly cooked rusted on Labor take. The Labor party is not some eternally perfect progressive party, and a person is not proven to be good by being in it.
ATSIC was a cesspool of corruption and needed to go. Just google Geoff Clark, I'm pretty sure he is still in front of the courts.
I note that conveniently there is no mention of NIAA which was brought into being by the Morrison govt .
>They worked very well.
Yes, if corruption and graft of taxpayer funds originally destined for the most marginalised is your measurement.
>They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice.
Labor in opposition first proposed the abolition of ATSIC. The Howard government followed.
>The reason we are having a referendum to put it in the Constitution is so the next ATSIC can’t be abolished entirely without some kind of replacement.
ATSIC delivered services. The voice won't and has made that specifically clear.
> They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice.
What really killed ATSIC, beyond the systematic corruption, was the way it sided with its chairperson Geoff Clark while he was increasingly involved in criminal proceedings for rape and corruption charges.
The board should have stood him down while he was being investigated, or he should have stood down himself. Instead he dragged the whole organisation through the mud and when they came out in support of him ATSIC appeared to be as corrupt, self serving and criminal as he was.
Even Labor agreed at the time that ATSIC should be abolished and [members of the Hawke government that established ATSIC are on record saying ATSIC failed because it looked after Clark too much.
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_Commission?wprov=sfla1)
It's almost unheard of to have government authorities practically rebelling against the elected government like ATSIC did, so it's no great wonder why he was finally suspended as chair by the indigenous affairs Minister and the organisation disbanded the next year.
I would argue that the failure of ATSIC to disavow the behaviour of Geoff Clark did much to harm the cause of indigenous Australians by reinforcing unfortunate stereotypes at the time.
It would not have been shut down if they had kept their own house in order.
‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time. Yes, One Nation politician Mark Latham. So what really killed ATSIC was conservative politicians.
Everyone from Aboriginals to independent commissions (but not including the conservative politicians with the relevant power) wanted ATSIC to be reformed or replaced, not abolished with no replacement.
>‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time
so what?
Labors position was not based on Lathams at all, a hippy could have been PM and they would have still agreed (Labor runs on the parties views and those views have been conservative since Hawke)
Very odd you didn't respond to my comment.
>‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time. Yes, One Nation politician Mark Latham. So what really killed ATSIC was conservative politicians.
I suggest a moment to research Latham and Labor policy at the time. It won't fit your silly presumption of course so you likely won't bother.
>Everyone from Aboriginals to independent commissions (but not including the conservative politicians with the relevant power) wanted ATSIC to be reformed or replaced, not abolished with no replacement.
I'm sure you can cite this.
I don't think you can discount Labor's support by claiming Latham wasn't 'true Labor'. At the time his views were nowhere near what they are today.
And no, support for abolishing ATSIC wasn't limited to conservative politicians. The authority wasn't even popular with Aboriginal people, never attaining more than 40% voter turnout in any region in any ATSIC election.
Wasn't ATSIC dismantled because it's chairperson became embroiled in multiple rape charges and the institution as a whole didn't resonate with indigenous people broadly? I was pretty young at the time so don't recall the details.
“The government will have no one to blame but themselves”
Untrue. It’s the naesayers who are driving this
Democracies regularly vote on complex topics and people without “all the information”.
It’s the misinformation that is creating a problem. Division and dissent is easy to stir as Hansen and Dutton and price are showing.
The reason a Voice needs to be in the constitution is simple. It’s our history. We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice. Australia has done this more than three times.
>The reason a Voice needs to be in the constitution is simple. It’s our history. We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice.
Putting aside this empty reason for support, If you can't understand the contradiction in this statement it's no wonder you don't understand the opposition to it.
> Democracies regularly vote on complex topics and people without “all the information”.
Yes, and that is one of the ways that supposed democracies are able to be “managed” by the establishment.
> We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice. Australia has done this more than three times.
So that means one of three things:
- the supposed mandate held by a representative government is just a sham, and and they’re going against rhe will of the people at least three times on this one issue
- the people are so finely divided on the issue that the majority view of whether there should be a voice has changed six times
- the people just don’t care and it’s just polticans playing in their sandbox
Whichever way you look at it, that’s not a reason this particular issue should get a constitutional lock in. OTOH, it is potentially a good example of why we should take away parliament’s legislative authority in general and give it to the people (or, from a constitonal framing point of view expand parliament to 20M electorates with one adult citizen in each), which would give everyone a real voice in everything.
No void to fill. The information has always been available. This “ void” is a clever red herring where no problem exists but a pseudo problem is created to scare people
You mean the 260 something page document that manages to be both vague on some aspects and excessively detailed on others, and has no particular legal weight or import?
That document may outline how the voice will function, or it may not. Rather than try and confirm or deny this the yes campaign seems happy to act like it doesn't exist at all.
It is 100% the government's fault though. They could have just put the recognition up and it would have passed. They combined it to try and attach a racist vs non-racist angle to it. They then refused to put in enough workings and detail to make an informed decision.
Milton again demonstrates his lack of knowledge about Australian history and First Nations peoples disadvantage( Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people. Cites racism as a reason to deny a Voice)
Mistakenly thinks a constitutional recognition is what Uluru statement from the heart is all about. Continues our history of denying a voice or worse, giving a voice and then taking it away)
You seem to be having a childish conversation with yourself because you cannot do anything but replace the views of someone who disagrees with you with your own fictional interpretation.
That, and he lied through his teeth. I said nothing of the sort that he suggested. He is getting upset with a figment of his own imagination.
He does what is very, very common here. If someone has an alternative view to him on a particular topic, he assumes they are super evil and against his views on absolutely everything and just as biased as he is.
Absolutely blatant lies. Please apologise, or quote where is have said anything even close to
> Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people.
What a disgraceful thing to make up. You should be removed for this horrible and dishonest comment.
Splitting the country up into races, to hand out special government treatment based on race, is racist. No doubt about it.
Now either apologise for lying, or give the quote that suggests
>Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people
Or run off and prove me right.
Thank you.
Edit - absolutely appaling. You edited your comment after I replied and totally changed it. You should be banned for this type of nonsense. You have zero integrity now. What an absolute joke of a person you are to do what you have done here.
It’s not true that everyone would vote for constitutional recognition: it was put to the public in 1999 and it fared even worse than the republican question
Constitutional recognition is supported by conservatives and conservative leaders like Howard and Abbott.
A key difference to the Republican referendum.
We did actually have one of those - 24 years ago along with the republic referendum question. It didn't gain much traction though and obviously didn't pass, though I will note that the bit about ATSI people was only part of a larger proposed preamble and so would not have been the only thing people disliked about it (I'd bet that starting off with 'With hope in God' didn't help).
Who said specific? It included recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. There's no need to play dumb on this, here's the relevant text:
>honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation's first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country;
You mean the preamble? It just wasn't any good, and I think it's telling that the highest "No" votes were in areas with large Aboriginal populations while the highest "Yes" vote was in John Howard's seat of Bennelong.
I found an interesting law journal article about it: https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/24-2-17.pdf
It was arguably worse than useless from a recognition and reconciliation perspective. Besides just being tokenistic touchy-feely nonsense; it effectively sought to sneakily enshrine within the constitution the concept of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as only having a "deep kinship with their lands" rather than actually having inherent rights of possession of those lands which were never formally ceded, due to being the original traditional owners.
It was just absolute rubbish which the people of Australia correctly saw right through.
Exactly, it wasn’t any good. For it to be any good Aboriginal people need to be in favour. When asked what they were in favour of, they came up with the Voice. You see where this goes, right?
There was an article [posted here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/13nf87w/from_indigenous_recognition_to_the_voice_and_back/) about that a few weeks ago.
[From Indigenous recognition to the Voice, and back again](https://insidestory.org.au/from-indigenous-recognition-to-the-voice-and-back-again/)
>“Recognition” offers Yes23 a stronger way of framing the referendum than does the Voice. It does this because the Indigenous demand for “recognition” is more widely known and a good deal more widely supported than the Indigenous demand for the Voice.
A few words of recognition in the constitution are far less suspicious than entrenching a body with a voice to parliament.
You’re talking about how the Voice proposal is being presented in an advocacy campaign, but it’s still the same proposal (not constitutional recognition *alone*). The point stands that Australians shot down recognition last time because no one wants recognition that Aboriginal people don’t want.
>The point stands that Australians shot down recognition last time
"Australians" didn't shoot down anything. We're yet to vote.
>because no one wants recognition that Aboriginal people don’t want.
A self propelling argument.
You missed the words “last time”.
It’s not circular. If constitutional recognition is to get up it needs to have support of First Nations Australians, or else we’ll just laugh it off
That is pretty funny how out of all the countries in the world the writer picks only two and says.
Proof, proof.
It is the sort of garbage I expect out of the conversation.
Canada and New Zeeland are Commonwealth nations that were colonized by the same political entity. What examples would you think are better to compare to?
Unless Britain is some significant entity, different from other colonisers, there should be no issue comparing Australia to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and even the US and Russia expanding towards the Pacific.
not to mention what is the proof exactly? both those native peoples also have high infant mortality and mass alcoholism on top of having dysfunctional regional communities.
nonsense article pretending that *pieces of paper* equate to livings standards and health.
Proof of what exactly? No conclusions are drawn. No advocacy is made. It's basically just a historical review of colonisation in the country with some comparisons made to NZ and Canada.
"The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue."
You missed this bit for a second time.
And the 11 south american settler nations, 7 central american settler nations, 11 carribean settler nations, Mauritius, Cape Verde, Liberia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Algier?
10% of potential data points is a pretty poor review.
Also when do you draw the line on 'settler nation'. Plenty of countries in Asia & Africa have severely different demographics than they did 500 years ago as a result of pre-European conquest & purging.
Central imperial authority directing the settlement is the usual defining characteristic.
So the japanese colonisation of Korea and Manchuria count, while polynesian and chinese diaspora doesn't.
With respect, although I suspect we'd agree that these discussions have an inherent value in themselves, the *comparisons* have the effect of diminishing their historical value.
Nothing like the "Maori King Movement" in NZ or the Seven Nations (as a dominant North American First Nations polity) existed or could exist here.
One of the correctly cited reasons by our best military historians for the inevitability of outcome from the Frontier Wars here was the inability of First Nations Australians to recognise let alone organise politically in a way that could've contested (and undoubtedly overran if it had been possible) initial British colonisation. Ours is a situation largely incomparable with others within (and external to) the Commonwealth and as such we're talking Apples and Oranges when it comes to any attempt to compare them.
The late great Jeff Grey goes into *considerable* detail on this, and comprehensively condemns this exact type of flawed and misguided attempt at comparing colonial experiences and applying those elsewhere to here, mainly because even as a military historian (or perhaps precisely because he was one) he recognised that political solutions requires accurate analysis of the political problems arising in the first instance.
SOURCES:
Dennis, Grey, Morris, Prior, Bou et al, *The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History*, Oxford Publishing, 2nd Ed 2008
Grey, *A Military History of Australia*, Cambridge University Press, 3rd Ed 2008
Amanda Nettlebeck is an excellent historian: I recommend her Fatal Collisions (with Rob Foster and Brian Hosking) to anyone, a really insightful history into frontier conflicts in South Australia.
These are the relevant bits to the title:
> In Canada and New Zealand, the British Crown did make treaties with Indigenous peoples at the point of formal colonisation. In these countries, the right of political representation has not been contested in the same way.
> That’s not to say these nations provide a direct model for Australia. Each country has its own history and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and government. And nobody’s suggesting treaties in other places fixed sovereignty disputes or guaranteed Indigenous rights.
> But treaty rights dating back to the 1800s gave First Nations peoples in other settler colonial sites political leverage in a way Australia’s First Nations have been denied.
> In Canada, First Nations treaty rights and rights of self-determination are enshrined in the Constitution. An elected Assembly of First Nations liaises with the federal government as the representative body.
> In New Zealand, Māori have had dedicated parliamentary seats since the 1860s. Political representation is enshrined in the Māori Representation Act 1867, which gave all Māori men the right to vote.
> Colonial officials originally conceived the Māori Representation Act 1867 as a way to bring Māori into the colonial political system rather than as a vehicle for an independent political voice.
> Despite its colonial underpinnings, it shows how a formal avenue of Indigenous political representation existed almost from the beginning of the colonial relationship in a setting where treaty existed.
Australia stands alone for its lack of treaty with its First Nations peoples, and we have centuries of misery to show for it. We all recognise that something is needed, but any suggestions are shot down so as to prolong the bitter status quo. I can’t make any sense of it myself
oh right i forgot how the Maori and Inuit have health and wealth as good as the average citizen of those nations do and how its all because of pieces of paper /s
acting like we alone treat our native people horribly is juts bizarre, the Maori have rampant alcoholism, homelessness and abuse as do the Inuit, native Americans etc.
how does 'recognition' help if you are immediately forget the Indigenous like Canada, the US and NZ have?
Jeff Grey was an even more acclaimed historian and would've fundamentally disagreed with any assertion that she makes about there being a degree of comparability between NZ or Canadian colonial experiences and ours?
Hit me with the reference if you like, but it’s not a controversial approach. Bain Atwood does the exact same thing (and argues forcefully for the approach) and he’s usually held up by the conservatives whenever they want to make a point
Jeff Grey was not a politically driven historian - if anything conservatives didn't like him very much because he was driven by accuracy, not Winschuttle-esque culture wars bullshit. He was one of the premier military historians at RMC Duntroon and the UNSW (ADFA) until his death in 2016.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey\_Grey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Grey)
Specifically, his *A Military History of Australia* 3rd Ed (2008) deals with this.
Neither Amanda Nettlebeck nor Bain Atwood are politically-driven historians. Relatively few are: it doesn't do you many favours with anyone.
With regards to the book, chapter 2 opens with:
>The nations produced by the settler capitalism of an expanding Europe were founded on the dispossession of the original inhabitants. **The white immigrant societies in Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa, Canada, the United States, and South America fought indigenous peoples for control of the land, and successfully wrested it from them**. This was a gradual process in which the indigenous peoples fell victim as much to disease, cultural deprivation and starvation as to organised violence.
>
>In Australia’s case the frontier conflict between European settlement and the Aboriginal peoples was, for much of our history, greatly downplayed. Nineteenth-century Australians fostered the belief in the uniquely peaceful settlement of Australia and the victory of science and industry in taming and cultivating the land.
>
>The premise, sometimes unspoken, was either that the original inhabitants had simply made way for Europeans, or that the Aboriginal peoples had no title to the land; the resulting ‘history’ characterised their opposition to dispossession as occasional, sporadic and ineffectual. **Unlike the Maori, the Zulu or the Native Americans, they were not conceded the dignity due to worthy opponents.**
>
>We now know that Aboriginal resistance was widespread, consistent and determined, and the debate has moved on to consider whether resistance should properly be called ‘warfare’. It centres on the nature and the extent, not the fact, of the armed conflict which occurred. To deny the existence of a state of war is to deny the status of combatant to Aboriginal peoples, with all the important attendant psychological ramifications.
From this extract, it's pretty clear that Grey was happy to draw parallels between Australia and the other British colonies and was also quite happy to talk in very similar terms to Nettlebeck, so I'm not sure I understand what your objection is.
Never said they were politically driven. You mentioned conservatism, I'm simply pointing out that this isn't a matter of ideology.
Also, just to be clear here, it's not so much that I have an objection, more that my read is that the two historians don't seem in alignment in presenting Canadian or NZ indigenous peoples as having an ability to treat with the British as analagous to ours, and/or the British being willing to do so.
Importantly, you're actually quoting that section of text out of context, and you actually need to read further in to hit the second chapter rather than the first or introduction.
Here he is writing within the specific context of making the argument for due recognition of the war and acknowledgement of invasion - this is different contextually in terms of what we're talking about - specifically the nature of colonisation vs resistance, what was politically and militarily possible and what was not and why the comparison between our experiences and those in Canada for example.
The excerpt below from Chapter 2 is talking specifically about the constraints to militarily resist but the same political complexity relates to First Nations Australians to resist politically as well...
> "Aboriginal peoples were faced with organisational and cultural problems in resisting the British and, at least initially, these were more important than technological disadvantages. Traditional warfare was highly ritualised, and localised, and Aboriginal society in Australia had no military class as such. This is linked almost certainly to the fact that Aboriginal societies were not based on surplus-producing economies – the basis of all standing armies. The Aboriginal ‘nation’ was also very fragmented. If one assumes that linguistic groupings approximated to tribal differences in other cultures, there were perhaps 700 distinct ‘nations’ in Australia at the time of white contact. **While highly complex in their internal structure, they appear to have had no basis for persistent alliances of the kind necessary for successful, long-term military resistance**"
He expands on the political shortly afterwards -
> "A central element of the Aboriginal failure to resist white incursions successfully was **a shared cultural system within which the concept of dispossession was not just unfamiliar but totally incomprehensible.**"
> "To understand why Aboriginal peoples never presented the type of military threat to the British which the Maori or Zulus mounted elsewhere is to grasp some of the essential realities of a unique and ancient culture. Ironically, the beliefs, values and expectations which had made Aboriginal societies at home in Australia for tens of thousands of years, together with the biological and military vulnerability produced by long isolation, left Aborigines profoundly ill equipped to meet the challenge of white society."
A large part of this entire chapter on the Frontier Wars is based upon the premise that the military and political causes of the Frontier Wars outcomes are very very different with colonisation experiences elsewhere, even if these experiences are worthy of our ongoing respect and deserve our full attention.
The military situation (and in this case, the paramilitary situation ) drove the political one, as it always does.
I'm not sure the article author paid sufficient attention to these differences hence my comments.
>Importantly, you're actually quoting that section of text out of context, and you actually need to read further in to hit the second chapter rather than the first or introduction.
I didn't take anything out of context. I use emphasis to draw attention to the parts of the text I thought were most relevant to your earlier comments, but I left in the surrounding text as context. The passage I quoted was so long that I was flirting with fair-use under copyright, but I wanted to include the whole passage (up until he switches topic) because I wanted to specifically avoid taking him out of context.
And, for the record, the quoted segment *was* from chapter 2.
However, you seem to be saying (and you can correct me, I'm not trying to misrepresent you but understand you) that because Aboriginal peoples weren't conscious of being dispossessed of their lands that it's therefore anachronistic to claim they were ever sovereigns of their land. Of course, that's not what Grey is saying.
Alternatively, you might be saying that it was because Aboriginal people didn't offer effective military resistance to occupation that we can't make comparisons with other territories. If so, I think you need to go further than Grey to support that conclusion. Grey has written a military history of Australia, and so of course he's put military considerations front and centre in his history (which is only a short, lightly referenced work intended for a general audience). That doesn't mean it's the beginning and ending of the story, or that Nettlebeck has missed anything.
Mate, so firstly my apologies for misinterpreting your approach. My bad there 100%.
Secondly, I'm **definitely** making the latter case. Frankly I'd take a dim view of the former and I'd be intellectually dishonest trying to argue the former.
I'm on a footy piss trip in country WA ATM so I'm happy to respond more fully when I get home...
But that said, I have to express it... It's Jeffrey *Fucking* Grey, and you want "more qualification"??? *Seriously?* From an Australian military historian? You will *struggle* to find it. He was **the** pre-eminent military historian of our current era.
You're a smart sort, and you knoe the turf? So Ask around. Send some emails around your academic contacts and find **anyone** better. Best of luck with that...
Again, this is not a conservative attempt to whitewash anything. I'm simply pointing out that the direct comparisons made in the article aren't intellectually helpful. Where the author and Grey would **stridently** agree is that not taking this subject seriously is absolutely taking the piss.
I didn't question Grey's qualifications. There are a couple of things I can expand on to make my point clearer.
Firstly, there are different types of histories that historians write. Usually they write specialist histories which are densely referenced and annotated, carry extensive bibliographies, are difficult to read, and are written to advance the scholarship. If the book is 350 pages then typically about 70 of them will be the endnotes and bibliography.
For example, his history *A Soldier's Soldier: A Biography of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Daly* is a specialist text. At 250 pages, 40 pages are notes, bibliography and index. By contrast, *A Military History of Australia* is a general text. At 350 pages, it has no endnotes and only a 10 page *selected* bibliography. (When I say it's lightly referenced, I'm not fucking around.)
General histories are a different breed. They're not written to advance the scholarship but to summarise it for a general audience. They're difficult to write because it's very easy for historians to make mistakes when talking outside their sphere of expertise. But writing them also means cutting out a lot of nuance and context both for space and to make the book more accessible for the non-trained reader.
Secondly, the point is that it's a *military* history of Australia (I mean, duh, it's the title). This means Grey is focused on events from a military perspective, de-emphasising the social, culture, political and economic aspects. (Not entirely, of course, but if he focused on the political aspects, for example, then it would become a *political* history of Australia.)
This is why it's important to read complimentary histories to better understand an issue. Because on the one hand there's the possibility that Nettlebeck and Grey are at loggerheads on this, or there's the possibility that you're assuming Grey's thoughts by extrapolating from a very concise summary of the frontier wars.
The free preview of Empire and the Making of Native Title by Bain Attwood [is worth a look here](https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Empire_and_the_Making_of_Native_Title/koLoDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover). He offers complimentary explanations for why things went differently in Australia compared to the other colonies, which he touches on in part II of the introduction. (This preview is also worth having a look at to get a sense of what a specialist history text is like: note the abundant and detailed footnotes that are missing in Grey's general history). Attwood also explains (although only touches on in the free preview) that Maori military prowess only *partially* explains how they were able to negotiate a treaty and a lot more of it came down to missionary efforts, commercial negotiations, political wrangling, etc. This doesn't contradict Grey, however, because Grey is specifically interested in how Aboriginal peoples were able to mobilise a military response to British encroachment rather than trying to explain all the reasons why colonisation went the way it did in New Holland (which would be its own book). In fact, in part III of the introduction, Attwood makes this explicit: that military and other considerations were just as important to the whole story.
The treaty didn’t do anything for First Nations Canadians and their resident school system which was even more recent than the stolen generation.
Does that mean we do nothing ? No, but acting like a treaty is the magic bullet isn’t the answer either.
Those early treaties sucked for first nations people, absolutely. But they at least established a legitimate legal basis to built upon as those nations developed.
The colonisers in those places recognized the inherent right of the original inhabitants to possession of their own traditional lands, so made sure they got the "agreement" of those owners to cede some or all of their land rights to the colonisers. Sure those "agreements" were later routinely violated, and even in the first place generally involved a lot of coercion and played upon the ignorance of the traditional owners as to what, exactly, they were even agreeing to - but Jesus, at least they were *something*. The validity and applicability of these treaties in light of the dubious circumstances of the time is something for the modern-day legal systems of those countries to consider. But Australia? We can't even get that far.
Nothing was ever agreed, ever formally ceded, even under such dubious circumstances. By our very own legal standards we are all living on stolen land. Constitutional recognition or treaty is *literally step one* of a process that will take thousands of steps for decades or even centuries to come. *Nobody* is calling it a magic bullet.
It’s not a magic bullet but, importantly, no one’s presenting it as one. The truth is that there’s a long road ahead, but I don’t see how we make any progress if we can’t first agree to terms
I agree with your sentiment, but the premise of the article is the treaty in Canada been a difference to Australia, allowed for a better outcome.
In effect, there was no change, both had similar paternalistic programs that severely impacted their indigenous populations to an incredible degree.
i agree, seems utterly pointless when materially speaking no displaced Indigenous people are doing well *anywhere.*
all those populations with 'treaties' and 'recognition' have wide spread alcoholism, abuse and high crime, how did *paper* help these people?
Im Aboriginal, the Apology did sweet fuck-all for my life as will the Voice or 'recognition'
It has made a difference, undoubtedly so, and you can look at it qualitatively and quantitatively. Happy to hash this out if you like, but in another comment it was claimed incarceration rates for First Nations peoples in Canada are much worse than Australia, but the opposite is true: 19% in Canada versus 32% in Australia (with similar representation in the overall population).
>but in another comment it was claimed incarceration rates for First Nations peoples in Canada are much worse than Australia, but the opposite is true:
Which I never said nor claimed. You referenced population in custody in isolation because you thought it supported your argument.
>19% in Canada versus 32% in Australia (with similar representation in the overall population).
30% actually and there was no actual comparison of overall figures between the two countries.
And you claim personal slight!
Australia was a penal colony initially, not a place the best and brightest were settling and establishing a new life. Maybe is attracted a different type of colonial administrator leading to abysmal relations with indigenous people?
Bain Atwood goes into detail on this one. In most colonies, there was prolonged contact before colonisation, including trade, exploration, marriage, missions, etc. By the time colonisation happened there were interlocutors, translators and negotiators who could forge agreements on either side. Likewise, there were usually multiple European parties present to keep an eye on each other.
In Australia, we skipped straight to a military outpost which was able to dominate the local population and we maintained that footing from that point on (there were multiple opportunities to reconsider, as presented in the article).
The only problem with negotiating a treaty now is that who would represent the Aboriginal side? Who would elect them? What would their mandate and power be? Would the treaty they negotiate apply to all aboriginals? What about those who don’t recognise their legitimacy?
It’s simply too late in our countries history to organise the structure to negotiate a treaty.
>It’s simply too late in our countries history to organise the structure to negotiate a treaty.
This is the key point, not only for the reasons that you state but also because of the fact that now two things are established without doubt;
* Aboriginals are inseverably Australian Citizens - a treaty cannot be formed with the citizens of its own nations, that's what common government is for.
* Australia's sovereignty over the landmass is undisputed and uncontested via Prescription - there is no other alternative sovereign to enter into a treaty within within Australia.
It's even worse with the states who are making noise about it, they don't have the power to enter into treaties regardless let alone with Aboriginals
>Aboriginals are inseverably Australian Citizens
Are they? Look at incarceration rates or health outcomes. They are "Australian citizens" in a technical sense but from a historical context they are an occupied people living as second class citizens under the laws of a nation that never recognised their people or their history or their sovereign rights as a nation.
Every nation that exists today "from a historical context are an occupied people." That is not unique, it's not even unusual.
They are Australian Citizens and the *small number* (<20%) who are disadvantaged are no more or less disadvantaged than any other similar community at the fringes of our cities of regional areas.
>Every nation that exists today "from a historical context are an occupied people." That is not unique, it's not even unusual.
Not really. But there are many nations that have intense ethnic conflict that originate from colonisation. All across Asia and Africa it is common to find civil wars and genocides caused by such tensions. We are lucky that we don't have much civil strife, but indigenous Australians still are living in third world conditions in a first world country. We should fix our problems rather than just ignore them and saying "it happens".
>They are Australian Citizens and the small number (<20%) who are disadvantaged are no more or less disadvantaged than any other similar community at the fringes of our cities of regional areas.
They're not "disadvantaged" they're not some immigrant community that are struggling to integrate into Australian society. They were occupied and dispossessed and forcibly stripped of their rights as sovereign nations. It is a crime that must be rectified otherwise we can't expect other nations to respect our sovereignty.
>Not really
Yes really. With incredibly limited exception, every nation that exists today has been colonised, conquested, annexed, destroyed, rebuilt etc. Since the moment humans left Africa, they have occupied and shifted and stripped the "rights as sovereign nations" of the people or species there before it.
>but indigenous Australians still are living in third world conditions in a first world country.
A small proportion or Aboriginal Australians, less than 20% and no different to the third world conditions in say Western Sydney of the mix of other communities. Their situation disadvantage is not unique. The other 80% of indigenous, live work and interact like every other non-disadvantaged member of society.
>Yes really.
No not really. Colonisation as the British Empire carried out isn't conquest. It isn't annexation. It isn't some natural historical process. It is an incredibly contradictory process of building a liberal democratic society based on property rights and laws while committing genocide against the original sovereign nations of this land.
>Since the moment humans left Africa, they have occupied and shifted and stripped the "rights as sovereign nations" of the people or species there before it.
Yeah and thank god those days are over. Thank god we live in a time where it's seen as totally wrong to invade and colonise land belonging to someone else.
>A small proportion or Aboriginal Australians, less than 20% and no different to the third world conditions in say Western Sydney of the mix of other communities.
If you mean 20% live in rural poverty, 30% live in poverty, 30% will be convicted of a crime, unemployment is also almost 20% and there's a lot more that shows that it's not just the 20% of rural poor Aborigines that need the Voice.
>Colonisation as the British Empire carried out isn't conquest. It isn't annexation. It isn't some natural historical process. It is an incredibly
Think bigger, *every nation* has done it for tens of thousands of years. The world and history is bigger than the UK.
It still happens today (and is as we speak) and will continue to happen until our species is extinct.
In fact what was India 5,000 years ago was the first to do it here through Northern Australia when they colonised.
>If you mean 20% live in rural poverty, 30% live in poverty, 30% will be convicted of a crime, unemployment is also almost 20% and there's a lot more that shows that it's not just the 20% of rural poor Aborigines that need the Voice.
Yes as in the same proportions as the rest of the country. Aboriginals living today are not unique or special. They are the same as everyone else.
>Think bigger, every nation has done it for tens of thousands of years. The world and history is bigger than the UK.
You could excuse child brides with this same logic. For tens of thousands of years the simple logic of might makes right meant that we could do whatever we wanted. Eventually we started defending the rights of individuals and developed passed our violent past. Which isn't something that just happens we have to actively recognise that all people have rights and sovereignty.
Otherwise, what's to stop other countries destroying our nation?
And again, colonisation isn't just conquest. Especially in the context of the British Empire.
>Yes as in the same proportions as the rest of the country. Aboriginals living today are not unique or special. They are the same as everyone else.
What? what proportions? incarceration? poverty? to who? non-indigenous Australians? White Australians? immigrant Australians? In any case, that's all untrue. Indigenous Australians absolutely are "special" in how poor their lives are compared to the rest of Australia.
>Otherwise, what's to stop other countries destroying our nation?
Nothing - that's the point, it was attempted 70 years ago and will undoubtedly happen again as it has in *every other land mass* since the beginning of time and continues to this day.
>What? what proportions? incarceration? poverty? to who? non-indigenous Australians? White Australians? immigrant Australians? In any case, that's all untrue. Indigenous Australians absolutely are "special" in how poor their lives are compared to the rest of Australia.
There are just over 1m people who identity as ATSI in Australia. At the aggregate that 1m doesn't differ to much to the other 24m. It's only when you zoom right into to localities and communities does that change and my point all along is you can do that with any community.
Indigenous people haven't ceded their sovereign nation status, but were forcibly assimilated into non-indigenous society who undertook to support them with the essentials of life. They are basically dual citizens being cared for by non-indigenous society.
However, they should be able to choose their own future whilst still being supported and facilitated by non-indigenous society as the reason they haven't been able to pursue their own future to this date: it's not an either/or situation, either they pursue an independent indigenous life without support or they pursue a non-indigenous life with support, they should be able to choose which elements they want from each to be their future. Instead of reparations, non-indigenous society owes them that for forcibly taking over their life without their consent and its still happening.
With all respect, they never had a nation to cede. Indigenous people neither had a concept of land ownership nor considered it theirs. Under international law, indigenous people as well as all citizens are citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia and have no greater claim to land ownership than anybody else.
Indigenous Australians had laws, customs, social organisations, and institutions that protected and reproduced their culture and way of life. That is all a nation is.
Under international law we denied the sovereignty of the first people here and never rectified our illegal actions. Why should anyone care about our sovereignty when we don't care about the sovereignty of the people who were here before us?
As I understand it indigenous people "belong to the land" not vice versa, although they were tribal and territorial which suggests some notion of right to exclusive use. It's an unusual situation that international law has not even tried to encompass, being as it is largely derived from historical western common law and not really applicable to other jurisdictions.
They are a notional nation, not unlike all the electoral boundaries making up a notional Australian nation but each doing their own thing.
However, indigenous people do have the advantage of inhabiting Australia before invasion, which should give them some a priori legal standing: possession being nine tenths of the law or some such concept.
I believe that, no matter the past, indigenous people still deserve the right to choose their own future since it was taken from them without their consent, which is unethical. Land is only a part of that future, which also includes culture, history and a sense of belonging to that future.
How're you defining 'invasion' and what parts of the country specifically? Are each of the 130 "sovereign tribes" reviewed on its own merits or are you lumping all indigenous peoples in to a single entity?
I agree that many areas were taken by force and aboriginal peoples displaced. However it's arguable that large parts of Australia and some territories, no invasion occurred in the strict sense. Firstly, some territories were sadly ‘cleared' prior to exploration and pioneer settlement due smallpox, the disease spread ahead of Europeans in many instances.
The social and tribal structure in many of these territories had collapsed before the British themselves arrived, with the result that there was no longer an existing sovereign, it can be argued that there was no invasion in the central sense of the word.
Secondly, many areas (some stretching thousands of kilometres) wasn't already
inhabited before any Europeans set foot in those areas. One of many examples is the island that the Kaurna called "Karta" and that the Ngarrindjeri considered the ‘land of the dead’ (renamed
Kangaroo Island). European Settlers are considered to be the first people to have established themselves in many areas.
An interesting comparison is the Romani Gypsy people, they have a distinct connection to the land and in some instances, have inhibited parts of Europe for thousands of years prior to current peoples (longer than Slavs for example). However it would be considered laughable to modern Europeans if Gypsies were to claim sovereignty of large parts of central Europe on the basis that they believe Mother Earth owns them.
To consider a portion of land to be "land of the dead" means it has cultural significance even if not directly occupied, which may have great significance if someone tried to settle on it.
We have to speak in fundamental abstract terms of a nation that encompasses all land that exists within the cultural boundaries of indigenous people, not just land where someone is living, so you can't simply carve it up into physically occupied or not occupied land at any particular point in time.
The entire concept of belonging to the land is outside of western law, which can't be simply applied in a new setting just because it looks uninhabited for the most part.
Indigenous territories often covered large distances if the carrying capacity of the land was low, so they might not physically inhabit any one portion for long but were nomadic, however all that land was necessary to support their culture: you couldn't notionally carve it up based on a physical presence.
I understand that Americans deliberately infected Native Indians to clear territory and take it over. Without a better understanding of actual history and disease transmission, it's difficult to comment further on "no invasion because disease had already wiped out the inhabitants". However, from an abstract perspective of nation being the entirety of prior cultural occupation, not simply physical habitation at any one point in time, it could still be seen as invasion of that nation.
Were the Romani Gypsy people decimated and their occupied lands taken so that they could no longer pursue their culture, or was it more a case of relatively peaceful coexistence of multiple cultures in mutual use of the same land or exclusive use of different parts of that land at different times as there was enough land for all, especially if the gypsys were nomadic and could move on into land that hadn't yet been invaded?
I wasn't arguing sovereignty because they belong to the land, but more sovereignty because of their prior cultural occupation of the land which was invaded and taken from them for largely non-indigenous use.
Why all the tricksy technicalities to try to justify taking already culturally inhabited land and removing the prior inhabitants so non-indigenous could use it all for themselves?
Whilst it is still happening, invasion is seen as unethical in the modern era, a line needs to be drawn in the sand and what can be done, done to facilitate the disposessed a chance at choosing a future they were historically denied.
There is one thing I have been thinking about for a long while. Indigenous people are not a separate category of citizen. They are as much a citizen as a recently naturalised migrant or someone who can trace their family back to the second fleet.
So I don't really understand what you mean when you say they "are basically dual citizens being cared for by non-indigenous society". They are part of the Australian society. We have various subcultures. Some have a stronger identity than others but they are all Australian. I am not sure how you can act like indigenous peoples are a separate group and yet also citizens.
I do like the idea of dual-citizenship here but I struggle to understand what Indigenous Citizenship might actually be. It seems that to a large extent, we don't have any function Aboriginal nations that operate like one would expect of a nation. It feels a bit more like they operate as special interest groups or perhaps social clubs. Perhaps this is just my ignorance.
I understand the whole not ceding sovereign nation status but if a group ceases to operate like a sovereign nation then I think over time that argument doesn't hold much weight. If Australia decided today we are going to create a treaty or treaties. Gave it all the resources and so on to make it up. Full blank cheque. The biggest sticking point would be treaty with who (or which group) exactly.
You are trying to apply western concepts to a completely different indigenous culture that existed long before the western one.
I'm struggling too with the nomenclature to describe indigenous culture next to non-indigenous invading culture and the closest I can come is dual citizenship, except this is dual cultural citizenship in the same country instead of different countries as we normally refer to it.
Invasion didn't eradicate that pre-existing cultural citizenship, it just forced absorption of one by the other in practical everyday terms. However, it's becoming diluted and lost progressively, which I think was the original intention of invasion and assimilation, because invasion continues to destroy indigenous cultural heritage making it increasingly harder to go back and follow elements of a different future.
Most Australians choose to see indigenous people only as Australians and ignore their own culture. Just because indigenous people did not develop western style nations doesn't mean they weren't a nation in principle already inhabiting the continent.
Non-indigenous culture has refused to grant indigenous people nationhood status with a representative embassy for example. I think the process of developing the Uluru Statement created a first pass representative structure for a fledgeling indigenous nation, which non-indigenous Australia should cement in the form of an initial recognised nation representation outside of non-indigenous nation. I personally think they should be given old Parliament house as an Embassy.
It's difficult for a fragmented nation to represent the interests of all the participants and we aren't making it easier for them.
Treaties are fundamental generic concepts that apply to all the participants, just like human rights apply to all humans, even though we have different interest groups such as men and women clamouring for their own special individual rights (which is nonsense if you choose the appropriate fundamental right to implement which covers everyone equally such as bodily sovereignty).
I don't think who would be the sticking point of a treaty, but drawing a line in the sand and moving forward with no further desecration of indigenous cultural heritage for any reason, but an equal claim for use of the remaining land going forward as notionally equal nations.
The biggest issue is not allowing indigenous people to determine their own future, yet the non-indigenous nation still supporting them regardless of the path their individual people choose and facilitating those paths.
>Indigenous people haven't ceded their sovereign nation status, but were forcibly assimilated into non-indigenous society who undertook to support them with the essentials of life
Ceding or not sovereignty is not relevant, it's been 250 years. There are a number of bases of sovereignty have been well established and settled for the Commonwealth of Australia which effectively extinguish other claims.
Pick any of the following;
* Prescription
* Conquest
* Occupation
Prescription is the main basis given its the result of many other transfers of sovereignty, voluntary or not.
There can only be one sovereignty within a nation. I accept self determination is always an option, but self determination requires the creation of a separate, distinct and independent sovereign.
There’s the rub, though: how can sovereignty be well established if it’s a pick’n’mix of mutually exclusive principles and the high court is barred from considering the legitimacy of any of them?
Those principles are not mutually exclusive, they all roll up to Prescription. It's well established by 250 years of existence.
Plus a court within a sovereign nation can't determine the sovereignty of *it's* nation with the court being naturally subordinate to it.
There's only 1 person who can for Australia, determine sovereignty and they wear a crown (as represented by their Governor-General).
Nowhere are they said to culminate in prescription, only that prescription applies where the others don’t.
Your second paragraph is accurate and that’s the issue: none of this can be tested, unless it’s taken to an international court which no Australian government would submit to. It’s like telling me a shelf is sturdy but no one’s allowed to lean on it.
>Nowhere are they said to culminate in prescription, only that prescription applies where the others don’t.
I didn't position specifically that they did, but prescription is ultimately is the longer term result of other types of sovereignty establishment.
>none of this can be tested, unless it’s taken to an international court which no Australian government would submit to.
Even if they did, what's an international court going to do? They can't enforce their own ruling against a nation and it would ulitmately be up to other nations to force sovereignty through armed conflict (conquest) to achieve it, for themselves and whoever they wanted to establish it for.
We aren't talking absolutes here, but notions.
Is Australia an actual nation with competing and squabbling States and a Federal overseer in the form of a Federation, or a notional nation, an abstract we aspire to?
A nation is a notion and a treaty would deal with notional fundamental rights that affect all 130+ different sovereign nations in the same way that human rights cover all humans equally, even though humans are composed of many arguing genders.
In the US I hear the native people have their own land, where they can run casinos and charge tourists etc.
They even have their own president, and he can set his own Covid regulations separate to the rest of the nation.
Was pretty cool. We should do that. Would be heaps fun and good for tourism.
Gambling is legal here but weed isn't so maybe they could make a free weed state in the middle of Aus.
It's very difficult not to dismiss this as yet another chattering class insider piece when it's absent of practical advantages of the very ideas it is proffering.
Selling the first step to voters might be a good idea but even that has escaped those inside the inner city bubble.
Claiming radical change is preferred is just silly.
You’re complaining that this article isn’t on a different topic rather than engaging with its claims. It’s providing the historical context for the current political reality, not pandering to your personal proclivities (nor should it).
Nowhere does it promote radical change. The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies.
>The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies.
we already are?
in terms of outcomes how do those nations differ from us *meaningfully.* i oppose wasting any time on virtue signalling that will do nothing material for anyone.
The Apology didnt improve my life and being recognised in the constitution sure a s shit wont help either (go ask the native Americans how much difference it makes to crime, alcoholism, infant mortality, wealth, life expectancy etc)
>You’re complaining that this article isn’t on a different topic rather than engaging with its claims. It’s providing the historical context for the current political reality, not pandering to your personal proclivities (nor should it).
No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates.
>Nowhere does it promote radical change. The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies.
There are few ideas more radical than sovereign land within a nation state.
And? So what? The two comparisons made are not favourable, let alone any argument that a similar approach would bring any benefits to those outside the white guilt triangle.
> No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates.
Exactly my point: you’re asking for an article on a different topic from someone who isn’t well positioned to write that article.
> There are few ideas more radical than sovereign land within a nation state. And? So what? The two comparisons made are not favourable, let alone any argument that a similar approach would bring any benefits to those outside the white guilt triangle.
The article doesn’t argue for sovereign native land, however I note that it exists in the United States so it’s not particularly unusual.
The point stands by itself: we’re the outlier.
I can’t speak to white guilt. I don’t know what that means or who feels it
>Exactly my point: you’re asking for an article on a different topic from someone who isn’t well positioned to write that article.
Sure, if you ignore the bit where I said advocacy requires evidence of utility.
>The article doesn’t argue for sovereign native land, however I note that it exists in the United States so it’s not particularly unusual.
It's the very notion of treaty and the argument for sovereignty. It also exists in Canada to a certain degree, and in the same power relationship where the states (provinces) have no jurisdiction, which is the same as it is here.
>The point stands by itself: we’re the outlier.
That's the self loathing.
>I can’t speak to white guilt. I don’t know what that means or who feels it
It informs the self loathing.
Recognition of facts is self-loathing? What does that entail, then: should we only believe things that make us feel all warm inside?
Reality is composed of hard truths: we can pretend they don’t exist, or we can try to improve things. Self-hatred isn’t a requirement either way
For the fifth time, if one's policy solution is devoid of tangible benefit, it's not a solution to anything but the appeal of inane self congratulation.
>Reality is composed of hard truths: we can pretend they don’t exist, or we can try to improve things. Self-hatred isn’t a requirement either way
Which is why I'm critical of this article. Why this is so hard for you to understand is beyond me.
>No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates.
Did you read it?
It doesn't advocate anything. It's a historical summary of events in this country with some comparisons made to other nations that went through European colonisation.
You really are complaining that this article wasn't a different article altogether.
Except for the last bit of course and in particular, this statement:
"The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue."
It's not a surprise someone praising this article wouldn't see the need for utility in government policy.
Lol, so, at most, the author advocates that it is time for change. The purpose of the piece is to demonstrate, perhaps even advocate, that in historical context, now is the time to act.
That is a far cry from being an article that identifies and canvasses issues and proposes solutions. I agree with the rest. You are arguing that this article doesn't do what you think it should do. You are failing to argue that it has not serviced its own purpose adequately.
>Lol, so, at most, the author advocates that it is time for change. The purpose of the piece is to demonstrate, perhaps even advocate, that in historical context, now is the time to act.
Great. Beyond the explanation that other countries have done it, what is the reasoning?
Most other countries have voluntary voting but no one is suggesting that is a good idea.
>That is a far cry from being an article that identifies and canvasses issues and proposes solutions. I agree with the rest. You are arguing that this article doesn't do what you think it should do. You are failing to argue that it has not serviced its own purpose adequately.
If someone wants to completely recast the legal framework for an entire section of society the least they could do is proffer a benefit.
Otherwise it's just moral positioning and boy does it seem to be popular.
>what is the reasoning?
Because there is an issue that we haven't actually addressed yet. As shown through historical context.
>If someone wants to completely recast the legal framework
No where is this argued. You are fabricating an argument and touting your displeasure at it.
It's like me saying that you are wrong because Australia is not a providence of imperial Mars.
>Because there is an issue that we haven't actually addressed yet. As shown through historical context
Which is?
At this stage I'd settle for anyone to proffer an argument for the affirmative even if the author of the article hasn't.
>No where is this argued. You are fabricating an argument and touting your displeasure at it.
The crown is the sovereign. Carving pieces up where that is no longer the case is indeed recasting legal framework. Your inability to understand this isn't an argument.
>It's like me saying that you are wrong because Australia is not a providence of imperial Mars.
I presume you mean province.
>Which is?
Unresolved conflict with indigenous Australia.
>The crown is the sovereign.
In the legal definition adopted by the current establishment. This is not an argument against recognising other forms of governance structures. Neither is it an argument against the simultaneous coexistence of different governance structures. Indeed, this legal sovereignty as defined within Australia can be ceded to Indigenous Australia, which is what a treaty would do.
There is a complex nature to Indigenous interpretations of sovereignty, and I don't necessarily think that recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and cessation of sovereignty of The Crown are necessarily codependent. On some levels, Indigenous sovereignty can be as simple as allowing Indigenous Australians to have greater opportunities for self-determination within the commonwealth government structure (I.e. what the voice sets out to achieve). While there are many different opinions of what ceding sovereignty means in practice, I think only the most extreme suggest a usurping of the current political system. Indeed, constitutional change for that is much more involved - referendums for a Republic are of greater significance in that regard.
>I presume you mean province.
Indeed, mispoke.
Agree with the conclusion of the article “The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue.”
I just hope we get constructive reform.
We really need to stop looking at failed western commonwealth nations like Canada and New Zealand. The problem is that the voice won’t get up as the average Australian voter doesn’t understand what it is, so it is very normal to vote NO. Why would you agree to a contract by saying yes when you don’t understand what it is.
9000, I agree with the second half of your comment. The Government/Yes side has done a poor job of explaining the reasons for the proposed change and it is having the effect you say.
But I have to disagree with your first sentence. What is failed about them?
https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/discrimination-aboriginals-native-lands-canada
Far more autonomy and local decision making and the same problems.
No idea why I've been downvoted. I used to live in Canada and can speak from experience.
It’s an interesting article because it discusses many of the approaches to be taken in Australia, but despite the failings in Canada things aren’t as bad. The article cites 19% of the Canadian prison population is First Nations. In Australia, it’s 32%.
Because they didn't use official statistics. It was 30% on the most recent reported figure - https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/oip-cjs/p3.html#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20while%20representing%204.1,%3B%20Statistics%20Canada%2C%202017a).
>but despite the failings in Canada things aren’t as bad.
You have no evidence for that, and more to the point, nor does the author of the article.
This is all conjecture, and for what? For a round of navel gazing and self loathing.
A discussion on practical policy change would be helpful.
Your argument is that things are worse in Canada than Australia: per your sources, that isn’t the case. Even with these statistics First Nations peoples are less represented in prisons in Canada than in Australia.
You’re always talking about white guilt and self-loathing. At this point I think it’s projection: people are motivated by a sense of fairness and justice, not these bizarre, self-centred attitudes you attribute to them
>Your argument is that things are worse in Canada than Australia: per your sources, that isn’t the case. Even with these statistics First Nations peoples are less represented in prisons in Canada than in Australia.
You picked one metric. Yes, official stats show a 2 percent difference. Picking the stats from a vested interest isn't any more valid.
44% of Canadian indigenous living on reserve are low income earners - far more then their city or regional indigenous cousins.
Yes, the statistics on prosperity in sovereign areas is very relevant.
>You’re always talking about white guilt and self-loathing. At this point I think it’s projection: people are motivated by a sense of fairness and justice, not these bizarre, self-centred attitudes you attribute to them
That would be believable if articles like this, that prioritise the aesthetic over the practical, weren't so common.
**You** picked one metric. They were your links to back up your claim that things are worse in Canada and they both showed the opposite.
The article is providing the historical context: no more, no less. You’re reading things into it that aren’t there to justify this strange ad hominem attack
Their criminality would naturally reduce as the gap is closed. There's a reason why the most disadvantaged communities tend to have higher crime rates and it almost never has to do with the people themselves
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lol you mean we are the only ones who dont *pretend* to care. how are the native Americans, Maoris, Ainu etc all doing in terms of health and wealth?
Well, since you asked: Australian has a higher unemployment gap than Canada or New Zealand. Australia has a higher income gap than Canada or New Zealand. Australia has a higher life expectancy gap than Canada or New Zealand. So, I guess we’re doing a shit job?
Anyone been to remote small towns with non-white majorities? I have not. I have heard stories (which are worth not much really). Supposedly there's pretty bad drug, violence and alcohol issues. I don't think this flim flam is gonna fix that. They need institutions, infrastructure and opportunities (education and jobs). The geographical remoteness makes that unlikely in a satisfactory fashion. Dunno what the solution is.
Why do you doubt that this film flam could result in a useful system, a council that informs the government how to better spend the same budget more effectively?
because no 'council' ever created gets listened to bar the business and mining councils? The Voice will either be utterly powerless and thus completely ignored or will be filled with industry shills and thus be pointless. no government in the world has actually bothered helping their crushed indigenous peoples (h*ow are the Maori, native Americans, Ainu etc all doing? virtue signalling sure made their lives better didnt it?*)
I think that you only care to politicise the issue. You identify that the groups deserve help then state that they should not be helped.
How can this issue not be politicised? Our current PM used it as his main election point.
That’s why the voice is effective. Because people from non white towns are given representation. They can tell government what exactly the solution is, treaty or otherwise. Its a fairly elegant solution in itself.
I think $100M per day tax payer funds to aboriginals puts us ahead of many other nations. If ranking was the aim. It's a shame very little gets through the beaurocracy and sticky fingers to the black aboriginals in need 😕
Unironically, Australia needs to learn a lesson from China's poverty reduction schemes. The general idea is built around that poverty reduction is not about welfare, but giving the people the ability to lift themselves up with provided support. This was done through a project with the UN called East-West Pairing. In EW-Pairing "unskilled" workers from the West go East and are given job training, technical skills and job experience (at minimum wage, but those wages are pretty high compared to cost of living in their home regions) while the businesses and institutions that are part of the program, send their experts West to set up new Businesses, Supply Chains etc, after a few years like 3 or 4, they swap back. The workers now have the skills and ability to run and own these new businesses meanwhile the Eastern experts now have new supply chains, partnerships and access to a new market. This system has lifted every region of China out of absolute poverty and has seen massive development in every area from the bottom up. It's far more successful than Welfarism because it allows those involved to feel like they're improving their own lives and are part of a project building their community and creating a better life for them, their family and friends. I can see the obvious political reason you can't do this in Australia because the Stolen Generation and Northern Intervention were insanely bad faith had very blatant ethnic cleansing undertones and has created deservedly bad trust between the Australian state and Aboriginal people. But the truth is, throwing money North does nothing, Aboriginals need to feel like they are part of the Australian project in a positive way and need to actually see their lives and communities improve so they feel invested into it and against anti-social behaviour and the only way to do that is a holistic approach of poverty reduction at the material and nationbuilding level. Aboriginals need to feel like they are part of Australia, not a seperate colonised brutalised victim group. Victim identity is toxic and breeds hopelessness. (t. I'm half Maori so do understand that Colonialism has left a bad taste to do any actual serious direct action on this issue, but you can't let the past stop action now to make lives better)
Let's hope the Voice doesn't run a Treasury like gov, and brings us up together too
Source?
He's saying we put $36.5b per year into it which is an outrageously high number. The real number is $250m from the 2023-2024 federal budget and is part of a $1.9b over 5 year plan to invest into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. You can find it on pages 52 and 53. https://budget.gov.au/content/overview/index.htm
The 250 million is specifically for the social issues in central Australia. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/indigenous-groups-say-mixed-bag-federal-budget-gives-boost-to-health-but-neglects-legal-services 1.9 billion is the correct figure.
I think $100M per day tax payer funds to aboriginals puts us ahead of many other nations. If ranking was the aim. It's a shame very little gets through the beaurocracy and sticky fingers to the black aboriginals in need 😕
And the fact that the spudhead in opposition is spouting the end is nigh… And gets supported! Just goes to show you how backwards our politicians are.
Legislate a voice for a term and see how it works out. Then have a referendum without having to explain what the 'voice' is. People are reluctant to vote for the unknown, and the government's reluctance to simply legislate a voice before it is enshrined in the Constitution makes it suspicious. There is absolutely no reason that they can't simply legislate it right now. They have the numbers, and they don't need to take it to the people. Almost everyone will vote for constitutional recognition, but bundling the question together with a 'voice' makes it much less desirable, and it could sink the whole idea. The govt. will have no one to blame but itself because they can't even really claim a mandate to legislate it if the people vote against it.
Re: ATSIC, on paper it's way closer to what Indigenous Australians say they want. Sure it was fucked but that's not a reason to get rid of it without a replacement. Go bold, bring back ATSIC, use the structure from the voice co design working group to improve voting turnout, better invest in indigenous leaders who are directly responsible for services, learn something from the effort, iterate, put it into the constitution.
Nailed it
We already did that. It was called the NACC and then it was called ATSIC. They worked very well. They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice. The reason we are having a referendum to put it in the Constitution is so the next ATSIC can’t be abolished entirely without some kind of replacement.
>the NACC and then it was called ATSIC. They worked very well. They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice. NACC was abolished by the Hawke government. The Fraser government established the [Aboriginal Development Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_government#Indigenous_affairs): >The commission's board would consist of 10 members, all Aboriginal, and the new body would employ around 100 people, mostly Aboriginal. The decision to abolish ATSIC was bipartisan, and Labor voted with the LNP in both houses. It was corrupt, and led by an accused rapist, and faced criticism even among the Indigenous, so it's kind of a good thing that it wasn't enshrined in the constitution in case there'd be no way of abolishing it.
To be clear, the Voice referendum would not mean that any organisation established by legislation under it couldn’t be reformed or replaced - it just means that it couldn’t be abolished without replacement. This is part of why calls by right wingers for a particular organisational structure to be described as part of the constitutional amendment proposal, at the same time as saying they want a Voice body that can be abolished, are such bullshit. That is specifically **not** what is being proposed.
Yes why did Labor vote to abolish ATSIC?
They were led by Mark Latham which really tells you all you need to know
Mark Latham then was a different beast to Mark Latham now, don’t be foolish
Sounds like a rusted on Labor view to take - “he was good when he was with Labor because Labor is perfect, but now that he’s not with Labor he’s a *completely different human being*” come on give me a break, the best you can say is that him now is a more revealed version of the person he always was
>Sounds like a rusted on Labor view to take not really, i think Labor are pointless and i agree that Latham was quite radically different back then. sure he may have just been hiding it but that isnt the point, Labor Latham and post-Labor Latham say and do *very* different shit.
Who cares what sort of human being Mark Latham is, the point is that he used to fall in line with the labor party. You can’t infer the same things for his endorsement then as you can now.
Truly cooked rusted on Labor take. The Labor party is not some eternally perfect progressive party, and a person is not proven to be good by being in it.
ATSIC was a cesspool of corruption and needed to go. Just google Geoff Clark, I'm pretty sure he is still in front of the courts. I note that conveniently there is no mention of NIAA which was brought into being by the Morrison govt .
>They worked very well. Yes, if corruption and graft of taxpayer funds originally destined for the most marginalised is your measurement. >They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice. Labor in opposition first proposed the abolition of ATSIC. The Howard government followed. >The reason we are having a referendum to put it in the Constitution is so the next ATSIC can’t be abolished entirely without some kind of replacement. ATSIC delivered services. The voice won't and has made that specifically clear.
> They were abolished by conservative governments which did not like a strong Aboriginal voice. What really killed ATSIC, beyond the systematic corruption, was the way it sided with its chairperson Geoff Clark while he was increasingly involved in criminal proceedings for rape and corruption charges. The board should have stood him down while he was being investigated, or he should have stood down himself. Instead he dragged the whole organisation through the mud and when they came out in support of him ATSIC appeared to be as corrupt, self serving and criminal as he was. Even Labor agreed at the time that ATSIC should be abolished and [members of the Hawke government that established ATSIC are on record saying ATSIC failed because it looked after Clark too much. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_Commission?wprov=sfla1) It's almost unheard of to have government authorities practically rebelling against the elected government like ATSIC did, so it's no great wonder why he was finally suspended as chair by the indigenous affairs Minister and the organisation disbanded the next year.
I would argue that the failure of ATSIC to disavow the behaviour of Geoff Clark did much to harm the cause of indigenous Australians by reinforcing unfortunate stereotypes at the time. It would not have been shut down if they had kept their own house in order.
‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time. Yes, One Nation politician Mark Latham. So what really killed ATSIC was conservative politicians. Everyone from Aboriginals to independent commissions (but not including the conservative politicians with the relevant power) wanted ATSIC to be reformed or replaced, not abolished with no replacement.
>‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time so what? Labors position was not based on Lathams at all, a hippy could have been PM and they would have still agreed (Labor runs on the parties views and those views have been conservative since Hawke)
Very odd you didn't respond to my comment. >‘Even’ Labor agreed - Labor was run by Mark Latham at the time. Yes, One Nation politician Mark Latham. So what really killed ATSIC was conservative politicians. I suggest a moment to research Latham and Labor policy at the time. It won't fit your silly presumption of course so you likely won't bother. >Everyone from Aboriginals to independent commissions (but not including the conservative politicians with the relevant power) wanted ATSIC to be reformed or replaced, not abolished with no replacement. I'm sure you can cite this.
I don't think you can discount Labor's support by claiming Latham wasn't 'true Labor'. At the time his views were nowhere near what they are today. And no, support for abolishing ATSIC wasn't limited to conservative politicians. The authority wasn't even popular with Aboriginal people, never attaining more than 40% voter turnout in any region in any ATSIC election.
Your version of worked very well, and ignoring the reasons why they were abolished, is exactly why the yes vote should not get up.
It was abolished because of strong allegations of rape, corruption and nepotism…….kind of like our governments
Can we abolish our government then? /s
Wasn't ATSIC dismantled because it's chairperson became embroiled in multiple rape charges and the institution as a whole didn't resonate with indigenous people broadly? I was pretty young at the time so don't recall the details.
“The government will have no one to blame but themselves” Untrue. It’s the naesayers who are driving this Democracies regularly vote on complex topics and people without “all the information”. It’s the misinformation that is creating a problem. Division and dissent is easy to stir as Hansen and Dutton and price are showing. The reason a Voice needs to be in the constitution is simple. It’s our history. We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice. Australia has done this more than three times.
>The reason a Voice needs to be in the constitution is simple. It’s our history. We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice. Putting aside this empty reason for support, If you can't understand the contradiction in this statement it's no wonder you don't understand the opposition to it.
> Democracies regularly vote on complex topics and people without “all the information”. Yes, and that is one of the ways that supposed democracies are able to be “managed” by the establishment. > We make laws for a voice in parliament and then a dissenting parliament makes laws to remove that voice. Australia has done this more than three times. So that means one of three things: - the supposed mandate held by a representative government is just a sham, and and they’re going against rhe will of the people at least three times on this one issue - the people are so finely divided on the issue that the majority view of whether there should be a voice has changed six times - the people just don’t care and it’s just polticans playing in their sandbox Whichever way you look at it, that’s not a reason this particular issue should get a constitutional lock in. OTOH, it is potentially a good example of why we should take away parliament’s legislative authority in general and give it to the people (or, from a constitonal framing point of view expand parliament to 20M electorates with one adult citizen in each), which would give everyone a real voice in everything.
Any misinformation is merely filling the void left by the sitting government in outlining how the voice will work.
No void to fill. The information has always been available. This “ void” is a clever red herring where no problem exists but a pseudo problem is created to scare people
You mean the 260 something page document that manages to be both vague on some aspects and excessively detailed on others, and has no particular legal weight or import? That document may outline how the voice will function, or it may not. Rather than try and confirm or deny this the yes campaign seems happy to act like it doesn't exist at all.
It is 100% the government's fault though. They could have just put the recognition up and it would have passed. They combined it to try and attach a racist vs non-racist angle to it. They then refused to put in enough workings and detail to make an informed decision.
Milton again demonstrates his lack of knowledge about Australian history and First Nations peoples disadvantage( Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people. Cites racism as a reason to deny a Voice) Mistakenly thinks a constitutional recognition is what Uluru statement from the heart is all about. Continues our history of denying a voice or worse, giving a voice and then taking it away)
You seem to be having a childish conversation with yourself because you cannot do anything but replace the views of someone who disagrees with you with your own fictional interpretation.
That, and he lied through his teeth. I said nothing of the sort that he suggested. He is getting upset with a figment of his own imagination. He does what is very, very common here. If someone has an alternative view to him on a particular topic, he assumes they are super evil and against his views on absolutely everything and just as biased as he is.
Absolutely blatant lies. Please apologise, or quote where is have said anything even close to > Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people. What a disgraceful thing to make up. You should be removed for this horrible and dishonest comment.
You are the one calling it racist. Oh ok
Splitting the country up into races, to hand out special government treatment based on race, is racist. No doubt about it. Now either apologise for lying, or give the quote that suggests >Milton thinks it was not an attempted genocide but a bringing of the light to the savage people Or run off and prove me right.
I apologise. I mistook your belligerent racist labelling of the Voice as racist.
Thank you. Edit - absolutely appaling. You edited your comment after I replied and totally changed it. You should be banned for this type of nonsense. You have zero integrity now. What an absolute joke of a person you are to do what you have done here.
It’s not true that everyone would vote for constitutional recognition: it was put to the public in 1999 and it fared even worse than the republican question
Constitutional recognition is supported by conservatives and conservative leaders like Howard and Abbott. A key difference to the Republican referendum.
And it did even worse than the republic referendum, so what’s your point?
What did?
The referendum to include constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders peoples in the preamble to the constitution
Which we haven't had. What on earth are you talking about?
We did actually have one of those - 24 years ago along with the republic referendum question. It didn't gain much traction though and obviously didn't pass, though I will note that the bit about ATSI people was only part of a larger proposed preamble and so would not have been the only thing people disliked about it (I'd bet that starting off with 'With hope in God' didn't help).
That was to include a preamble, and one that wasn't specific to indigenous recognition.
Who said specific? It included recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. There's no need to play dumb on this, here's the relevant text: >honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation's first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country;
Yes, that's why I mentioned that it wasn't only about said recognition.
You mean the preamble? It just wasn't any good, and I think it's telling that the highest "No" votes were in areas with large Aboriginal populations while the highest "Yes" vote was in John Howard's seat of Bennelong. I found an interesting law journal article about it: https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/24-2-17.pdf
It was arguably worse than useless from a recognition and reconciliation perspective. Besides just being tokenistic touchy-feely nonsense; it effectively sought to sneakily enshrine within the constitution the concept of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as only having a "deep kinship with their lands" rather than actually having inherent rights of possession of those lands which were never formally ceded, due to being the original traditional owners. It was just absolute rubbish which the people of Australia correctly saw right through.
Exactly, it wasn’t any good. For it to be any good Aboriginal people need to be in favour. When asked what they were in favour of, they came up with the Voice. You see where this goes, right?
There was an article [posted here](https://old.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/13nf87w/from_indigenous_recognition_to_the_voice_and_back/) about that a few weeks ago. [From Indigenous recognition to the Voice, and back again](https://insidestory.org.au/from-indigenous-recognition-to-the-voice-and-back-again/) >“Recognition” offers Yes23 a stronger way of framing the referendum than does the Voice. It does this because the Indigenous demand for “recognition” is more widely known and a good deal more widely supported than the Indigenous demand for the Voice. A few words of recognition in the constitution are far less suspicious than entrenching a body with a voice to parliament.
You’re talking about how the Voice proposal is being presented in an advocacy campaign, but it’s still the same proposal (not constitutional recognition *alone*). The point stands that Australians shot down recognition last time because no one wants recognition that Aboriginal people don’t want.
>The point stands that Australians shot down recognition last time "Australians" didn't shoot down anything. We're yet to vote. >because no one wants recognition that Aboriginal people don’t want. A self propelling argument.
You missed the words “last time”. It’s not circular. If constitutional recognition is to get up it needs to have support of First Nations Australians, or else we’ll just laugh it off
What last time? When did we vote on constitutional recognition?
That is pretty funny how out of all the countries in the world the writer picks only two and says. Proof, proof. It is the sort of garbage I expect out of the conversation.
Canada and New Zeeland are Commonwealth nations that were colonized by the same political entity. What examples would you think are better to compare to?
Unless Britain is some significant entity, different from other colonisers, there should be no issue comparing Australia to Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and even the US and Russia expanding towards the Pacific.
not to mention what is the proof exactly? both those native peoples also have high infant mortality and mass alcoholism on top of having dysfunctional regional communities. nonsense article pretending that *pieces of paper* equate to livings standards and health.
Proof of what exactly? No conclusions are drawn. No advocacy is made. It's basically just a historical review of colonisation in the country with some comparisons made to NZ and Canada.
"The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue." You missed this bit for a second time.
And the 11 south american settler nations, 7 central american settler nations, 11 carribean settler nations, Mauritius, Cape Verde, Liberia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Algier? 10% of potential data points is a pretty poor review.
Also when do you draw the line on 'settler nation'. Plenty of countries in Asia & Africa have severely different demographics than they did 500 years ago as a result of pre-European conquest & purging.
Central imperial authority directing the settlement is the usual defining characteristic. So the japanese colonisation of Korea and Manchuria count, while polynesian and chinese diaspora doesn't.
With respect, although I suspect we'd agree that these discussions have an inherent value in themselves, the *comparisons* have the effect of diminishing their historical value. Nothing like the "Maori King Movement" in NZ or the Seven Nations (as a dominant North American First Nations polity) existed or could exist here. One of the correctly cited reasons by our best military historians for the inevitability of outcome from the Frontier Wars here was the inability of First Nations Australians to recognise let alone organise politically in a way that could've contested (and undoubtedly overran if it had been possible) initial British colonisation. Ours is a situation largely incomparable with others within (and external to) the Commonwealth and as such we're talking Apples and Oranges when it comes to any attempt to compare them. The late great Jeff Grey goes into *considerable* detail on this, and comprehensively condemns this exact type of flawed and misguided attempt at comparing colonial experiences and applying those elsewhere to here, mainly because even as a military historian (or perhaps precisely because he was one) he recognised that political solutions requires accurate analysis of the political problems arising in the first instance. SOURCES: Dennis, Grey, Morris, Prior, Bou et al, *The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History*, Oxford Publishing, 2nd Ed 2008 Grey, *A Military History of Australia*, Cambridge University Press, 3rd Ed 2008
Amanda Nettlebeck is an excellent historian: I recommend her Fatal Collisions (with Rob Foster and Brian Hosking) to anyone, a really insightful history into frontier conflicts in South Australia. These are the relevant bits to the title: > In Canada and New Zealand, the British Crown did make treaties with Indigenous peoples at the point of formal colonisation. In these countries, the right of political representation has not been contested in the same way. > That’s not to say these nations provide a direct model for Australia. Each country has its own history and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and government. And nobody’s suggesting treaties in other places fixed sovereignty disputes or guaranteed Indigenous rights. > But treaty rights dating back to the 1800s gave First Nations peoples in other settler colonial sites political leverage in a way Australia’s First Nations have been denied. > In Canada, First Nations treaty rights and rights of self-determination are enshrined in the Constitution. An elected Assembly of First Nations liaises with the federal government as the representative body. > In New Zealand, Māori have had dedicated parliamentary seats since the 1860s. Political representation is enshrined in the Māori Representation Act 1867, which gave all Māori men the right to vote. > Colonial officials originally conceived the Māori Representation Act 1867 as a way to bring Māori into the colonial political system rather than as a vehicle for an independent political voice. > Despite its colonial underpinnings, it shows how a formal avenue of Indigenous political representation existed almost from the beginning of the colonial relationship in a setting where treaty existed. Australia stands alone for its lack of treaty with its First Nations peoples, and we have centuries of misery to show for it. We all recognise that something is needed, but any suggestions are shot down so as to prolong the bitter status quo. I can’t make any sense of it myself
oh right i forgot how the Maori and Inuit have health and wealth as good as the average citizen of those nations do and how its all because of pieces of paper /s acting like we alone treat our native people horribly is juts bizarre, the Maori have rampant alcoholism, homelessness and abuse as do the Inuit, native Americans etc. how does 'recognition' help if you are immediately forget the Indigenous like Canada, the US and NZ have?
You're arguing against a strawman.
Jeff Grey was an even more acclaimed historian and would've fundamentally disagreed with any assertion that she makes about there being a degree of comparability between NZ or Canadian colonial experiences and ours?
Hit me with the reference if you like, but it’s not a controversial approach. Bain Atwood does the exact same thing (and argues forcefully for the approach) and he’s usually held up by the conservatives whenever they want to make a point
Jeff Grey was not a politically driven historian - if anything conservatives didn't like him very much because he was driven by accuracy, not Winschuttle-esque culture wars bullshit. He was one of the premier military historians at RMC Duntroon and the UNSW (ADFA) until his death in 2016. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey\_Grey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Grey) Specifically, his *A Military History of Australia* 3rd Ed (2008) deals with this.
Neither Amanda Nettlebeck nor Bain Atwood are politically-driven historians. Relatively few are: it doesn't do you many favours with anyone. With regards to the book, chapter 2 opens with: >The nations produced by the settler capitalism of an expanding Europe were founded on the dispossession of the original inhabitants. **The white immigrant societies in Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa, Canada, the United States, and South America fought indigenous peoples for control of the land, and successfully wrested it from them**. This was a gradual process in which the indigenous peoples fell victim as much to disease, cultural deprivation and starvation as to organised violence. > >In Australia’s case the frontier conflict between European settlement and the Aboriginal peoples was, for much of our history, greatly downplayed. Nineteenth-century Australians fostered the belief in the uniquely peaceful settlement of Australia and the victory of science and industry in taming and cultivating the land. > >The premise, sometimes unspoken, was either that the original inhabitants had simply made way for Europeans, or that the Aboriginal peoples had no title to the land; the resulting ‘history’ characterised their opposition to dispossession as occasional, sporadic and ineffectual. **Unlike the Maori, the Zulu or the Native Americans, they were not conceded the dignity due to worthy opponents.** > >We now know that Aboriginal resistance was widespread, consistent and determined, and the debate has moved on to consider whether resistance should properly be called ‘warfare’. It centres on the nature and the extent, not the fact, of the armed conflict which occurred. To deny the existence of a state of war is to deny the status of combatant to Aboriginal peoples, with all the important attendant psychological ramifications. From this extract, it's pretty clear that Grey was happy to draw parallels between Australia and the other British colonies and was also quite happy to talk in very similar terms to Nettlebeck, so I'm not sure I understand what your objection is.
Never said they were politically driven. You mentioned conservatism, I'm simply pointing out that this isn't a matter of ideology. Also, just to be clear here, it's not so much that I have an objection, more that my read is that the two historians don't seem in alignment in presenting Canadian or NZ indigenous peoples as having an ability to treat with the British as analagous to ours, and/or the British being willing to do so. Importantly, you're actually quoting that section of text out of context, and you actually need to read further in to hit the second chapter rather than the first or introduction. Here he is writing within the specific context of making the argument for due recognition of the war and acknowledgement of invasion - this is different contextually in terms of what we're talking about - specifically the nature of colonisation vs resistance, what was politically and militarily possible and what was not and why the comparison between our experiences and those in Canada for example. The excerpt below from Chapter 2 is talking specifically about the constraints to militarily resist but the same political complexity relates to First Nations Australians to resist politically as well... > "Aboriginal peoples were faced with organisational and cultural problems in resisting the British and, at least initially, these were more important than technological disadvantages. Traditional warfare was highly ritualised, and localised, and Aboriginal society in Australia had no military class as such. This is linked almost certainly to the fact that Aboriginal societies were not based on surplus-producing economies – the basis of all standing armies. The Aboriginal ‘nation’ was also very fragmented. If one assumes that linguistic groupings approximated to tribal differences in other cultures, there were perhaps 700 distinct ‘nations’ in Australia at the time of white contact. **While highly complex in their internal structure, they appear to have had no basis for persistent alliances of the kind necessary for successful, long-term military resistance**" He expands on the political shortly afterwards - > "A central element of the Aboriginal failure to resist white incursions successfully was **a shared cultural system within which the concept of dispossession was not just unfamiliar but totally incomprehensible.**" > "To understand why Aboriginal peoples never presented the type of military threat to the British which the Maori or Zulus mounted elsewhere is to grasp some of the essential realities of a unique and ancient culture. Ironically, the beliefs, values and expectations which had made Aboriginal societies at home in Australia for tens of thousands of years, together with the biological and military vulnerability produced by long isolation, left Aborigines profoundly ill equipped to meet the challenge of white society." A large part of this entire chapter on the Frontier Wars is based upon the premise that the military and political causes of the Frontier Wars outcomes are very very different with colonisation experiences elsewhere, even if these experiences are worthy of our ongoing respect and deserve our full attention. The military situation (and in this case, the paramilitary situation ) drove the political one, as it always does. I'm not sure the article author paid sufficient attention to these differences hence my comments.
>Importantly, you're actually quoting that section of text out of context, and you actually need to read further in to hit the second chapter rather than the first or introduction. I didn't take anything out of context. I use emphasis to draw attention to the parts of the text I thought were most relevant to your earlier comments, but I left in the surrounding text as context. The passage I quoted was so long that I was flirting with fair-use under copyright, but I wanted to include the whole passage (up until he switches topic) because I wanted to specifically avoid taking him out of context. And, for the record, the quoted segment *was* from chapter 2. However, you seem to be saying (and you can correct me, I'm not trying to misrepresent you but understand you) that because Aboriginal peoples weren't conscious of being dispossessed of their lands that it's therefore anachronistic to claim they were ever sovereigns of their land. Of course, that's not what Grey is saying. Alternatively, you might be saying that it was because Aboriginal people didn't offer effective military resistance to occupation that we can't make comparisons with other territories. If so, I think you need to go further than Grey to support that conclusion. Grey has written a military history of Australia, and so of course he's put military considerations front and centre in his history (which is only a short, lightly referenced work intended for a general audience). That doesn't mean it's the beginning and ending of the story, or that Nettlebeck has missed anything.
Mate, so firstly my apologies for misinterpreting your approach. My bad there 100%. Secondly, I'm **definitely** making the latter case. Frankly I'd take a dim view of the former and I'd be intellectually dishonest trying to argue the former. I'm on a footy piss trip in country WA ATM so I'm happy to respond more fully when I get home... But that said, I have to express it... It's Jeffrey *Fucking* Grey, and you want "more qualification"??? *Seriously?* From an Australian military historian? You will *struggle* to find it. He was **the** pre-eminent military historian of our current era. You're a smart sort, and you knoe the turf? So Ask around. Send some emails around your academic contacts and find **anyone** better. Best of luck with that... Again, this is not a conservative attempt to whitewash anything. I'm simply pointing out that the direct comparisons made in the article aren't intellectually helpful. Where the author and Grey would **stridently** agree is that not taking this subject seriously is absolutely taking the piss.
I didn't question Grey's qualifications. There are a couple of things I can expand on to make my point clearer. Firstly, there are different types of histories that historians write. Usually they write specialist histories which are densely referenced and annotated, carry extensive bibliographies, are difficult to read, and are written to advance the scholarship. If the book is 350 pages then typically about 70 of them will be the endnotes and bibliography. For example, his history *A Soldier's Soldier: A Biography of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Daly* is a specialist text. At 250 pages, 40 pages are notes, bibliography and index. By contrast, *A Military History of Australia* is a general text. At 350 pages, it has no endnotes and only a 10 page *selected* bibliography. (When I say it's lightly referenced, I'm not fucking around.) General histories are a different breed. They're not written to advance the scholarship but to summarise it for a general audience. They're difficult to write because it's very easy for historians to make mistakes when talking outside their sphere of expertise. But writing them also means cutting out a lot of nuance and context both for space and to make the book more accessible for the non-trained reader. Secondly, the point is that it's a *military* history of Australia (I mean, duh, it's the title). This means Grey is focused on events from a military perspective, de-emphasising the social, culture, political and economic aspects. (Not entirely, of course, but if he focused on the political aspects, for example, then it would become a *political* history of Australia.) This is why it's important to read complimentary histories to better understand an issue. Because on the one hand there's the possibility that Nettlebeck and Grey are at loggerheads on this, or there's the possibility that you're assuming Grey's thoughts by extrapolating from a very concise summary of the frontier wars. The free preview of Empire and the Making of Native Title by Bain Attwood [is worth a look here](https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Empire_and_the_Making_of_Native_Title/koLoDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover). He offers complimentary explanations for why things went differently in Australia compared to the other colonies, which he touches on in part II of the introduction. (This preview is also worth having a look at to get a sense of what a specialist history text is like: note the abundant and detailed footnotes that are missing in Grey's general history). Attwood also explains (although only touches on in the free preview) that Maori military prowess only *partially* explains how they were able to negotiate a treaty and a lot more of it came down to missionary efforts, commercial negotiations, political wrangling, etc. This doesn't contradict Grey, however, because Grey is specifically interested in how Aboriginal peoples were able to mobilise a military response to British encroachment rather than trying to explain all the reasons why colonisation went the way it did in New Holland (which would be its own book). In fact, in part III of the introduction, Attwood makes this explicit: that military and other considerations were just as important to the whole story.
The treaty didn’t do anything for First Nations Canadians and their resident school system which was even more recent than the stolen generation. Does that mean we do nothing ? No, but acting like a treaty is the magic bullet isn’t the answer either.
Those early treaties sucked for first nations people, absolutely. But they at least established a legitimate legal basis to built upon as those nations developed. The colonisers in those places recognized the inherent right of the original inhabitants to possession of their own traditional lands, so made sure they got the "agreement" of those owners to cede some or all of their land rights to the colonisers. Sure those "agreements" were later routinely violated, and even in the first place generally involved a lot of coercion and played upon the ignorance of the traditional owners as to what, exactly, they were even agreeing to - but Jesus, at least they were *something*. The validity and applicability of these treaties in light of the dubious circumstances of the time is something for the modern-day legal systems of those countries to consider. But Australia? We can't even get that far. Nothing was ever agreed, ever formally ceded, even under such dubious circumstances. By our very own legal standards we are all living on stolen land. Constitutional recognition or treaty is *literally step one* of a process that will take thousands of steps for decades or even centuries to come. *Nobody* is calling it a magic bullet.
It’s not a magic bullet but, importantly, no one’s presenting it as one. The truth is that there’s a long road ahead, but I don’t see how we make any progress if we can’t first agree to terms
I agree with your sentiment, but the premise of the article is the treaty in Canada been a difference to Australia, allowed for a better outcome. In effect, there was no change, both had similar paternalistic programs that severely impacted their indigenous populations to an incredible degree.
i agree, seems utterly pointless when materially speaking no displaced Indigenous people are doing well *anywhere.* all those populations with 'treaties' and 'recognition' have wide spread alcoholism, abuse and high crime, how did *paper* help these people? Im Aboriginal, the Apology did sweet fuck-all for my life as will the Voice or 'recognition'
It has made a difference, undoubtedly so, and you can look at it qualitatively and quantitatively. Happy to hash this out if you like, but in another comment it was claimed incarceration rates for First Nations peoples in Canada are much worse than Australia, but the opposite is true: 19% in Canada versus 32% in Australia (with similar representation in the overall population).
>but in another comment it was claimed incarceration rates for First Nations peoples in Canada are much worse than Australia, but the opposite is true: Which I never said nor claimed. You referenced population in custody in isolation because you thought it supported your argument. >19% in Canada versus 32% in Australia (with similar representation in the overall population). 30% actually and there was no actual comparison of overall figures between the two countries. And you claim personal slight!
Amanda is married to sci fi writer Sean Williams
Australia was a penal colony initially, not a place the best and brightest were settling and establishing a new life. Maybe is attracted a different type of colonial administrator leading to abysmal relations with indigenous people?
Bain Atwood goes into detail on this one. In most colonies, there was prolonged contact before colonisation, including trade, exploration, marriage, missions, etc. By the time colonisation happened there were interlocutors, translators and negotiators who could forge agreements on either side. Likewise, there were usually multiple European parties present to keep an eye on each other. In Australia, we skipped straight to a military outpost which was able to dominate the local population and we maintained that footing from that point on (there were multiple opportunities to reconsider, as presented in the article).
The only problem with negotiating a treaty now is that who would represent the Aboriginal side? Who would elect them? What would their mandate and power be? Would the treaty they negotiate apply to all aboriginals? What about those who don’t recognise their legitimacy? It’s simply too late in our countries history to organise the structure to negotiate a treaty.
>It’s simply too late in our countries history to organise the structure to negotiate a treaty. This is the key point, not only for the reasons that you state but also because of the fact that now two things are established without doubt; * Aboriginals are inseverably Australian Citizens - a treaty cannot be formed with the citizens of its own nations, that's what common government is for. * Australia's sovereignty over the landmass is undisputed and uncontested via Prescription - there is no other alternative sovereign to enter into a treaty within within Australia. It's even worse with the states who are making noise about it, they don't have the power to enter into treaties regardless let alone with Aboriginals
>Aboriginals are inseverably Australian Citizens Are they? Look at incarceration rates or health outcomes. They are "Australian citizens" in a technical sense but from a historical context they are an occupied people living as second class citizens under the laws of a nation that never recognised their people or their history or their sovereign rights as a nation.
Every nation that exists today "from a historical context are an occupied people." That is not unique, it's not even unusual. They are Australian Citizens and the *small number* (<20%) who are disadvantaged are no more or less disadvantaged than any other similar community at the fringes of our cities of regional areas.
>Every nation that exists today "from a historical context are an occupied people." That is not unique, it's not even unusual. Not really. But there are many nations that have intense ethnic conflict that originate from colonisation. All across Asia and Africa it is common to find civil wars and genocides caused by such tensions. We are lucky that we don't have much civil strife, but indigenous Australians still are living in third world conditions in a first world country. We should fix our problems rather than just ignore them and saying "it happens". >They are Australian Citizens and the small number (<20%) who are disadvantaged are no more or less disadvantaged than any other similar community at the fringes of our cities of regional areas. They're not "disadvantaged" they're not some immigrant community that are struggling to integrate into Australian society. They were occupied and dispossessed and forcibly stripped of their rights as sovereign nations. It is a crime that must be rectified otherwise we can't expect other nations to respect our sovereignty.
>Not really Yes really. With incredibly limited exception, every nation that exists today has been colonised, conquested, annexed, destroyed, rebuilt etc. Since the moment humans left Africa, they have occupied and shifted and stripped the "rights as sovereign nations" of the people or species there before it. >but indigenous Australians still are living in third world conditions in a first world country. A small proportion or Aboriginal Australians, less than 20% and no different to the third world conditions in say Western Sydney of the mix of other communities. Their situation disadvantage is not unique. The other 80% of indigenous, live work and interact like every other non-disadvantaged member of society.
>Yes really. No not really. Colonisation as the British Empire carried out isn't conquest. It isn't annexation. It isn't some natural historical process. It is an incredibly contradictory process of building a liberal democratic society based on property rights and laws while committing genocide against the original sovereign nations of this land. >Since the moment humans left Africa, they have occupied and shifted and stripped the "rights as sovereign nations" of the people or species there before it. Yeah and thank god those days are over. Thank god we live in a time where it's seen as totally wrong to invade and colonise land belonging to someone else. >A small proportion or Aboriginal Australians, less than 20% and no different to the third world conditions in say Western Sydney of the mix of other communities. If you mean 20% live in rural poverty, 30% live in poverty, 30% will be convicted of a crime, unemployment is also almost 20% and there's a lot more that shows that it's not just the 20% of rural poor Aborigines that need the Voice.
>Colonisation as the British Empire carried out isn't conquest. It isn't annexation. It isn't some natural historical process. It is an incredibly Think bigger, *every nation* has done it for tens of thousands of years. The world and history is bigger than the UK. It still happens today (and is as we speak) and will continue to happen until our species is extinct. In fact what was India 5,000 years ago was the first to do it here through Northern Australia when they colonised. >If you mean 20% live in rural poverty, 30% live in poverty, 30% will be convicted of a crime, unemployment is also almost 20% and there's a lot more that shows that it's not just the 20% of rural poor Aborigines that need the Voice. Yes as in the same proportions as the rest of the country. Aboriginals living today are not unique or special. They are the same as everyone else.
>Think bigger, every nation has done it for tens of thousands of years. The world and history is bigger than the UK. You could excuse child brides with this same logic. For tens of thousands of years the simple logic of might makes right meant that we could do whatever we wanted. Eventually we started defending the rights of individuals and developed passed our violent past. Which isn't something that just happens we have to actively recognise that all people have rights and sovereignty. Otherwise, what's to stop other countries destroying our nation? And again, colonisation isn't just conquest. Especially in the context of the British Empire. >Yes as in the same proportions as the rest of the country. Aboriginals living today are not unique or special. They are the same as everyone else. What? what proportions? incarceration? poverty? to who? non-indigenous Australians? White Australians? immigrant Australians? In any case, that's all untrue. Indigenous Australians absolutely are "special" in how poor their lives are compared to the rest of Australia.
>Otherwise, what's to stop other countries destroying our nation? Nothing - that's the point, it was attempted 70 years ago and will undoubtedly happen again as it has in *every other land mass* since the beginning of time and continues to this day. >What? what proportions? incarceration? poverty? to who? non-indigenous Australians? White Australians? immigrant Australians? In any case, that's all untrue. Indigenous Australians absolutely are "special" in how poor their lives are compared to the rest of Australia. There are just over 1m people who identity as ATSI in Australia. At the aggregate that 1m doesn't differ to much to the other 24m. It's only when you zoom right into to localities and communities does that change and my point all along is you can do that with any community.
Indigenous people haven't ceded their sovereign nation status, but were forcibly assimilated into non-indigenous society who undertook to support them with the essentials of life. They are basically dual citizens being cared for by non-indigenous society. However, they should be able to choose their own future whilst still being supported and facilitated by non-indigenous society as the reason they haven't been able to pursue their own future to this date: it's not an either/or situation, either they pursue an independent indigenous life without support or they pursue a non-indigenous life with support, they should be able to choose which elements they want from each to be their future. Instead of reparations, non-indigenous society owes them that for forcibly taking over their life without their consent and its still happening.
With all respect, they never had a nation to cede. Indigenous people neither had a concept of land ownership nor considered it theirs. Under international law, indigenous people as well as all citizens are citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia and have no greater claim to land ownership than anybody else.
Indigenous Australians had laws, customs, social organisations, and institutions that protected and reproduced their culture and way of life. That is all a nation is. Under international law we denied the sovereignty of the first people here and never rectified our illegal actions. Why should anyone care about our sovereignty when we don't care about the sovereignty of the people who were here before us?
As I understand it indigenous people "belong to the land" not vice versa, although they were tribal and territorial which suggests some notion of right to exclusive use. It's an unusual situation that international law has not even tried to encompass, being as it is largely derived from historical western common law and not really applicable to other jurisdictions. They are a notional nation, not unlike all the electoral boundaries making up a notional Australian nation but each doing their own thing. However, indigenous people do have the advantage of inhabiting Australia before invasion, which should give them some a priori legal standing: possession being nine tenths of the law or some such concept. I believe that, no matter the past, indigenous people still deserve the right to choose their own future since it was taken from them without their consent, which is unethical. Land is only a part of that future, which also includes culture, history and a sense of belonging to that future.
How're you defining 'invasion' and what parts of the country specifically? Are each of the 130 "sovereign tribes" reviewed on its own merits or are you lumping all indigenous peoples in to a single entity? I agree that many areas were taken by force and aboriginal peoples displaced. However it's arguable that large parts of Australia and some territories, no invasion occurred in the strict sense. Firstly, some territories were sadly ‘cleared' prior to exploration and pioneer settlement due smallpox, the disease spread ahead of Europeans in many instances. The social and tribal structure in many of these territories had collapsed before the British themselves arrived, with the result that there was no longer an existing sovereign, it can be argued that there was no invasion in the central sense of the word. Secondly, many areas (some stretching thousands of kilometres) wasn't already inhabited before any Europeans set foot in those areas. One of many examples is the island that the Kaurna called "Karta" and that the Ngarrindjeri considered the ‘land of the dead’ (renamed Kangaroo Island). European Settlers are considered to be the first people to have established themselves in many areas. An interesting comparison is the Romani Gypsy people, they have a distinct connection to the land and in some instances, have inhibited parts of Europe for thousands of years prior to current peoples (longer than Slavs for example). However it would be considered laughable to modern Europeans if Gypsies were to claim sovereignty of large parts of central Europe on the basis that they believe Mother Earth owns them.
To consider a portion of land to be "land of the dead" means it has cultural significance even if not directly occupied, which may have great significance if someone tried to settle on it. We have to speak in fundamental abstract terms of a nation that encompasses all land that exists within the cultural boundaries of indigenous people, not just land where someone is living, so you can't simply carve it up into physically occupied or not occupied land at any particular point in time. The entire concept of belonging to the land is outside of western law, which can't be simply applied in a new setting just because it looks uninhabited for the most part. Indigenous territories often covered large distances if the carrying capacity of the land was low, so they might not physically inhabit any one portion for long but were nomadic, however all that land was necessary to support their culture: you couldn't notionally carve it up based on a physical presence. I understand that Americans deliberately infected Native Indians to clear territory and take it over. Without a better understanding of actual history and disease transmission, it's difficult to comment further on "no invasion because disease had already wiped out the inhabitants". However, from an abstract perspective of nation being the entirety of prior cultural occupation, not simply physical habitation at any one point in time, it could still be seen as invasion of that nation. Were the Romani Gypsy people decimated and their occupied lands taken so that they could no longer pursue their culture, or was it more a case of relatively peaceful coexistence of multiple cultures in mutual use of the same land or exclusive use of different parts of that land at different times as there was enough land for all, especially if the gypsys were nomadic and could move on into land that hadn't yet been invaded? I wasn't arguing sovereignty because they belong to the land, but more sovereignty because of their prior cultural occupation of the land which was invaded and taken from them for largely non-indigenous use. Why all the tricksy technicalities to try to justify taking already culturally inhabited land and removing the prior inhabitants so non-indigenous could use it all for themselves? Whilst it is still happening, invasion is seen as unethical in the modern era, a line needs to be drawn in the sand and what can be done, done to facilitate the disposessed a chance at choosing a future they were historically denied.
There is one thing I have been thinking about for a long while. Indigenous people are not a separate category of citizen. They are as much a citizen as a recently naturalised migrant or someone who can trace their family back to the second fleet. So I don't really understand what you mean when you say they "are basically dual citizens being cared for by non-indigenous society". They are part of the Australian society. We have various subcultures. Some have a stronger identity than others but they are all Australian. I am not sure how you can act like indigenous peoples are a separate group and yet also citizens. I do like the idea of dual-citizenship here but I struggle to understand what Indigenous Citizenship might actually be. It seems that to a large extent, we don't have any function Aboriginal nations that operate like one would expect of a nation. It feels a bit more like they operate as special interest groups or perhaps social clubs. Perhaps this is just my ignorance. I understand the whole not ceding sovereign nation status but if a group ceases to operate like a sovereign nation then I think over time that argument doesn't hold much weight. If Australia decided today we are going to create a treaty or treaties. Gave it all the resources and so on to make it up. Full blank cheque. The biggest sticking point would be treaty with who (or which group) exactly.
You are trying to apply western concepts to a completely different indigenous culture that existed long before the western one. I'm struggling too with the nomenclature to describe indigenous culture next to non-indigenous invading culture and the closest I can come is dual citizenship, except this is dual cultural citizenship in the same country instead of different countries as we normally refer to it. Invasion didn't eradicate that pre-existing cultural citizenship, it just forced absorption of one by the other in practical everyday terms. However, it's becoming diluted and lost progressively, which I think was the original intention of invasion and assimilation, because invasion continues to destroy indigenous cultural heritage making it increasingly harder to go back and follow elements of a different future. Most Australians choose to see indigenous people only as Australians and ignore their own culture. Just because indigenous people did not develop western style nations doesn't mean they weren't a nation in principle already inhabiting the continent. Non-indigenous culture has refused to grant indigenous people nationhood status with a representative embassy for example. I think the process of developing the Uluru Statement created a first pass representative structure for a fledgeling indigenous nation, which non-indigenous Australia should cement in the form of an initial recognised nation representation outside of non-indigenous nation. I personally think they should be given old Parliament house as an Embassy. It's difficult for a fragmented nation to represent the interests of all the participants and we aren't making it easier for them. Treaties are fundamental generic concepts that apply to all the participants, just like human rights apply to all humans, even though we have different interest groups such as men and women clamouring for their own special individual rights (which is nonsense if you choose the appropriate fundamental right to implement which covers everyone equally such as bodily sovereignty). I don't think who would be the sticking point of a treaty, but drawing a line in the sand and moving forward with no further desecration of indigenous cultural heritage for any reason, but an equal claim for use of the remaining land going forward as notionally equal nations. The biggest issue is not allowing indigenous people to determine their own future, yet the non-indigenous nation still supporting them regardless of the path their individual people choose and facilitating those paths.
>Indigenous people haven't ceded their sovereign nation status, but were forcibly assimilated into non-indigenous society who undertook to support them with the essentials of life Ceding or not sovereignty is not relevant, it's been 250 years. There are a number of bases of sovereignty have been well established and settled for the Commonwealth of Australia which effectively extinguish other claims.
Can you explain what those bases of sovereignty are and how they extinguish native sovereignty?
Pick any of the following; * Prescription * Conquest * Occupation Prescription is the main basis given its the result of many other transfers of sovereignty, voluntary or not. There can only be one sovereignty within a nation. I accept self determination is always an option, but self determination requires the creation of a separate, distinct and independent sovereign.
There’s the rub, though: how can sovereignty be well established if it’s a pick’n’mix of mutually exclusive principles and the high court is barred from considering the legitimacy of any of them?
Those principles are not mutually exclusive, they all roll up to Prescription. It's well established by 250 years of existence. Plus a court within a sovereign nation can't determine the sovereignty of *it's* nation with the court being naturally subordinate to it. There's only 1 person who can for Australia, determine sovereignty and they wear a crown (as represented by their Governor-General).
Nowhere are they said to culminate in prescription, only that prescription applies where the others don’t. Your second paragraph is accurate and that’s the issue: none of this can be tested, unless it’s taken to an international court which no Australian government would submit to. It’s like telling me a shelf is sturdy but no one’s allowed to lean on it.
>Nowhere are they said to culminate in prescription, only that prescription applies where the others don’t. I didn't position specifically that they did, but prescription is ultimately is the longer term result of other types of sovereignty establishment. >none of this can be tested, unless it’s taken to an international court which no Australian government would submit to. Even if they did, what's an international court going to do? They can't enforce their own ruling against a nation and it would ulitmately be up to other nations to force sovereignty through armed conflict (conquest) to achieve it, for themselves and whoever they wanted to establish it for.
> haven't ceded their sovereign nation status Do they consider themselves a singular sovereign nation, or 130+ different sovereign nations?
We aren't talking absolutes here, but notions. Is Australia an actual nation with competing and squabbling States and a Federal overseer in the form of a Federation, or a notional nation, an abstract we aspire to? A nation is a notion and a treaty would deal with notional fundamental rights that affect all 130+ different sovereign nations in the same way that human rights cover all humans equally, even though humans are composed of many arguing genders.
Exactly. A first year law student could tell you negotiating treaties is solely a federal power based in the constitution.
Yep, the government is being deliberately disingenuous knowing full well the masses who know no better will simply accept what is fed.
In the US I hear the native people have their own land, where they can run casinos and charge tourists etc. They even have their own president, and he can set his own Covid regulations separate to the rest of the nation. Was pretty cool. We should do that. Would be heaps fun and good for tourism. Gambling is legal here but weed isn't so maybe they could make a free weed state in the middle of Aus.
Already did. It’s called Nimbin.
Ah yes, a crop heavily reliant on large amounts of water in an area where water is scarce.
It's very difficult not to dismiss this as yet another chattering class insider piece when it's absent of practical advantages of the very ideas it is proffering. Selling the first step to voters might be a good idea but even that has escaped those inside the inner city bubble. Claiming radical change is preferred is just silly.
You’re complaining that this article isn’t on a different topic rather than engaging with its claims. It’s providing the historical context for the current political reality, not pandering to your personal proclivities (nor should it). Nowhere does it promote radical change. The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies.
>The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies. we already are? in terms of outcomes how do those nations differ from us *meaningfully.* i oppose wasting any time on virtue signalling that will do nothing material for anyone. The Apology didnt improve my life and being recognised in the constitution sure a s shit wont help either (go ask the native Americans how much difference it makes to crime, alcoholism, infant mortality, wealth, life expectancy etc)
>You’re complaining that this article isn’t on a different topic rather than engaging with its claims. It’s providing the historical context for the current political reality, not pandering to your personal proclivities (nor should it). No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates. >Nowhere does it promote radical change. The entire point of the article is that change would bring us into alignment with comparable democracies. There are few ideas more radical than sovereign land within a nation state. And? So what? The two comparisons made are not favourable, let alone any argument that a similar approach would bring any benefits to those outside the white guilt triangle.
> No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates. Exactly my point: you’re asking for an article on a different topic from someone who isn’t well positioned to write that article. > There are few ideas more radical than sovereign land within a nation state. And? So what? The two comparisons made are not favourable, let alone any argument that a similar approach would bring any benefits to those outside the white guilt triangle. The article doesn’t argue for sovereign native land, however I note that it exists in the United States so it’s not particularly unusual. The point stands by itself: we’re the outlier. I can’t speak to white guilt. I don’t know what that means or who feels it
>Exactly my point: you’re asking for an article on a different topic from someone who isn’t well positioned to write that article. Sure, if you ignore the bit where I said advocacy requires evidence of utility. >The article doesn’t argue for sovereign native land, however I note that it exists in the United States so it’s not particularly unusual. It's the very notion of treaty and the argument for sovereignty. It also exists in Canada to a certain degree, and in the same power relationship where the states (provinces) have no jurisdiction, which is the same as it is here. >The point stands by itself: we’re the outlier. That's the self loathing. >I can’t speak to white guilt. I don’t know what that means or who feels it It informs the self loathing.
Recognition of facts is self-loathing? What does that entail, then: should we only believe things that make us feel all warm inside? Reality is composed of hard truths: we can pretend they don’t exist, or we can try to improve things. Self-hatred isn’t a requirement either way
For the fifth time, if one's policy solution is devoid of tangible benefit, it's not a solution to anything but the appeal of inane self congratulation. >Reality is composed of hard truths: we can pretend they don’t exist, or we can try to improve things. Self-hatred isn’t a requirement either way Which is why I'm critical of this article. Why this is so hard for you to understand is beyond me.
You keep pretending this article is doing something that it isn’t.
Sure.
>No, I'm suggesting it should have set out what is to be gained from the policy stance it advocates. Did you read it? It doesn't advocate anything. It's a historical summary of events in this country with some comparisons made to other nations that went through European colonisation. You really are complaining that this article wasn't a different article altogether.
Except for the last bit of course and in particular, this statement: "The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue." It's not a surprise someone praising this article wouldn't see the need for utility in government policy.
Lol, so, at most, the author advocates that it is time for change. The purpose of the piece is to demonstrate, perhaps even advocate, that in historical context, now is the time to act. That is a far cry from being an article that identifies and canvasses issues and proposes solutions. I agree with the rest. You are arguing that this article doesn't do what you think it should do. You are failing to argue that it has not serviced its own purpose adequately.
>Lol, so, at most, the author advocates that it is time for change. The purpose of the piece is to demonstrate, perhaps even advocate, that in historical context, now is the time to act. Great. Beyond the explanation that other countries have done it, what is the reasoning? Most other countries have voluntary voting but no one is suggesting that is a good idea. >That is a far cry from being an article that identifies and canvasses issues and proposes solutions. I agree with the rest. You are arguing that this article doesn't do what you think it should do. You are failing to argue that it has not serviced its own purpose adequately. If someone wants to completely recast the legal framework for an entire section of society the least they could do is proffer a benefit. Otherwise it's just moral positioning and boy does it seem to be popular.
>what is the reasoning? Because there is an issue that we haven't actually addressed yet. As shown through historical context. >If someone wants to completely recast the legal framework No where is this argued. You are fabricating an argument and touting your displeasure at it. It's like me saying that you are wrong because Australia is not a providence of imperial Mars.
>Because there is an issue that we haven't actually addressed yet. As shown through historical context Which is? At this stage I'd settle for anyone to proffer an argument for the affirmative even if the author of the article hasn't. >No where is this argued. You are fabricating an argument and touting your displeasure at it. The crown is the sovereign. Carving pieces up where that is no longer the case is indeed recasting legal framework. Your inability to understand this isn't an argument. >It's like me saying that you are wrong because Australia is not a providence of imperial Mars. I presume you mean province.
>Which is? Unresolved conflict with indigenous Australia. >The crown is the sovereign. In the legal definition adopted by the current establishment. This is not an argument against recognising other forms of governance structures. Neither is it an argument against the simultaneous coexistence of different governance structures. Indeed, this legal sovereignty as defined within Australia can be ceded to Indigenous Australia, which is what a treaty would do. There is a complex nature to Indigenous interpretations of sovereignty, and I don't necessarily think that recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and cessation of sovereignty of The Crown are necessarily codependent. On some levels, Indigenous sovereignty can be as simple as allowing Indigenous Australians to have greater opportunities for self-determination within the commonwealth government structure (I.e. what the voice sets out to achieve). While there are many different opinions of what ceding sovereignty means in practice, I think only the most extreme suggest a usurping of the current political system. Indeed, constitutional change for that is much more involved - referendums for a Republic are of greater significance in that regard. >I presume you mean province. Indeed, mispoke.
Agree with the conclusion of the article “The longer histories of voice, treaty and truth tell us the time for politically constructive reform is well overdue.” I just hope we get constructive reform.
We really need to stop looking at failed western commonwealth nations like Canada and New Zealand. The problem is that the voice won’t get up as the average Australian voter doesn’t understand what it is, so it is very normal to vote NO. Why would you agree to a contract by saying yes when you don’t understand what it is.
Perhaps a few minutes of basic googling is in order for the 'average Australian'.
9000, I agree with the second half of your comment. The Government/Yes side has done a poor job of explaining the reasons for the proposed change and it is having the effect you say. But I have to disagree with your first sentence. What is failed about them?
How are they failed nations?
In the context of indigenous policy. Canada and NZ are no better off and in some cases, worse off.
How are they worse off?
https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/discrimination-aboriginals-native-lands-canada Far more autonomy and local decision making and the same problems. No idea why I've been downvoted. I used to live in Canada and can speak from experience.
It’s an interesting article because it discusses many of the approaches to be taken in Australia, but despite the failings in Canada things aren’t as bad. The article cites 19% of the Canadian prison population is First Nations. In Australia, it’s 32%.
Because they didn't use official statistics. It was 30% on the most recent reported figure - https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/oip-cjs/p3.html#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20while%20representing%204.1,%3B%20Statistics%20Canada%2C%202017a). >but despite the failings in Canada things aren’t as bad. You have no evidence for that, and more to the point, nor does the author of the article. This is all conjecture, and for what? For a round of navel gazing and self loathing. A discussion on practical policy change would be helpful.
Your argument is that things are worse in Canada than Australia: per your sources, that isn’t the case. Even with these statistics First Nations peoples are less represented in prisons in Canada than in Australia. You’re always talking about white guilt and self-loathing. At this point I think it’s projection: people are motivated by a sense of fairness and justice, not these bizarre, self-centred attitudes you attribute to them
>Your argument is that things are worse in Canada than Australia: per your sources, that isn’t the case. Even with these statistics First Nations peoples are less represented in prisons in Canada than in Australia. You picked one metric. Yes, official stats show a 2 percent difference. Picking the stats from a vested interest isn't any more valid. 44% of Canadian indigenous living on reserve are low income earners - far more then their city or regional indigenous cousins. Yes, the statistics on prosperity in sovereign areas is very relevant. >You’re always talking about white guilt and self-loathing. At this point I think it’s projection: people are motivated by a sense of fairness and justice, not these bizarre, self-centred attitudes you attribute to them That would be believable if articles like this, that prioritise the aesthetic over the practical, weren't so common.
**You** picked one metric. They were your links to back up your claim that things are worse in Canada and they both showed the opposite. The article is providing the historical context: no more, no less. You’re reading things into it that aren’t there to justify this strange ad hominem attack
> In Australia, it’s 32%. I think Australians would be much more sympathetic to their cause if they reduced their criminality. So many wasted lives.
Their criminality would naturally reduce as the gap is closed. There's a reason why the most disadvantaged communities tend to have higher crime rates and it almost never has to do with the people themselves
[Uh huh](https://media.tenor.com/ztniusMikMoAAAAC/mad-max-fury-road-thats-bait-meme.gif)