On 20 October 2023, an Aboriginal teenager died in custody in Perth, Western Australia. Cleveland Dodd, 16-years-old, was found unresponsive in his cell in Casurina maximum security prison security prison. On 21 October 2023, a Palestinian mother, Alaa, and her three children, Eman (6), Faiz (5) and 7-month-old Sara, were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza. It was Faiz’s fifth birthday. What is the connective thread between these disparate events? (more…)
Category: Indigenous affairs
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This country has witnessed a counter-revolution against First Nations rights
The turn of events we have seen in the defeat of the Voice referendum is what appears to be a successful counter-revolution in Australia steered by the right wing think-tanks and the Murdoch press. The arguments which were mobilised in opposition to the Voice to Parliament has transported the nation back 60 years to Paul Hasluck’s era of assimilation. This should be seen as no less shocking than had the Australian people this year voted to re-introduce the discredited White Australia Policy. (more…)
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A statement for our people and our country
Australia is our country. We accept that the majority of non-Indigenous voting Australians have rejected recognition in the Australian Constitution. We do not for one moment accept that this country is not ours. Always was. Always will be. It is the legitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country that requires recognition, not the other way around. Our sovereignty has never been ceded.
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It’s time to tell the truth
The past few months, as Australia debated the Voice proposal, have been incredibly challenging for First Peoples. Now we must find ways to move forward together. (more…)
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Australia has shown itself to be a selfish nation that lacks empathy
As an Australian with First Nations and coloniser blood running through my veins, I’ve always believed in the promise of a fair and just Australia, one that can celebrate our 65,000 years of history, reconcile our colonial past and build a better future for all. But the Voice referendum has cast a shadow on that vision. It has revealed a darker side of our nation – one driven by selfishness and fear. And one where we allow ourselves to be sucked in by misinformation and social media algorithms. (more…)
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The Voice: what the world heard
On Saturday, 14 October, Australians did themselves no favours. Again. (more…)
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The Voice: caught between a socio-economic hammer and anvil
As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of grievance. (more…)
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Another day in the colony
The deputy prime minister Richard Marles was asked by Insider’s host David Speers if the voters of Australia were right to roundly reject the constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples and the Voice to parliament. Of course they were right, said Marles, they’re always right. In a press conference and later during question time in parliament, Anthony Albanese said he respected the outcome of the referendum, pointing out that it’s wonderful that democracies like Australia can have such referendums without the disorder we see in other countries. (more…)
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Is the No victory another signal of voters’ distrust of democratic reps?
The high levels of loss of Yes voters to the No camp during the referendum campaign add indicators that the once social democratic contributions to governance are in trouble. Where once policies for fairness were seen as integral parts of good democracies, these have been replaced by neo liberal market models. This shows up too often as voters becoming customers, not citizens. (more…)
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Our mainstream media failed this country during the Voice referendum
As the former managing director and editor in chief of The Age newspaper (and founder of the Australian Press Council), this is a hard piece to write. In my view the mainstream media – journalists and commentators – have failed this country during the debate on the Voice. (more…)
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Rejected by the people who dispossessed and colonised them
This morning, I call to mind the Aboriginal woman who spoke at the end of a forum we held in Darwin on the Voice. She told us: ‘A lot of my people don’t understand all the law and politics about this Voice. All I know is that when they wake up on Sunday 15 October and if the answer is NO, they will think that they have been rejected once again by the people who dispossessed and colonised them without their consent.’ She wept. (more…)
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The Voice, a broken system and the righting of old wrongs
The cut-through of mercenary, racist and Trumpist tropes reflected in the “No” referendum campaign has many people, including refugees, alarmed. (more…)
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The Voice has been silenced, but now we must listen
As vanquished Australians, white and black, fell back in ruin, defeat and humiliation on Saturday, the most galling prospect they must face is that for many of the victorious, the Voice battle was but the first engagement in a longer war. They do not want to give their enemies time for regrouping, or even for trench-building by which they can defend what they have got. Now, they might think, is the time to preserve the momentum for fundamental change in indigenous affairs. (more…)
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The failed referendum is a political disaster
October 14, 2023 will be remembered by many as the day reconciliation died. (more…)
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Dutton’s Pyrrhic victory
Certainly, Dutton has demonstrated that disinformation, division and some outright lies can confuse and motivate large sections of the community. (more…)
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Australian politics has reached a dead end
What the whole debate about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament demonstrated, with brutal clarity, is that Australia is a morally backward society. (more…)
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Voice to Parliament: An Australian test of character
Will Australia today say Yes and agree to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice? Or will we reject the request made to us by representatives of First Nations communities in the Uluru Statement from the Heart?
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Dark money is distorting the Voice debate
The Voice campaign has revealed how much Dark Money is distorting our political debates. But will proposed reforms of money in politics crush the independents? (more…)
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While Australia votes, India-Pakistan cricket is downstream of politics
On 14 October, my attention will wander between three unconnected stories as they unfold in real time. I will be in New Zealand on that general election date. Polls indicate the Labour government will be replaced by a centre-right coalition. But the peculiarities of the electoral system make election results and the outcome of post-election negotiations between the major parties and potential allies teasingly uncertain. (more…)
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Was the Uluru Statement of the Heart a prophetic vision for Australia?
‘Prophets nurture and evoke a new way of thinking. They give us images and words which subvert our system and tell us that we haven’t seen the whole picture yet. Prophets are not just concerned about social change for the sake of social change. They are concerned above all with transformation and freedom of the heart, and then out of that free heart, the prophet says, “Listen.” The prophet creates a new, freeing consciousness which allows us to hear the divine word and in the midst of that freedom, the prophets plant a promise, an alternative and new vision.’ (more…)
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Our Central Land Council “overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES”
“For over half a century the Central Land Council has fought for the voices of Aboriginal people from the heart of our nation to be heard. Our 90-member Council overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES, because we know that when decision-makers listen to our voices we end up with policies that help us, not harm us, and money is spent wisely.” – Lesley Turner, CEO, Central Land Council, NT. (more…)
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I am voting Yes, but many No voters support reconciliation
The referendum campaign could use more Why, and less Yes. (more…)
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Will a “shocking hurdle” defeat the Yes vote?
In a lead article published on the front page of The Saturday Paper on the 30th of September Rick Morton discussed the people who were planning to vote against the Voice. He remarked that focus groups conducted late last year revealed what he called ‘a shocking hurdle’ blocking the path of the yes vote. Almost a third ‘of all participants believed First Nations people had been treated fairly. Not just now, but since invasion.’ (more…)
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The Voice: through the disinformation to the source of opposition
On Saturday, 14 October, Australians will vote on a seemingly inoffensive change to their Constitution. Why is it meeting such opposition? The case of the destroyed site at Juukan Gorge offers a hint. Are Australian mining companies, with such a poor record of respecting the voice of aboriginal communities, the true source of opposition? (more…)
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In the final week of the referendum – make up your own mind
What can we achieve together in this final week of the referendum campaign? Join me on Thursday for a special webinar with First Nations women Lynette Riley and Beverly Baker to learn first hand about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament. (more…)
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Will referendum defeat foretell doom for Albanese?
There’s no spin or ex-post facto interpretation of the likely defeat of the Aboriginal Voice referendum able to disguise a resounding setback for Aboriginal Australians. (more…)
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Will Chinese Australians take the moral high ground, again?
In 1888 Lowe Kong Meng, Cheong Cheok Hong and Louis Ah Moy took the moral high ground in The Chinese Question booklet. They were ignored, of course. It was the time. (more…)
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From genocide to resilience: The Crimean Tatars’ struggle for justice
For nearly five decades, the Crimean Tatars tirelessly campaigned to return to their historical homeland in Crimea. Yet, for many political analysts writing about Crimea today from a critical perspective, the historical facts remain sadly unknown. (more…)
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A Yes Vote just as important to Chinese-Australians as for our Indigenous brothers and sisters
With a population of 1.4 million, Chinese-Australians are the largest ethnic minority community in Australia and our say has weight. From the perspective of that community, an important objective must be playing our part in seeing Australia lift its game to match world standards of acceptance of minorities and particularly of its indigenous peoples. (more…)
