Indigenous disadvantage is a huge issue and I don’t want to trivialize it by comparison to less important topics but as far as these constitutional referendums are concerned there is some commonality. Both seek to add recognition and self-determination for Australians that are far more appropriate for current and future Australia than was anticipated in a document written near the height of the British Empire.
Parliament can legislate indigenous consultation and although it doesn’t have the prestige or guarantees of a constitutional change it can achieve much the same outcome for now. We have gone as far as we can legislatively to become an independent sovereign nation and the replacement of the head of state with an Australian citizen is the last obstacle to assert our full nationhood.
Realistically both were going to be lost outside the inner cities. Neither are going to give a No voter cheaper beer and smokes. As long as we have a regional divide in economic status and education, conservatives have an almost insurmountable advantage. Racism might have played a role in the Voice outccome but it is just one of many buttons for a disinformation campaign to exploit.
billytheid@aussie.zone 8 months ago
this comment is a good example of how profoundly ill-informed Australians are with regard to out politics; our constitution is a colonialist relic with no inalienable rights and colossal centralisation of power, and people act like it’s actually somehow modern or progressive.
by and large Australians are unsophisticated, easily manipulated, political idiots.
Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 8 months ago
I wouldn’t call the constitution a relic, it is, albeit imperfectly, a functioning document, that maintains a certain cohesion in this country. Calling it a relic somewhat undermines that important use to the nation. I don’t argue with the characterisation of Colonialist. It very much was set in these terms.
Colossal centralisation of power is an odd thing to claim, and possibly ill-informed.
The country took lots of opportunities to ensure the dilution of power. And much of that is contained within the Constitution. So i would say it protects the devolvement of powers from any one body.
‘Inalienable rights’ has been considered by many in Australia. I think the closer you get to the detail the less atractive that proposition becomes. People have a responsibilty when they speak, ‘inalienable rights’ has proven to lead to a reduction in peoples calculation of their own responsibilties when speaking. The provisions for this in the US have been an example where such a rigid code can lead to poorer outcomes. The calculation here is, our system gets protection of speech about the same as places with the explicit right, but without some of the adverse consequences, because the protection remains somewhat fungible. Fungibilty is important to courts where they may wish to distinguish from precedent for legitimate reasons.
‘Modern’ should be left as a concept of the Post WW2 period. We are, as a whole, more like our ancestors than the word ‘modern’ allows. Modern has become a hopeful term that things are ‘better today than yesterday’, and thats not always true. Modern clouds the nuance. This isn’t a bad or good thing, only an observation that the term ‘modern’ or ‘life today’, etc, is a mental separation from history that has proven unhelpful.
I never said the constitution or the nation is progressive, nor should it be assumed that is the goal. There are people who aren’t progressive in this nation, just as there are progressive people. A well functioning founding document should seek to balance the views of the many without trampling the rights of the few. Thats not a progressive sentiment, thats a utilitarian sentiment. This is a strategy to stop endless cycles of violence/repression, allowing people to live in reasonable liberty. A strength of the Constitution is that it isn’t particularly prescriptive.