Setanta wrote on Oct 6^th, 2022 at 11:23pm:

The singularity of voice has had a dark past.

It's the cornerstone of all forms of totalitarianism.

Karnal wrote on Oct 7^th, 2022 at 7:52am:

Travel out to aboriginal communities and observe the human instinct to acquire power and resources.

Conflicts over representation within an established voice will be at their most wild within disparate aboriginal communities as hundreds of pretenders joust to be king.

All irrelevant anyway - there is no need for a voice and too many reasons not to have one.

What representatives?  They've got plenty already... this is just another way of exacting the rent without working for it.

Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Oct 7^th, 2022 at 11:45pm:


I totally agree!

I really doubt the referendum will get up. (It has to pass in all states and federally remember!)

MeisterEckhart wrote on Oct 8^th, 2022 at 12:47am:


Elected by Cheeses only - unlike parliament etc.  Aboriginal women have already expressed concern that the biggest bullies with the biggest mouths will get the gigs and do what they always have done - feed their own first and not the community as a whole.  One said that in the city environment that was more the biggest mouthed etc family and standover ... in the bush the guy with the biggest fists.

As I tweeted to Warren Mundine - listen to the prime victims.  They know ...

Forget Dances With Wolves - there was/is no Dances With Dingoes and no reasoning Grahame Greene etc .... very caveman stuff.....

MeisterEckhart wrote on Oct 8^th, 2022 at 12:47am:


Hard to say, Meister. Judges and media editors aren't elected either, but both are fundamental to democracy.

The voice has precedents in the Westminster system. The Federal Executive Council that advises the governor general is not elected, and nor is the GG him/herself. The Great Council of Bishops and the House of Lords were both unelected, back in the UK. The same applies to the Privvy Council, which still had jurisdiction in Australia until the 1980s. Various ministries have a range of unelected advisory bodies too.

We could go down the American route and elect everybody from DAs to judges, but it may not be more democratic. The American model just places more power in the hands of political donors.

I'd want to see an Aboriginal voice as apolitical, ar least in the party sense, but I'm not too fussed with the voice itself. I'm more interested in constitutional recognition, which is unfinished business, particularly since the Mabo decision.

We have a legal precedent for prior European settlement, but no national recognition and no treaties. Any voice or representative council should ultimately be moving towards treaties - the unfinished business of Australian settlement. The question, after so much time past, is who we should be negotiating with - a political question, but not necessarily a democratic one.

Australia is globally respected and admired as a democratic, free and fair country, with one exception - Aboriginal sovereignty. In this respect, we're a backward, colonial regime.

We're economically prosperous. We have a healthy, stable rule of law. We have genuine political representation and a democratic culture. We have a high standard of living.

Despite all that, Aboriginal Australians live in third world conditions. We can't be satisfied with what we've achieved until we work on that, and this requires us to fix past wrongs. Ultimately, this will require treaties with the original landholders, and we need a process to get there.