Australians divided have to vote with their heads
Australia is in the grip of an identity crisis. What was once a young, selfconfident, free thinking, somewhat irreverent nation has become a guilt-ridden, politically correct collection of tribes, divided by race, religion, sexuality and politics.
Australians are assailed daily, in the mainstream and social media, with allegations of racism, white supremacy, genocide and bigotry.
This relentless onslaught on the evils of British settlement and the seemingly anachronistic nature of traditional Judeo Christian values has given rise to powerful and divisive forces bent on economic and political control. The proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament is in the vanguard of this movement.
It is a concept devised by elites for elites to ensure a three per cent racial minority has sufficient constitutional authority to seriously influence government policy on everything from interest rates to foreign affairs.
The pretext is that a fresh, privileged voice is needed to liberate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders still suffering from white colonial oppression. It doesn’t matter that this Voice will be additional to the 11 Indigenous MPS in the federal parliament and the 14 in state and territory parliaments, not to mention the multiple NGOS, government agencies and other bodies dedicated to Indigenous wellbeing.
The assertion is that by being enshrined in the constitution this Voice will achieve what multiple others could not.
There are, according to the 2021 Census, 812,728 Australians identifying as Indigenous. Most are happily integrated into the broader society, with around 20 per cent considered to be living in unacceptable circumstances.
At the grassroots level, there are multiple Indigenous state and federal bureaucracies, variously offering child protection, medical and legal services, community housing, native title claims and cultural heritage preservation. Still, most urban Indigenous people are indistinguishable from the majority of non-indigenous Australians. They are fully integrated.
This means, the Indigenous welfare complex is primarily directed at around 170,000 Indigenous people, who mainly live in remote communities and town camps.
There, they are entirely dependent on social security. Housing is overcrowded and substandard.
In these conditions, Indigenous women are many times more likely to suffer domestic violence than nonIndigenous women and far more likely to die at the hands of their partners. Indigenous children are victims of, or witnesses to, the dysfunction around them. They are being placed in child protection systems at “an alarming rate”.
This deplorable situation exists in spite of multiple voices, generous government budget allocations, mining royalties and NGO support.
All up, Australia’s Indigenous people receive more than $35 billion annually, equivalent to $43,000 for every Indigenous person identified in the census.
Despite special treatment, it is on Indigenous lands where the greatest misery exists. It’s where the collective’s dead-hand prevails, denying occupants jobs and property rights. It’s where there is usually only
one store and where blind eyes are turned to school truancy and where local languages are favoured over English.
So, while blaming this misery on British colonialism and endemic racism may be an effective means of exploiting white guilt to ensure a “yes” vote in the upcoming referendum, the latest Voice offers little for the long-term betterment of Aboriginal people.
Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe shouts: “This is a war. They are still killing us”.… “We have a voice but those bastards in Parliament haven’t been listening. What we want is justice, what we want is self determination and sovereignty”.
What she and many activists really
want is retribution in the form of substantial reparations.
But, as Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says, Australia is in need of ears, not voices. This means devolving power from Canberra to local government.
It also means vocational education and jobs. And it means integration, not segregation — all unpalatable solutions for big city elites keen to entrench their authority over powerless people held captive by custom in remote communities.
The Liberal Party is demonstrating how emotionally charged and divisive this issue is but it is to be hoped that Australians when voting in the referendum, will resist the temptation of the vibe and vote with their heads.