Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2023 at 7:31pm:


The stupid 4 eyed un couldn't lie straight in bed.

Frank wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2023 at 7:27pm:


Gaoling fine defaulters, for one.  Robodebt is another... Tsk, tsk, tsk...   

Maybe this will wake yez up to the reality right now - check the responses:-

https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1638745351623692288

Brian Ross wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2023 at 9:25pm:

Bollox, Bbwian.

There is absolutely NO LEGISLATION that unfairly targets Abos. None.

For you to say that there are just confirms your utter idiocy, dishonesty, spinelessness.

From one corner of your crooked, demented mouth you lecture Americans about the wonderful superiority of Australia, from the other drooling corner you blabber about how racist and unfair it all is.

You are fkk dishonest, lying, spineless moron. Two faced doesnt even BEGIN to describe the endlessly dishonest and contradictory idiocies that you come up with.

Reasonable people who were waiting to see the final form of the proposed constitutional amendment have just been given the green light to vote no.

Explicit constitutional recognition of Indigenous people was a late addition to this project – and it shows. It seems the real goal has always been to establish an institution of state that would turn back the clock to the days when ­racial privilege dictated public ­policy.

Instead of standing up for the egalitarian principles of modern Australian democracy, the government has adopted a proposal that would entrench racial privilege by exposing ministers and public servants to the risk of legal liability.

The executive branch of government would be subjected to a new system of accountability in which real power – the power to sue – would be vested in a race-based institution whose members would not necessarily be elected by anyone.

Worst of all, the government knows this proposal is flawed.

Yes, there is a legitimate argument that Indigenous people should be heard before parliament makes special laws about them under the Constitution’s race power in section 51 (26) but there is no case for extending the reach of the voice into the executive or to matters that go beyond special laws under section 51 (26).

When working group members chastised Dreyfus for suggesting a change that could affect the voice’s impact on the executive, the government went to water. In an extraordinary display of audacity, Albanese is now pretending everything is wonderful. It’s not. And Dreyfus’s own actions show that.

Unless the voice’s reach into the executive is eliminated, it will be too late to address this problem by statute if the referendum succeeds. The High Court would then be responsible for determining the legal effect of the voice’s representations to ministers and public servants, just as it is responsible for determining the legal effect of other parts of the Constitution.

If the court decides there is a constitutional implication that ministers and public servants should consider the voice’s advice, or inform the voice before making decisions, the consequences would be disastrous.

Public administration would slow, the bureaucracy would need to expand and decision-makers would be at risk of legal liability.

Taxpayers’ money that would be better spent addressing Indigenous disadvantage would finish up in the hands of litigators.

If this referendum succeeds, every federal minister and every decision-maker in the federal public service could be at risk unless they inform the voice before making decisions, provide information about matters awaiting decision, wait for a response from the voice and generate a paper trail showing the views of the voice have been considered.

This is ludicrous. How much information will ministers and public servants be required to give the voice about decisions they propose to make?

How long would ministers and public servants need to wait while the voice considers its position?

The great tragedy for Indigenous people is that most of their fellow citizens would probably endorse a reasonable form of constitutional recognition, but the change proposed by the gov­ernment is not modest nor is it symbolic.

It is wrong in practice and in principle.

It would destroy the doctrine of equality of citizenship by introducing a permanent system of racial preference when it comes to federal lawmaking and administrative decisions.

The measures associated with the voice would be permanent and would persist forever.

That means the Prime Minister was pushing things when he asserted on Thursday that his proposed change would enhance Australia’s international standing.

Right from the beginning, when the Prime Minister unveiled his preliminary model for an Indigenous voice, it was clear that equality of citizenship – the bedrock of egalitarian Australia – would be destroyed unless big changes were made.

Yet behind closed doors, the Albanese government has decided to water down the principles of egalitarian democracy to mollify one special interest group.

Chris Merritt is vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia

Brian Ross wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2023 at 9:25pm:


A commenter:

Just because someone is Indigenous does not automatically make them marginalised. It is the lazy, paternalistic and condescending narrative that says that by virtue of lineage, Indigenous Australians are somehow in need of help and incapable of success without the aid of privileged inner-city progressives. Simply having Indigenous heritage doesn’t automatically make someone disadvantaged.
In Australia, we have a growing Indigenous middle class, successful people lucky enough to have the advantage of the generous education system, services and employment opportunities that our great nation has to offer ALL Australians. They’ve done that WITHOUT a constitutional Indigenous “voice” to parliament, they’ve done it WITHOUT a treaty, and they’ve done it WITHOUT any need for some hero-complex progressives’s virtue signalling. I
A constitutional “voice” to parliament is redundant. The Australian people have freely elected TEN Indigenous Australians to Federal Parliament to represent them. According to the recent census, Indigenous Australians account for 3.2 per cent of the population – they now make up 4.5 per cent of the Australian Federal Parliament. You don’t need a constitutionally mandated representation for a group overrepresented in Parliament.

Yes, many of the most marginalised in our country are Aboriginal, but the “gap” is not only between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It lies between successful Aboriginals and marginalised Aboriginals just as much as it does between successful and marginalised people of ALL backgrounds. It lies in the more remote Indigenous communities where our nation’s most disadvantaged live, not in the big cities. Out there they’re not concerned with virtue signalling or flag waving, they don’t need smoking ceremonies or acknowledgments of country. They need help from the multiple indigenous agencies already established today.

First Nations flood survivors 'out in the bush and left in the dark', a voice might fix that

I'll be voting 'no' all day

bonus = I want to see melted-brain Albanese cry some more