With the Voice to Parliament Referendum date announced to be October 14 2023, this thread will run in the lead up to the date for general discussions/queries regarding the Voice to Parliament.
The Proposed Constitutional Amendment
Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Past Discussions
Here are some previous posts in this community regarding the referendum:
- The Voice referendum official Yes/No pamphlets
- Linda Burney says there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by supporting the Voice
- Families distressed after ‘highly misleading’ video used by anti-Voice campaigners goes viral
- The Indigenous Voice to Parliament – separating fact from fiction | 7.30
- 10 questions about the Voice to Parliament - answered by the experts
- The yes pamphlet: campaign’s voice to parliament referendum essay – annotated and factchecked
- Fact-checking for the “No” referendum pamphlet was not compulsory
Common Misinformation
- “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is 26 Pages not 1” - not true
Government Information
- Referendum question and constitutional amendment
- voice.gov.au - General information about the Voice
Amendments to this post
If you would like to see some other articles or posts linked here please let me know and I’ll try to add it as soon as possible.
- Added the proposed constitutional amendment (31/08/2023)
- Added Common Misinformation section (01/07/2023)
Discussion / Rules
Please follow the rules in the sidebar and for aussie.zone in general. Anything deemed to be misinformation or with malicious intent will be removed at moderators’ discretion. This is a safe space to discuss your opinion on the voice or ask general questions.
Please continue posting news articles as separate posts but consider adding a link to this post to encourage discussion.
Who? All polling suggests an overwhelming majority (>80%+ Yes, <15% No) of Indigenous Australians support the Voice. Provide some evidence or stop making this baseless claim. And no, more boring anecdotes about your “Indigenous friends” is not sufficient evidence.
It wouldn’t be a Whirlybird comment without some more crying about hurt feelings. Are you ever going to grow up and get a real argument? Maybe provide some evidence to back up anything you say? Or is this really the best you’ve got? Just another completely irrelevant sob story about how some imaginary Yes campaigner was mean to you online.
Never mind the actual hard, documented evidence of racism within the No campaign - the real problem (according to you) is that once upon a time a mythical Yes campaigner misidentified your ignorance as racism and you found that so incredibly offensive and life altering that you now feel the need to remind us of it in every single comment. Get over it already.
Ah yes, the infamous “over 80% support it” based on a poll of 700 indigenous people 😂.
I’m assuming you’re the same person that said I had “hurt feelings” like this last time? My feelings aren’t hurt at all, though I have to wonder about yours considering how upset you seem to be getting. I’m stating facts - a big part of the yes supporters tactics are just say that anyone who doesn’t vote yes is racist. I’m sure you’ve done it plenty of times already, since you just did it to me 😂
The way you’re just making stuff up to try and attack me is exactly what I’m saying. You just try and bully people into your beliefs. Like I said, when you do that you shouldn’t expect people to side with you, but to turn even more against you. That’s how it has worked all throughout history.
More deflection. Where’s your evidence for your claim?
What claim? What deflection?
You’re just calling me racist and claiming my feelings are hurt, literally proving my point.
Source?
You think I need a source to say lots of indigenous people are voting no? 😂
What you’re saying implies the existence of some sort of majority. Something which you have argued a lot. Some polling shows that around 80% of Indigenous Australians support the voice, last time I checked around 20% is a minority
Is 20% not “lots”? If 20% of our population died would you not say a lot of people died?
I’m not arguing over whether 20% is an insignificant amount of people which by most measures it isn’t. But it also isn’t close to a majority, if it was something like a 60-40 or 50-50 split I would accept your argument. But it would appear that a fairly strong majority of First Nations people support the voice, substantially more than those that don’t.
@Whirlybird @Ilandar Uh yes. You do.
You claimed “lots of Indigenous people” think the Voice is a useless idea. Where is your evidence?
Yeah, and I’m shocked you’re actually asking for a source on that because that’s ridiculous.
The source you’re quoting was a poll of 700 indigenous people 😂
Why is it ridiculous? If you make a claim, back it up with evidence.
The two polls I cited are evidence. Despite your faux scepticism, their accuracy was explained clearly to you by another user earlier this month. First you attempted to argue that they were inaccurate because Australia has a population of 5 million Indigenous Australians, and when it was pointed out to you that this figure is completely wrong and you have no idea what you’re talking about, you proceeded to double-down and make baseless claims about the validity of the reults despite being unable to provide a single, statistical explanation of how they were “wildly and massively incorrect”.
Every time someone asks you to provide a source or some evidence, you crumble. You start strawmanning, or attempting to divert or deflect attention away from your obviously fake and flawed arguments to something completely irrelevant like your feelings. You have absolutely nothing of value to offer in this debate and it is painfully obvious for everyone to see.
If you’re a white person you really shouldn’t be trying to represent the views of Indigenous Australians. I don’t care how you’re voting, we all need to reflect on and consider whose voices we’re trying to represent here.
So white people also shouldn’t be saying that “80%” of indigenous people support the voice either?
I would argue that’s different because these people are citing polling information not trying to represent Indigenous voices. By design, quantitative data does not represent qualitative data. If they were trying to represent qualitative experiences, then yes absolutely this applies. It’s important that we all reflect on our positions in this debate, especially if we are claiming to represent the perspectives of Indigenous Australians.