The Australian Voice Model Is Going Down — It Must Be Changed. By Chris Merritt.
The slide in support for the proposed Indigenous voice to parliament has given Anthony Albanese little option but to accept that the plan he unveiled at last July’s Garma festival is a dud.
Despite the Prime Minister’s best efforts, the Garma provision has failed to capitalise on goodwill towards Indigenous people and is a force for discord.
It is backed by a bare majority, according to the latest polls, not the overwhelming support [90%] that was on show at the 1967 referendum. …
Why? Just the obvious:
It’s hard to see how Garma’s downward spiral could be due to antipathy towards Indigenous people.
A more likely explanation is the fact that this provision threatens the egalitarian nature of Australian society where everyone, regardless of race, has an equal say on how this country is governed.
Garma would require us to abandon that principle by constitutionalising a race-based lobby group, equipping it with a separate bureaucracy and giving it an additional say on every law and administrative decision, not just those relating specifically to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
Constitutional recognition of Indigenous people is a worthwhile goal and could still be possible this year – but not with Garma.
This provision would destroy equality of citizenship by giving one group of Australians preferential treatment when dealing with parliament and the bureaucracy.
As people find out more, support for the Voice keeps dropping:
The decline in support for Garma is clear and consistent. This week’s Newspoll shows it now stands at just 53 per cent, down from 56 per cent in February.
This is in line with figures published by Resolve Political Monitor. That organisation’s polling found support for Garma was 63 per cent in August, 64 per cent in September, 62 per cent in December, and 58 per cent in January and February.
The Voice would result in permanent alienation:
Garma has triggered division — something that could become permanent if a close vote at the referendum leaves almost half the nation alienated. …
Instead of facts, race-baiting has become the hallmark of the push to constitutionalise Garma’s flawed model for a voice to parliament and the executive. …
It is time to accept that this poisonous idea has run its course.
Unless the Prime Minister accepts this reality and overhauls Garma, the nation is heading for a close vote at the referendum which would be the worst possible outcome.
Regardless of which side wins, half the nation would be embittered and alienated – which is the reverse of what this project was supposed to achieve.
Only the progressive left could wreck a nation so comprehensively. So virtuous in their own minds, so cocksure, so ignorant of history, so disrespectful of the evolution that brought us to this point, and so deaf to criticism. It’s a political personality thing.
Btw, I heard Senator Jacinta Price speak in an interview a few days ago. She would make a decent Prime Minister — better than the current one I expect.
