One of the most stagnant democracies in the west.
We’d rather spend time talking about franking credits than lend an ear to the suffering.
Comment on Referendum Results, Congratulations, Comiserations
Instigate@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Fuck. I’m sad. I’m sorry to be Australian right now.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
skittlebrau@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Some of the people receiving the franking credits believe they’re suffering… somehow.
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Yeah - the voice didn’t really mean much to my day to day at all, but this loss is indicative of our deepening conservative bent.
samson@aussie.zone 8 months ago
With any luck it would have meant something to mine. I’m devastated.
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Genuinely sorry for your loss.
samson@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Thanks, sadly I’ve learned a lot about my country and my local areas in how they’ve polled
Whirlybird@aussie.zone 8 months ago
It has nothing to do with anyone becoming “conservative”. Another advisory board would change nothing when the ones we already have are ignored and aren’t working.
60% of the country voted for gay marriage, a far more “liberal”/“progressive” thing than the voice, so saying we’re getting more “conservative” makes no sense. The fact is that the actual progressive people recognize that this was all grandstand virtue signalling, and we want more than that. “It’s better than nothing” is not a valid reason to change our constitution. How about actually doing something meaningful as a starting point instead?
Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
I think you’ve misunderstood this. Sure it’s ‘virtue signalling’ and not gonna do anything. But that’s all it was meant to be, recognising the original owners of the land in our constitution was really all it was meant to do. And so what if that’s literally all it did? How is there any reason to vote against that? What has anyone achieved by voting no? We could have had a more respectful constitution today but instead we’ve got nothing. Well done, we’ve denied Aboriginals the smallest bit of acknowledgement and respect. Good job Australia. Fuck I wish Sky News would start telling people to jump off a cliff.
bandario@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Without any detail about how these processes would actually work, this seemingly common sense statement is fraught with danger. This has been rightly recognised by those most likely to encounter legislative change around land management and compulsory engagement with indigenous groups. As you move outwards from inner city suburbs, the percentage of no voters increased and this should not surprise anyone at all…that doesn’t mean country folks are racist or that they don’t care about first nations issues. It means they are far more likely to have been caught up in the absolutely disgusting mess of previous government attempts to put a framework around cultural heritage issues or challenges to private land ownership.
The guarantee of ‘an indigenous voice to parliament’ completely failed to elucidate how this could possibly hope to deal with the fractious state of existing first nations groups who can not and will not work together or settle disputes over borders. Obviously this is a problem originally caused by colonisation and forced encampment, but it’s not easily put to bed. Right now where I live there are heated battles raging over native title claims; over boundaries and which family groups are the rightful representatives of each tribal group. 4 or 5 districts that cannot decide on who is the rightful native title claimant, all with various corporate backing fighting tooth and nail with a view to securing the imagined wealth of being ratified as the original inhabitants of one patch of dirt or another.
This is where it ends up:
dailymail.co.uk/…/Perth-tree-planting-event-axed-…
This wasn’t some mining company looking to explore for gas or resources…it was a group of people trying to carry out a waterway restoration project. To help undo damage to the land. They were asked to pay 2.5 million dollars to the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation for the privilege.
That CEO has since been rightly removed, but you get the picture. There are so many corporate groups out there just rubbing their hands together and hoping to turn this ugly mess into a gravy train. I have first hand experience dealing with these situations and it has been absolutely heartbreaking. White solutions to black problems seems to just lead to more exploitation and fresh wounds.
About 6 months ago we had some cultural heritage training delivered at work just as public discourse around ‘The Voice’ was starting to ramp up heavily. There were about 100 people present across a few sessions and I think they were extremely powerful for some people. Some minds were changed on a few issues and the facilitator was absolutely fantastic. Towards the end of the session I was absolutely shocked when that facilitator who obviously cares deeply about first nations representation told our group that she and her family would be voting against the referendum. Her statement was concise and to the point: “How can a single indigenous voice to parliament represent hundreds of groups who do not agree with one another?”
Obviously she is caught up in the aforementioned ongoing disputes, but I dare say after the heartbreaking presentation about generational trauma inflicted by white settlers trying to solve indigenous issues, she made almost 100 no voters right there.
To be perfectly honest I am completely disgusted by the way this proposal was handled from start to finish. IMO the Labor party has taken the olive branch offered by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and stomped it into the ground for attempted political gain.
They grabbed a divisive wedge issue and took it to a referendum with no real plan for how it was going to work. They failed to illustrate a workable framework or demonstrate what was going to be put in place to compensate private landholders for restrictions placed on development of the land they have purchased.
It feels as though we just set reconciliation back about 40 years, picked the scab from every wound imaginable…and for what? My heart breaks for indigenous Australians right now. They’ve just been told by the entire country that we don’t care about them. That hurts, because there’s simply no way that is the case. Again, our first Australians have been let down by a tone deaf white government that believes so hard that ‘they know best’ that they were prepared to put indigenous people on the gallows with a smile and forced the Australian people to pull the lever by keeping them in the dark and not presenting the full legal framework that would draw from that constitutional change.
It’s fucking gross.
Whirlybird@aussie.zone 8 months ago
That’s reason to vote against it because it’s pointless. It achieves nothing positive, and likely leads to decades more of inaction because “but we put you guys in the constitution and gave you a voice, what more can we do?!”.
I’m not voting to change our constitution for something this pathetic. It’s not a shopping list.
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Do you really believe that most “actually progressive” people voted no?
Do you think this is the springboard from which meaningful change will flow?
Whirlybird@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Clearly a lot did, yes. 60% of people voted for gay marriage. That’s a far more “progressive” and divisive issue and it won.
Nonameuser678@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Lol all the woke voters in -checks notes- Maranoa and North QLD. Melbourne is actually super conservative then I guess.
billytheid@aussie.zone 8 months ago
to say it plainly, you’re clearly not very bright. that you actually believe attack advertisements and social media spin, while still maintaining a stream of ‘considered’ opinions really lays out the massive problem Australia faces with wilful, proud, ignorance. that you’re actually daft enough to claim that this will be somehow revisited? jfc…
Wooki@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Deepening? How new are you?