Exclusive: Whitestone Strategic, which has close ties to rightwing lobby group Advance, was paid to craft messaging on topics such as vaccine mandates and renewable energy
First, because the comment stands alone, it invites the ridiculous assertion that if voting is expensive, then why should we do any voting at all?
But, of course, thats probably not the intent of the comment. I’d guess your intent was to state how much of a waste that particular vote was. Which is likewise how many people probably felt about the same sex marriage plebiscite, or before that the republic referendum, or any other you can think of.
The point is, a large enough portion of effected people across the country were deemed to see this issue as important enough to consider or rebuff a proposed change. It might’ve meant nothing to you, in this case, but there were people on both sides of the argument that it meant a lot to, and they still needed the rest of us to weigh in.
Anyway, my issue is with the argument put in dollar terms like that, it just misses the point of all these sorts of things we do.
Ur missing the whole point the referendum wasnt a vote on the issue of a voice as many like to say it was. It was a vote to put said voice in the constitution we could have had a voice right now and they could have been given $364.6 million. But instead we had a vote to put it in the constitution and we have neither a voice or 364.6 million dollars to help solve indiginous issues. The vote was unnessasary but instead we had the vote and we have no voice whatsoever the government gambled on putting it in the constitution and lost it all.
No, you missed the point of the referendum. But you have understood the action proposed to be taken, which is half the story.
Essential to the referendim is the previous experience of centralising Aboriginal organisations along the same vein as the Voice was supposed to be. The problem was, from government to government, there was a lack of ongoing commitment, the organisations were subject to the political winds of the day.
The half of the story you’ve missed:
Putting a requirement for ‘a Voice’ in the Constitution sets a minimum standard that all governments in the future would have to meet. In whatever form suits them and the political tides of the day, but they couldn’t shut the body down entirely without ensuring replacement of that body with another.
The government could, or may, re-establish an authority like the Voice now, but as before, it has no protection from being closed down for whatever reason, without replacement in the future.
It was a really smart proposal. The fear campaign from Advance, and the poor promotion of the case from the YES side, led to the simple and good proposal being lost in trashy scare campaigns and uplifting adverts of no substance. Not to mention the mostly horrible ‘debates’ that never actually covered the proposal itself and always wandered off into ridiculous areas the proposal didnt cover.
Some of the best speakers i found on the subject were Hannah Mcglade, Julian Leeser, Anne Twomey, but there were plenty more.
ok so heres the timeline for all representative bodies:
1973: The National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) was established by the Whitlam Government (Labor Party) as the first national body elected by Aboriginal people. Its main role was advisory only.
1977: The NACC was abolished by the Fraser Government (Liberal-National Coalition) after a review found it ineffective. It was replaced by the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), which was supposed to be a representative body for Indigenous people to advise the government on policy matters and to promote self-determination.
1985: The NAC was dissolved by the Hawke Government (Labor Party), which established the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1989 as a new representative body2. ATSIC had both representative and administrative functions, and was composed of elected regional councils and a national board of commissioners.
2005: ATSIC was abolished by the Howard Government (Liberal-National Coalition) after allegations of corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability. It was replaced by a network of government-appointed advisory bodies, such as the National Indigenous Council and the Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs.
2010: The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (NCAFP) was established as an independent and representative body for Indigenous people, with funding support from the Rudd Government (Labor Party). The NCAFP aimed to be a national voice for Indigenous rights, interests, and aspirations.
2019: The NCAFP ceased operations due to lack of funding from the Morrison Government (Liberal-National Coalition). The government instead supported the development of a new representative body, called the Indigenous Voice, which would provide advice to parliament and government on matters affecting Indigenous people.
2019: The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) is a government agency responsible for Indigenous affairs. created following an announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Liberal-National Coalition).
This is currently the only governmental active representative body Since the voice was never implemented.
2023: A referendum on whether to enshrine the Indigenous Voice in the constitution was held on October 14, 2023. This referendum was rejected but does not necessarily mean it cannot still be enshrined in legislation (which I and I think many other people are in full support of).
Seems that both parties have continuosly created and destroyed said represntative bodies since their inception 1973. None of these bodies had any protection from being closed down for whatever reason but all where replaced with something else reletivly quickly indicating that said need for constitutional enshrinement was and is complete bullshit.
Im gonna go listen to these speakers then listen to the people who dislike them the most and then form my own opinion about whatever the hell they gonna say.
I’m not sure why you’re not understanding this. The 'possibility’of a representative body is a very different proposition than the ‘requirement’ of a representative body. Both for practical purposes (the guarantee of continuance), and in negotiating when the pollies decide they aren’t happy with the old body.
An example,
I’m not sure about other States, but my State (WA), changed the law a few years ago to a mandatory jail term for people who assault a police officer. Before that, i’m sure it would have been very likely you’d go to jail for assaulting a police officer. But, it was never guaranteed. The change to a guaranteed minimum jail sentence, while functionally might not have vastly different outcomes for the perpetrators, the guarantee does give the police officers an added psychological barrier from assault in highly charged situations.
Note: This is one among other reasons the law was introduced. Eg, One punch assaults leading to deaths come to mind.
So, i hope this finally explains why, said need was not bullshit. And the wiser decision at the time, even in failure.
I disagree still seems like a lot of money to acheive absolutly no difference of the outcome based acheivables. If a bill passes in the woods and never effects the existing outcomes did it really pass?
Be careful with outcomes based achievables. Its a nice sounding phrase, but as the Abbott government, and their successors found out when they introduced and favoured the Indigenous Advisory Council, (to the detriment of the National Congress).
Without the buy in from the people themselves you get no where fast. A body and decisions about your life foisted upon you by a distant and obscure leadership leads to poor putcomes and decision making.
A different example, to illustrate my point:
I and my peers were once forced to learn Indonesian when the school had other subjects available and a notional choice. The Principal decided the enrolments in Indonesian weren’t high enough. So all students from the primary school who’d learned Indonesian were told they must carry on with Indonesian while the rest of the year could pick. Suffice to say little Indonesian was learned in the years following, and few teachers stayed due to their inability to control a student body who were made an enemy in their own education. I’m not saying the student body were right in how they acted, but the source was an out of touch decision by a distant leadership.
Back to the Abbott decision:
In the case of Abbott’s direct outcomes based solution all the money spent seems largely wasted, as the larger population indicators over the period have all deteriorated quite dramatically.
This is a key reason why the structure of the Voice was so important. The model proposed in the calma*, langton report went a long way to ensure fair representation of all Aboriginal nations across Australia. (notice i say nations, not people. There was a glaring omission by both sides about the guarantee of personal democratic rights that was never addressed in the campaigns).
Anyway, here i’ve gone rabbiting away again. Suffice to say the ‘involvement’ of stakeholders in the research and decision making process is key for a trustworthy and effective governance. This is largely why the failure of the referendum hasn’t blown back on the Labor party, as evidenced in the Dunkley by-election, with a minor 3 point swing to the libs and a Labor retention.
Thats more about the implemwntation of a represntative body not if it is in the consatitution tho. Any hope of this system being implemented wich im in full support of got killed by the gamblw on putting it in the constitution which would have ensured none of these things.
But we’re back again at, putting it in the constitution lifts the negotiating position as a, ‘this will happen’ we just have to work out how, from ‘this might happen, convince us that we should’. The bargaining positions fundamentally change.
Give it a few years, another of these commissions will be implemented, or expanded etc. And the cycle will continue. Perhaps it’ll even resemble the Voice proposals, but they’ll never have the constitutional backing. And they’re weaker for it.
The money spent on the referendum was worth the risk of failure. And the residual benefits ameliorate the cost of failure to a larger degree than people give credit.
Another quick aside, you say its wasted money, but if you’re a Classical Economics fan, who puts stock in a nations yearly GDP, then that money probably contributed to “Grrrr0wtH!!” :) /joke
After re-reading your comment here, your suggesting putting the $364.6 million into indigenous issues directly. Thats a fair discussion to have for budgetary matters. Directing the funding to where it may have the largest impact is an important consideration.
I think this makes the argument for holding a referendum stronger. There are a number of effects this referendum has had:
education of constitutional law
normalisation of holding this thing called a referendum (something younger generations had never done)
a year of aboriginal issues being central to national debate. No matter how toxic it was, everybody will be a lot more familiar with the challenges that group face.
the Aboriginal community now know beyond any doubt that a 1/3 of Australia have an understanding and want to help in a truly meaningful way. That shouldn’t be dismissed lightly.
politicians understand the electorate on this single issue more clearly. A general election could never deliver this. Take Bill Shortens 2019 failure at election as an example, they still don’t quite know why they failed, all they can say it was likely to do with their tax policy. Its one of the reasons they’re so gun shy about tax changes in our current national debate.
Sure theres other things the money could have gone on, (there always is). And they might prove to be a better investment. But there have been short term and long term benefits from this referendum even in failure, and even if a voter didn’t support the proposition itself, there are still recognisable benefits.
This is a lazy argument.
First, because the comment stands alone, it invites the ridiculous assertion that if voting is expensive, then why should we do any voting at all?
But, of course, thats probably not the intent of the comment. I’d guess your intent was to state how much of a waste that particular vote was. Which is likewise how many people probably felt about the same sex marriage plebiscite, or before that the republic referendum, or any other you can think of.
The point is, a large enough portion of effected people across the country were deemed to see this issue as important enough to consider or rebuff a proposed change. It might’ve meant nothing to you, in this case, but there were people on both sides of the argument that it meant a lot to, and they still needed the rest of us to weigh in.
Anyway, my issue is with the argument put in dollar terms like that, it just misses the point of all these sorts of things we do.
Ur missing the whole point the referendum wasnt a vote on the issue of a voice as many like to say it was. It was a vote to put said voice in the constitution we could have had a voice right now and they could have been given $364.6 million. But instead we had a vote to put it in the constitution and we have neither a voice or 364.6 million dollars to help solve indiginous issues. The vote was unnessasary but instead we had the vote and we have no voice whatsoever the government gambled on putting it in the constitution and lost it all.
No, you missed the point of the referendum. But you have understood the action proposed to be taken, which is half the story.
Essential to the referendim is the previous experience of centralising Aboriginal organisations along the same vein as the Voice was supposed to be. The problem was, from government to government, there was a lack of ongoing commitment, the organisations were subject to the political winds of the day.
The half of the story you’ve missed:
Putting a requirement for ‘a Voice’ in the Constitution sets a minimum standard that all governments in the future would have to meet. In whatever form suits them and the political tides of the day, but they couldn’t shut the body down entirely without ensuring replacement of that body with another.
The government could, or may, re-establish an authority like the Voice now, but as before, it has no protection from being closed down for whatever reason, without replacement in the future.
It was a really smart proposal. The fear campaign from Advance, and the poor promotion of the case from the YES side, led to the simple and good proposal being lost in trashy scare campaigns and uplifting adverts of no substance. Not to mention the mostly horrible ‘debates’ that never actually covered the proposal itself and always wandered off into ridiculous areas the proposal didnt cover.
Some of the best speakers i found on the subject were Hannah Mcglade, Julian Leeser, Anne Twomey, but there were plenty more.
ok so heres the timeline for all representative bodies:
1973: The National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) was established by the Whitlam Government (Labor Party) as the first national body elected by Aboriginal people. Its main role was advisory only.
1977: The NACC was abolished by the Fraser Government (Liberal-National Coalition) after a review found it ineffective. It was replaced by the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), which was supposed to be a representative body for Indigenous people to advise the government on policy matters and to promote self-determination.
1985: The NAC was dissolved by the Hawke Government (Labor Party), which established the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1989 as a new representative body2. ATSIC had both representative and administrative functions, and was composed of elected regional councils and a national board of commissioners.
2005: ATSIC was abolished by the Howard Government (Liberal-National Coalition) after allegations of corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability. It was replaced by a network of government-appointed advisory bodies, such as the National Indigenous Council and the Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs.
2010: The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (NCAFP) was established as an independent and representative body for Indigenous people, with funding support from the Rudd Government (Labor Party). The NCAFP aimed to be a national voice for Indigenous rights, interests, and aspirations.
2019: The NCAFP ceased operations due to lack of funding from the Morrison Government (Liberal-National Coalition). The government instead supported the development of a new representative body, called the Indigenous Voice, which would provide advice to parliament and government on matters affecting Indigenous people.
2019: The National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) is a government agency responsible for Indigenous affairs. created following an announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Liberal-National Coalition). This is currently the only governmental active representative body Since the voice was never implemented.
2023: A referendum on whether to enshrine the Indigenous Voice in the constitution was held on October 14, 2023. This referendum was rejected but does not necessarily mean it cannot still be enshrined in legislation (which I and I think many other people are in full support of).
Seems that both parties have continuosly created and destroyed said represntative bodies since their inception 1973. None of these bodies had any protection from being closed down for whatever reason but all where replaced with something else reletivly quickly indicating that said need for constitutional enshrinement was and is complete bullshit.
Im gonna go listen to these speakers then listen to the people who dislike them the most and then form my own opinion about whatever the hell they gonna say.
I’m not sure why you’re not understanding this. The 'possibility’of a representative body is a very different proposition than the ‘requirement’ of a representative body. Both for practical purposes (the guarantee of continuance), and in negotiating when the pollies decide they aren’t happy with the old body.
An example,
I’m not sure about other States, but my State (WA), changed the law a few years ago to a mandatory jail term for people who assault a police officer. Before that, i’m sure it would have been very likely you’d go to jail for assaulting a police officer. But, it was never guaranteed. The change to a guaranteed minimum jail sentence, while functionally might not have vastly different outcomes for the perpetrators, the guarantee does give the police officers an added psychological barrier from assault in highly charged situations.
Note: This is one among other reasons the law was introduced. Eg, One punch assaults leading to deaths come to mind.
So, i hope this finally explains why, said need was not bullshit. And the wiser decision at the time, even in failure.
I disagree still seems like a lot of money to acheive absolutly no difference of the outcome based acheivables. If a bill passes in the woods and never effects the existing outcomes did it really pass?
Be careful with outcomes based achievables. Its a nice sounding phrase, but as the Abbott government, and their successors found out when they introduced and favoured the Indigenous Advisory Council, (to the detriment of the National Congress).
Without the buy in from the people themselves you get no where fast. A body and decisions about your life foisted upon you by a distant and obscure leadership leads to poor putcomes and decision making.
A different example, to illustrate my point:
I and my peers were once forced to learn Indonesian when the school had other subjects available and a notional choice. The Principal decided the enrolments in Indonesian weren’t high enough. So all students from the primary school who’d learned Indonesian were told they must carry on with Indonesian while the rest of the year could pick. Suffice to say little Indonesian was learned in the years following, and few teachers stayed due to their inability to control a student body who were made an enemy in their own education. I’m not saying the student body were right in how they acted, but the source was an out of touch decision by a distant leadership.
Back to the Abbott decision:
In the case of Abbott’s direct outcomes based solution all the money spent seems largely wasted, as the larger population indicators over the period have all deteriorated quite dramatically.
This is a key reason why the structure of the Voice was so important. The model proposed in the calma*, langton report went a long way to ensure fair representation of all Aboriginal nations across Australia. (notice i say nations, not people. There was a glaring omission by both sides about the guarantee of personal democratic rights that was never addressed in the campaigns).
Anyway, here i’ve gone rabbiting away again. Suffice to say the ‘involvement’ of stakeholders in the research and decision making process is key for a trustworthy and effective governance. This is largely why the failure of the referendum hasn’t blown back on the Labor party, as evidenced in the Dunkley by-election, with a minor 3 point swing to the libs and a Labor retention.
Thats more about the implemwntation of a represntative body not if it is in the consatitution tho. Any hope of this system being implemented wich im in full support of got killed by the gamblw on putting it in the constitution which would have ensured none of these things.
But we’re back again at, putting it in the constitution lifts the negotiating position as a, ‘this will happen’ we just have to work out how, from ‘this might happen, convince us that we should’. The bargaining positions fundamentally change.
Give it a few years, another of these commissions will be implemented, or expanded etc. And the cycle will continue. Perhaps it’ll even resemble the Voice proposals, but they’ll never have the constitutional backing. And they’re weaker for it.
The money spent on the referendum was worth the risk of failure. And the residual benefits ameliorate the cost of failure to a larger degree than people give credit.
Another quick aside, you say its wasted money, but if you’re a Classical Economics fan, who puts stock in a nations yearly GDP, then that money probably contributed to “Grrrr0wtH!!” :) /joke
After re-reading your comment here, your suggesting putting the $364.6 million into indigenous issues directly. Thats a fair discussion to have for budgetary matters. Directing the funding to where it may have the largest impact is an important consideration.
I think this makes the argument for holding a referendum stronger. There are a number of effects this referendum has had:
Sure theres other things the money could have gone on, (there always is). And they might prove to be a better investment. But there have been short term and long term benefits from this referendum even in failure, and even if a voter didn’t support the proposition itself, there are still recognisable benefits.