Unlike the worlds of mathematics, physics, sciences, and logic, we live in a kosmos which is built out of stories. One of the important things about stories is that they are very very powerful. If facts and logic are bones and muscles, then stories are the blood, mucus, and bile of the kosmos. Smash the facts and logic and you have to rebuild the kosmos but spray around blood, mucus, and bile, and all you get is a lot of filthy mess everywhere.
During this referendum on the addition of the First Peoples' Voice to Parliament via the instrument of Chapter IX and Section 129, you are going to hear the 'unity' argument again and again, as though it were some watertight divine principle. On the face of it, it seems sensible. People should be equal before the law. However the idea that unity as a glib principle, and as the reason why equity should be refused to be addressed, contains a very deliberate denial of the truth of reality and a deep contradiction.
The logic statements look something like this for classes N and R.
Not all N are R.
However, all R are N.
This still means that some N are R.
R is a subset of N.
Therefore, N and not R is valid.
The problem with this kind of logic is that it doesn't actually evaluate the validity or propositions of N. In fact, when you probe with any questions about N, you are almost always met with a wall of blood, mucus, and bile of the kosmos and a lot of filthy mess everywhere.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia itself, just like the constitutions for any corporation because the Commonwealth is Corporation Sole, is a set of replaceable rules which determine the power and scope that that corporation has and the terms and mechanisms by which that power and scope is executed and by which the set of replaceable rules may be replaced or revoked or added to. The idea that the Commonwealth is Corporation Sole is hardly new. The Crown of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth itself are inseparable and as Corporation Sole the Commonwealth is the sole shareholder of itself. The voters and executive, have those abilities and power because the Constitution provides for them.
The instrument of Chapter IX and Section 129 is merely a new replaceable rule being added to the existing rule set.
It reads:
Chapter IX - Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
s.129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
(i) there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
(ii) the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
(iii) the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
- proposed Section 129.
This text, very obviously looks like an addition which does not materially change any of the other provisions in the other 127 sections of the Constitution, nor does it directly assign any functions, powers and procedures to the Voice, as these are to the domain of legislation made by the Parliament, as it is pleased to assign them. Section 129 is also very obviously a new replaceable rule which is being proposed to be added to the existing rule set.
Now the central lie of the 'unity' argument is that the addition of this replaceable rule to the rule set, assigns an unjust privilege to people on the basis of race. On the face of it and provided that you did no reading of the rest of the Constitution at all, I would have to agree. However, there is no story told in a vacuum and the addition of Section 129 as a new replaceable rule still lives within the context of the rest of the existing rule set. Section 129 is not some magic stand alone piece of legislation but rather, is an addition to the set of rules agreed to by the settlers and originators of the Corporation Sole. The central lie of the 'unity' argument, demands that you deny the existence of the Constitution, and the terms by which the Commonwealth of Australia came to be.
The terms by which the Commonwealth of Australia came to be can be found in the Covering Clauses of the Constitution and specifically as it relates to the parties which settled the term:
Clause 6.
6. Definitions
The Commonwealth shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as established under this Act.
The States shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia, as for the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such colonies or territories as may be admitted into or established by the Commonwealth as States; and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called a State.
- Covering Clause 6, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)
The States, which were previously the Colonies, by 1900 all had Crowns in their own right, and sovereignty in their own right. The new Commonwealth of Australia as a federation of these States, would simply copy the status of the States, except with powers ceded to it. The States retained plenary powers, except where Commonwealth and State legislation came into conflict; and due to Section 109, Commonwealth legislation would prevail to the extent of the inconsistency bewteen the two pieces of legislation.
The States however, as sovereign powers, referred the referendum question to join the federation to the people of their 'state'. There is however a problem here and it relates to the Preamble of the Constitution:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble
WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:
- Preamble, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)
Please note the words "the people" and "have agreed to". The truth being denied with the 'unity' argument and that people should be equal before the law, is that 'the people' in all states which federated together to form the Commonwealth, specifically excluded first peoples. If you specifically excluded first peoples, then there is no way that they "have agreed to" anything. You should also note here that the persons who have settled the terms of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, are not 'the people' as a general collective but rather the Crowns of the Colonies who have been defined as 'The States'. The Crowns of The States, just like the Commonwealth of Australia are also Corporations Sole. This is where things get extremely messy.
Every single State and by extension the territories, since they only exist after the invention of the Commonwealth of Australia, claimed sovereignty upon proclamation of the respective colonies and then immediately set about to enforce that sovereignty through genocide and dispossession. Where I live in western Sydney, there is a road called Davis Road which as best as I can tell was named after Sergeant Jeremiah Davis, of the New South Wales Corps. The road passes through the site of a 1791 massacre of Dharug peoples and as best as I can tell Sergeant Jeremiah Davis was paid 1/3 per head, for every Aborginal person killed in the massacre. This kind of event happened again and again and again, right from the inception of the Colony of New South Wales, via land clearances and battle, where the settlers who took over the land simply assumed that they had the power to do so and they had the backing of the Crown and the use of military force to enforce this.
Until only very recently, there have never been any formal treaty processes between the Crowns and first peoples. Certainly the assumption of lands and the backing of that assumption by military force was never agreed to. You will notice that Clause 6 contains New Zealand as being defined as one of the States. The reason for this is that they were still part of the Constitutional Conventions and could have been part of Australia. Their reasons for not wanting to federate into the Commonwealth of Australia along with the other States, apart from the fact that New Zealand is an ocean away and travel in 1900 was still very very slow, was that the treaty arrangements that the Colony of New Zealand had made with the Maori were active and in force, and that the Constitution at the time specifically excluded first peoples from being counted.
In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.
- s.127, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900) [Repealed by No.55 of 1967, section 3]
Section 127 affected other parts of the Constitution. For instance Section 24 states that each state is entitled to members in the House of Representatives based on a population quota determined from the "latest statistics of the Commonwealth." The actual responsibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was left to the states and this also explains the specific exclusion from 'race powers' contained in Section 51 at the time.
It wasn't until the Nationality Act (1920) that Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after January 1, 1921 gained the status of British subjects. And it wasn't until the Nationality and Citizenship Act (1948) that they became Australian citizens. However, none of this does anything to change the original terms of the Preamble or the Covering Clauses which explain why and how the Commonwealth came to be.
Perhaps most stark is the statement by the judge Stephen C.J. in the case of the Attorney-General v. Brown (1847):
"The territory of New South Wales, and eventually the whole of the vast island of which it forms a part, have been taken possession of by British subjects in the name of the Sovereign. They belong, therefore, to the British Crown.
The fact of the settlement of New South Wales in that manner, and that it forms a portion of the Queen's Dominions, and is subject to and governed by British laws, may be learned from public colonial records, and from Acts of Parliament. New South Wales is termed in the statute 54 GEO III, c.15, and in the 59 GEO III, c.122, His Majesty's Colony; not the colony of the people, not even the colony of the empire. It was maintained that this supposed property in the Crown was a fiction. Doubtless, in one sense, it was so.
The right of the people of England to their property, does not in fact depend on any royal grant, and the principle that all lands are holden mediately or immediately of the Crown flows from the adoption of the feudal system merely (Co Lit 1, and ibid.191, a, Mr. Butler's note 6; Bac Ab Prerog B.; Vin Ab same title K.A. 19). That principle, however, is universal in the law of England, and we can see no reason why it shall be said not to be equally in operation here. The Sovereign, by that law is (as it is termed) universal occupant."
- Stephen C.J., Attorney-General v. Brown (6) (1847)
It wasn't until Mabo and Others v Queensland No.2 (1992) that any notion of original sovereignty of first peoples over the land was entertained.
The "No" case and the assertion that we've moved on from that behaviour, or that we can't expect people of today to act like the people of 123 years ago, or 235 years ago, and then literally doing nothing to change the terms, proves by action, that the 'unity' argument is in fact a lie and a very very racist one at that.
Replace N with "No" and R with "Racist"
The logic statements look something like this for classes No and Racist.
Not all No are Racists.
However, all Racists are No.
This still means that some No are Racists.
Racists is a subset of No.
Therefore, No and not Racist is valid.
Except that No is itself a tacitly Racist position because it does nothing to address or change the terms of the Constitution. Voting No because of some glib principle of 'unity' and that 'we are all one' merely serves to protect the existing terms; which were racist.
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