While tomato-less Britains flick hungrily through their latest Jamie Oliver turnip recipe book, Australia ponders its next big mass information gathering exercise which is the referendum for an indigenous voice to parliament.
Australia approaches the referendum with a chequered recent
history of data collection. The 2016 Australian census which encouraged 100%
online participation flopped due to an utter failure of planning and testing. Assuming
some distant out-back camel farmer would be as IT savvy as a public servant
rushing from their desk to fill their keep-cup with a 9.30am latte was one
thing, but the $10 million system built by IBM crashed on census night in a big
way - insufficient ‘load testing’ apparently. The computer certainly did say
no. Those who could get through also typically recorded their religion as Jedi beating
Catholicism into second place which further screwed up the whole sorry mess.
By the following year in 2017 the Australian government introduced
a new word into the vernacular with a national same-sex marriage ‘plebiscite’.
Apparently, a plebiscite is kind of like a referendum, but the government has a
get out clause in that it can ultimately change the result if it likes at the
end of it. Essentially it is the model
that SHOULD have been used for the Brexit referendum, but instead was applied to
marriage equality which the majority of Australians were happy to support, but instead
the government threw $160 million at the question just to make really really
really sure.
Australia now has a further two referendums to consider. An
election promise when Labor swept to power in 2022 committed to a vote on an
indigenous voice to parliament and assuming they win the next election (which
given the somewhat sinister yet comical conservative opposition appears likely)
we’ll next have a second referendum for an Australian republic in which the misdemeanours
of Charles, Camilla, Andy, Harry and co. get raked over again before the
inevitable conclusion that they head off into the sunset and we change our
coins to have an effigy of Shane Warne on them. Presumably we’ll then also change
the design of the Australian flag which is a little bit dated and embarrassing currently.
So, what exactly IS the indigenous voice to parliament that
everyone in Australia will be voting on? Essentially, it’s a body made up of
indigenous Australians (Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people) which is
recognised in the constitution and allows them to provide advice to Parliament
on policies and projects that impact their lives.
It represents the next step in a journey which goes back
almost to the European invasion in 1788. A few years following this Governor
Richard Bourke declared Australia ‘terra nullius’ (literally belonging to
no-one) conveniently forgetting that there were possibly up to one million people
living (effectively and efficiently) in the continent before convicts and settlers
arrived bringing small-pox and other horrors from the ‘new world’ with them
decimating indigenous Australia for ever more.
Electing a Voice to Parliament seems to make sense. The
Close the gap campaign which commenced in 2007 becomes increasingly embarrassing
every year as the ‘gap’ of indigenous disadvantage widens rather than closes. I
was (and remain) optimistic about the Voice. Like the marriage equality plebiscite
before it and the republic referendum which will follow it, I suspect it will
be voted for by a majority of Australians.
What’s become interesting over the last few weeks though is
opposition to it. Peter Dutton, the sinister looking leader of the Liberals has
declared that he’s undecided on whether he’ll support it or not and given his
previous questionable attitudes toward aboriginal inclusion it’s fairly easy to
guess which way he’ll go. Opposition has also come from within the indigenous
community. Senator Jacinta Price has declared the Voice as divisive and unfair.
The issue she sees is that it’s almost impossible to build a truly
representative panel. At the time of colonisation it’s thought that there were
almost 500 tribes in Australia, each with their own distinct language and
territories. It’s impossible therefore to imagine an advisory body genuinely
representing even a fraction of that number. Unlike New Zealand where a treaty (The
1840 Treaty of Waitangi) was
signed with the Māori’s no such treaty was ever signed with Australia’s
indigenous population. As a result Captain Cook was revered and a copy of the
Magna Carta is on display in Parliament House in Canberra.
So the Voice has opposition from two unlikely bed-fellows –
the Liberals, trying to avoid the sheen slipping off their arguments to reveal
their right-wing racist views and some within the aboriginal community saying
that the Voice doesn’t go far enough and is not in the least bit
representative.
The result therefore is likely that voters will most likely
end up being confused. It could therefore go the same way as Brexit, but more
likely will pass and be implemented. My fear for the advisory board then is
that it has no real substance and awkward issues for Australia, which have
built up over generations such as indigenous suicide and often appalling health
and welfare outcomes are simply shunted for someone else to ‘fix’ I guess we’ll
see. If nothing else I just hope the technology works this time.
