When Australians go to the polls in October, it will be over the single question of whether or not to add Chapter IX and Section 129 to the Constitution. The addition of Section 129 is to allow the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Voice to Parliament and to do so via the Constitution, rather than just some mere body which can be added and removed by normal legislation.
Personally, I think that the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Voice to Parliament is in fact the wrong answer to the request as posed from the Uluru Statement From The Heart. However given that the admission that First Peoples always retained original sovereignty, sovereignty which was never ceded, and which should be recognised and afforded statehood by virtual terms at least Six Senators as a result, per Section 121, is never ever going to happen, then this is the best that we can hope for. The reason why that this is the best that we can hope for, is that in essence, Australia since 26th January 1788 has always mostly been a nation of tory knaves. Please note, that I use the word 'tory' in this case in the technical sense.
tory. n. 1. - robber, highwayman, thief. From the Irish Gaelic 'toraigh' (robber, highwayman, thief).
The word 'tory' is absolutely the best word to describe what happened in Australia. After losing the United States, the British Empire decided that it needed to chuck its convicts and ne'er-do-wells into a giant prison which was out of sight and out of mind. The North Government sent 11 Royal Navy ships and what would instantly become the New South Wales Corps. to take possession of the land, with no regard for first peoples. They then spent the better part of seven decades enforcing that possession through the instruments of land clearances and very deliberate genocide. Very tory. Very knave.
Henry Parkes, the multiple time Premier of New South Wales and so-called "Father of Federation" (who had 19 children; which kind of looks like a self-population project), when asked what was to be done for the Aborigines during the 1888 Centenary of NSW said that nothing was to be done:
"And remind them that we have robbed them?"
The problem then was, having built six colonies out of tory knaves, the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was fashioned out of the same cloth. Edmund Barton's Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat actually wasn't all that coloured at all. The only two colours were white and blood stained red. The Constitution to this day does not admit the original sovereignty of first peoples, does not afford any voice in Parliament like the States have in the Senate and any Member of Parliament who happens to be Aboriginal or a Torres Straight Islander, is not there as a first peoples member but as a citizen of the state who dispossessed their own people.
When we are asked the question in October, we will still not actually be correcting the original terms of the Constitution but rather, asked to tack on an addition which is still only really a subserviant voice to the Crown of the Commonwealth rather than a federated person to it like the Crowns of the Six States are. Given that though, opposition to even that is still very vociferous because the heart of the people of the Commonwealth of Australia is still identical in 2023 to what it was in 1901 or 1788. We are still mostly been a nation of tory knaves. This can be demonstrated by looking at the answers to referenda posed to us in the past and ultimately why I think that the referendum for Chapter IX and Section 129 to the Constitution will also fail.
It must be said that Australia has never been a terribly progressive nation. From the inception of the various colonies which were literally under martial law, to the eventual dispensation of responsible government, to federation which happened as a result of a perceived impending threat from Imperialist Germany, Australia from the outset was always very authoritarian.
This isn't particularly difficult to prove either. A simple survey of the referenda of Australia will tell you what the people of Australia will agree to.
We have said "No" to referenda put forward by Labor Governments 26 times. Mostly these referenda have been about allowing the Federal Government to take some control over issues like prices, incomes, industry, employment terms, social service, rents et cetera. Referenda put forward by Labor Governments tend to be about curbing the rights of business in Australia to run roughshod over the top of ordinary people.
We have said "No" to referenda put forward by Protectionist, Nationalist, United Australia, and Liberal Governments 10 times. In 8 of those referenda, the questions posed were about tory governments specifically looking to bash their enemies, like unions, communists, and any kind of socialist policy, into the dirt. Even though Australia has mostly been a nation of tory knaves, as evidenced by the governments that we elect and by the questions that we answer "No" to, evidently there are limits to our knavery.
On the flip side we have said "Yes" to referenda put forward by Protectionist, Nationalist and Liberal Governments 7 times. In all but one of these these have been to do with mechanical aspects of the parliament, the judiciary, and what was to happen with the finances of the nation.
That one exception when we have said "Yes" to referenda put forward by a Liberal Government was in 1967 and was the referendum on "Aborigines" in which Section 51 was fiddled with and Section 127 which was the explicit refusal to count Aboriginal peoples in the population, which had other implications to to with allocation of Members of the House under Section 24, was repealed.
We have also said "Yes" once and only once to referenda put forward by a Labor Government. This was in 1946 and related to the provision of various kinds of pensions, endowments and what should have been the establishment of the National Health Service but the referendum question itself was gutted and the National Health Service Bill (1948) was killed off; which ensured that even after Australians had given their lives in two world wars, this still wasn't enough to make tory knaves think that Australians were worthy enough to be looked after in terms of health care.
We can basically assume that every single referendum held in or before 1928 was argued out only in the newspapers. We can also every single referendum held in or before 1951 was argued out only in the newspapers and radio. From 1973 to 1999, the referenda were argued out in the newspapers, on radio and on television. However, this time around, there is no serious argument to be found in the newspapers which are all tory, radio and television are all editorially tory except for the ABC and SBS, and the exception is the internet which is a Thirty Xanatos Pileup Wild West Horrorshow. The "No" case in the media has almost entirely been a bad faith argument and the "Yes" case which is trying to argue on the basis of decency and moral rightness can not make any meaningful rebuttal on those terms. Trying to fight bad faith actors with argument, is a pointless exercise.
When set against the background of 123 years of the Commonwealth of Australia, and 235 years of a history which includes dispossession and genocide, this referendum which barely pushes forward and sadly is the best that we can hope for, the referendum is still likely to fail. Australia has always mostly been a nation of tory knaves and this is demonstrated by repeated referenda. When the question is posed to ask us to be our better selves, I think that the answer is more likely to be "No."
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