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News from Australia: we're probably not going to have a Constitutionally-enshrined "Voice" for Aboriginals.
Background: there was a statement by a bunch of Aboriginal groups a while back that they wanted a constitutionally-enshrined advocate in the governmental system*, along with a couple of other things. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese, of the Australian Labor Party, included this in his platform for the 2022 election, which he won**, and we're a bit under a month from a referendum***.
New information: support started high, and certainly the Usual Suspects want a Yes vote. But support has now crashed to the point that it's considered highly unlikely to pass.
Up until now I'd been thinking "well, maybe the US people are right about SJ having peaked in the USA, but that's cold comfort to me", but this has given me some real hope that it's peaking here as well.
*NB: Aboriginals can vote and run for office, and are slightly overrepresented in Parliament compared to the general population.
**Labor is our centre-left party; the other major parties are the Liberals (city-based centre-right), the Nationals (small-town conservatives, in a semi-permanent coalition with the Liberals), the Greens (historically a "hippie" party, and they still do hold basically all the stereotypical "hippie" positions, though they've gone majorly SJ of late), One Nation (alt-rightists since before it was cool) and the United Australia Party (alt-rightists since after it was cool, because an alt-right billionaire had too big an ego to support the existing alt-right party). I actually wound up voting Labor; the Liberals had gotten too comfortable in government to the point that they refused to discuss a bunch of what they were doing, which I consider a threat to democracy, the Greens want to ban One Nation and the UAP, which I consider a much larger threat to democracy, I live in a city so the Nationals weren't on my HoR ballot, the UAP is a bad joke, and while I preferred One Nation's stance on this particular policy (i.e. "get the fuck out of here with your reverse racism") I preferred the rest of Labor's platform to the rest of One Nation's by more.
***Our constitutional amendment procedure - a majority of citizens and a majority of citizens in at least four of the six states must agree to the amendment. Like most other Australian votes, it's mandatory.
Something that's really stood out to me during this referendum process is, well, just how bad the Yes campaign is at making arguments or trying to convince people. There's a lot of quibbling minor points, or a simple inability to conceive of anyone genuinely disagreeing with them.
Meanwhile the No campaign is largely throwing mud at the wall - it knows that it only needs one reason to vote no per person, so it's focusing on throwing lots of ideas out there, suggesting that even one concern is enough reason to not go for the proposal, and consistency be damned. This isn't a great strategy from the perspective of ideological purity, but it is a great strategy from the perspective of actually winning a referendum.
Let me give an example. One of the most common No arguments is simply that the Voice is racist. The Voice is a proposal to give permanent additional democratic representation, in the form of a permanent lobby group attached to parliament, to a single ethnic or racial group. This cuts against Australian values like a fair go, and would 're-racialise' Australian society or the Australian constitution. How does the Yes campaign respond to that concern?
One common response is to point out that the Australian constitution already mentions race, so this can't re-racialise it. This is technically true - parliament only has enumerated powers in Australia, and section 51.xxxvi explicitly allows parliament to make laws on the basis of the race. However, by convention that power is almost never used, and No voters worried about race seem like they would oppose that section anyway. Moreover, the fact that section 51.xxxvi exists is obviously not a carte blanche to pass any racial law whatsoever. If there were a referendum to reintroduce the White Australian Policy and the No campaign claimed it's racist, pointing out that the constitution already mentions race would not be a defense. So too here. The Yes argument is to pedantically nitpick without at any point addressing the No voter's real conviction - that it's wrong to treat people differently on the basis of a response.
Another common response is to claim that the Voice isn't about race by nitpicking the word 'race'. For instance, here's UniMelb arguing that 'The criterion is indigeneity, not race'. Here's RMIT taking the same line. Here's the Human Rights Commission arguing that the Voice debate shouldn't be made about race, and that 'it's about participation, it's about equity, it's about elevating the position of First Nations' people'. But of course all of this is just irrelevant quibbling. Whether you call it 'race' or 'indigeneity' or 'culture' or 'heritage' it is still unambiguously a proposal to establish a permanent advisory body for a particular group of Australians on the basis of that group's ancestry - on the basis of who their parents and grandparents and so on were. It's still dividing Australians and giving greater representation to some Australians on the basis of something they were born with and did not choose, and that's the thing that the No voter is worried about. James Patterson in that third article says it in so many words: "either way what we are doing is putting into our constitution something that treats people differently because of a characteristic over which they have no control".
And so on for other arguments - it feels like this all the way down. The Yes campaign struggles to understand why anyone would vote No, so the Yes campaign just repeats clichés and slogans and tries to ineffectively obfuscate the nature of the proposal. At some point the fact is just that it's a proposal to give special additional representation to people whose ancestors were Aboriginal, and the Australian public don't like that idea.
Honestly, the all-to-all-people approach worked for Brexit. But in this case, one side (Remain) had a coherent, positive vision of what would be won, while the Voice referendum has inconsistency and emptiness on both sides. This is probably naturally conducive to the status quo.
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The main positive argument of the Yes campaign (as opposed to deflection of opposing arguments) is this:
Like, obviously this is just the politician's syllogism, and literally the same logic could lead you to sticking all the Aboriginals in re-education camps since we haven't tried that either, but the Yes campaigners do honestly believe it, and I think it is (somewhat) above the level of "clichés and slogans".
I think they believe it, but it seems to me that there's a level of magical thinking about the whole thing? We haven't tried a constitutionally-enshrined advisory body yet, but we have tried legislated advisory bodies before, multiple times, and they don't seem to have helped that much. I don't really see the case for what the Voice will do that ATSIC didn't do.
The argument is that the Voice can't be abolished by a government that doesn't like it, but, well... firstly, ATSIC lasted for fifteen years and advised both Labor and Coalition governments, and was ultimately disbanded on a bipartisan basis, so it doesn't seem like the issue there was one side of politics deciding it didn't like it and getting rid of it. Secondly, the proposed constitutional change for the Voice in no way prevents a government that doesn't like it from ignoring it. Not only can the government simply shovel all the Voice's representations straight into the shredder, parliament is given power to determine the 'composition, functions, powers, and procedures' of the Voice. A hostile government may not be able to totally abolish the Voice, but it is allowed to put a sign with 'Voice' on a janitor's closet and appoint a single non-indigenous person to meet in that closet once a decade, and call that the Voice. Nothing in the proposal as it currently stands compels a hostile government to treat the Voice as anything other than a joke.
In response to that I hear the argument that public and media pressure would force the government to take the Voice seriously - but public and media pressure right now compels the government to take indigenous issues seriously. The government does take those issues seriously, to the tune of having spent half a billion dollars on them in the Intervention. There's the argument that the Voice would be composed of indigenous people themselves who would offer more knowledgeable advice, but... the government at present has the power to solicit advice from affected local communities and indeed claims to be doing so. So again it's not clear what would be different.
But I think what bothers me more is that in practice, when I talk to people soliciting a Yes vote, what I hear on the streets are clichés like "better decisions are made when we hear from people affected" or "indigenous people just want a say in policy that affects them" or similarly vague statements that never really get to the point. The last time I talked to someone about it I heard statements like "I feel that we will never really be a whole nation until we are reconciled" and "Aboriginal people still haven't been recognised as the owners of the land that we now live on" and I just don't see how those statements make sense. These are thought-terminating clichés, not sensible discussions of a proposal for reform.
I suppose you could argue that "it's treating people differently based on race, so no" is a thought-terminating cliché for the no side. But it seems more substantial, to me? It lays out a clear principle, it's obvious how that principle applies, and it's also obvious how it can be implemented.
I mean, if you gave the Voice power to block legislation, then that would have tangible effects, and that can AIUI only be done by amending the Constitution (since AIUI if you did that via legislation alone the High Court would say "the Constitution says the power to pass federal legislation is exclusively invested in Parliament; this veto is unconstitutional", much like how they said that bills of attainder aren't constitutional because that's Parliament acting to try cases and the power to try cases is exclusively invested in the courts).
And, well, you can ask questions about whether some of the activists want exactly that. A bunch of them legit don't think that will be done, though, so you're right that there's a bit of a question mark remaining in those cases.
It would, yes, but nobody wants to give the Voice the power to block legislation.
I do think one of the problems the Voice has is that the rhetoric around it can't seem to decide whether it's toothlessly ineffective or it's a vehicle for radical change. There's a contradiction there and both the Yes and No campaigns struggle with it.
For Yes, the Voice is either a harmless, modest reform that just provides advice for parliament and definitely nothing to be scared of... or it would heal the soul of the nation and be a vital first step towards Treaty and Truth.
For No, the Voice is either a pointless, ineffective superficial reform designed to virtue-signal but won't do anything to solve the serious issues facing local Aboriginal communities... or it's a Trojan Horse designed to negotiate Treaty and establish a system of two-tiered citizenship that will take rights and land away from other Australians.
It can't be both conservative and radical, but I think the contradiction hurts the Yes campaign much more than it hurts No. The No campaign can afford to be incoherent - they only need to throw out one reason for a person to vote No, after all. It's the Yes campaign that need to build up a cohesive case and they've really been struggling with it.
I don't think that's true.
Look, I know that it's fallacious to assume that people always act rationally and therefore if they're doing something that seems to not make sense it must make sense in some hidden, often evil, way.
On the other hand, well, I took a quick look, and let me quote the Final Report of the Referendum Council, which AFAICT is not a forgery (if it is, please tell me so I can don the Mask of Ultimate Embarrassment and Shame):
These would seem to be activists who want it to have the power to block legislation.
I agree that a lot, probably most, of the "Yes" supporters honestly do not believe it will have power, and that their enthusiasm is therefore not explained by this idea (whether or not I believe their protestations to be accurate descriptions of reality*). But there definitely do exist some who want it, and they seem to have been among those that originally called for this to be Constitutional, which would seem to explain at least those people's motives.
*If the referendum were to pass, it is nigh-inevitable that someone in the Greens would publically ask for it to have powers. And at that point, the superweapon of "you racist" comes into play against Labour and (the rest of) the Greens refusing to comply (though not against One Nation, the Nationals, and to some degree the Liberals; they've written that off as a sunk cost). Do I think it'd actually make it through? Probably not; the HoR can be won with only people vulnerable to the superweapon, but while the Senate's mathematically possible it'd need every single LW party member and both non-RW independents so I think there'd be at least one person going "fuck it, I didn't sign up for this, shoot me" and one's enough. I'm certainly concerned enough about this issue not to risk voting Yes, though.
That's certainly in the report, yes. See page 30 of the full report (38 of the PDF). I'll grant that 'nobody' was hyperbole on my part. However, the report is collecting the suggestions of panels of indigenous people all over the country, rather than putting them forward as a practical proposal. As far as I can tell nobody is seriously putting forward a proposal for an indigenous Voice with the power to block or constrain acts of parliament. Any such proposal would be even more dead on arrival than the Voice currently is.
I certainly agree that the intent behind the Voice, particularly for existing indigenous activists, is to use it as a stepping stone to Truth and Treaty. I expect a move to Truth and Treaty regardless of the outcome of the referendum. If Yes wins, I think the Voice will be a body that pushes for further reforms. If No wins, I think it will be taken as evidence that the Australian people are deeply racist and ignorant (hence the need for Truth) and that Aboriginal people need a body that gives them real power (hence Treaty).
Oh, they'll try. But as I noted to AshLael, I think getting decisively defeated in a referendum (they're looking at something like 60-40 and losing five states) could well solidify consensus against them. Remember: we're not as far gone as the USA. The Greens might be close, but Labor can't get away with simply calling 60% of Australia a "basket of deplorables". Look at the ABC's referendum coverage. It's slanted as fuck, but there is a pretence of neutrality that is just not there in the US's MSM; there is clearly an editorial policy in place that they cannot explicitly say "Yes is right" and that they do have to give a fair hearing to even central examples of "No" voters. Under a Liberal government that would be expected*, but Labour's in government and Labour wants Yes to win. There are still rules in the culture war here in Australia. And the SJers have been pointing out that one of those rules is that defying a referendum is bad juju.
(NB: it's great that there are still rules, and it's bad that we're having this referendum because that frays those rules just a little more. I didn't want this, even though I did vote Labor because elections unfortunately don't give you unbundled choices. But hey, silver lining, right?)
*for non-Aussies reading this: because the ABC is a government organ. While the ABC usually is willing to criticise the government, and it's considered bad juju to fuck with its editorial policies for partisan reasons (another convention that remains in place here), there is a threshold of hostile propaganda at which the Liberals would say "fuck it" and start firing people or simply defund the whole organisation.
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This won't work either.
When it doesn't work, the people who were against it because they knew it wasn't going to work are going to have zero incentive to continue cooperating.
Policies have outcomes. When repeated policy failures discredit moderate policies and drive the adoption of radical policies, the people who lose the vote over which policy to adopt also radicalize. You don't get to hand power to radicals, and expect the moderates to stay moderate. If you are resorting to radical solutions, you are committing your polity exclusively to radical solutions from that point on until the problem is solved. Given the general track record of radical solutions and the lasting nature of the problems in question, it is entirely possible that the problem will outlast your polity.
As in the other thread, you argue as though appeasement of radicals costs you nothing. That is a poor assumption.
I think you misread my post. I literally called the only "serious" Yes argument a formal fallacy.
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