There is a great deal of rubbish being spoken about the Voice referendum, especially from the "NO" side. I find your videos really useful. For example, I'm a "constitutional purist" (politics junkie) and I was probably going to vote "NO" because I felt that the proposal created two types of citizens under out constitution - those with a "special" voice to the Federal Parliament and those who only had the regular election cycle to express their voice (you could talk to your local member to write to the minister I hear you say - lots of luck with either of those). Anyway, after watching your videos my mind has been cleared and I will be voting "YES". My initial objection to the referendum poses a real ethical problem for me. My thinking was that I really wanted to support the idea of first nations people being recognised in our Constitution BUT I didn't want the Voice to be established under the Constitution. If the government wanted to establish the Voice by legislation then I would be in total support. None of this has anything to do with race, it's all about keeping the Constitution as simple as possible. However, the mere fact of voting "NO" has beed lumbered with racial overtones and I feel uncomfortable about voting the way I think is "constitutionally better". I've probably rambled on about this but I wonder whether in a future video you could include an ethicist and have a discussion along the lines I've outlined above. Feel free to message me if you wish. Thanks again for your informative videos.
Thanks for the content, always interesting. It's a pity that most of your content you have the comments turned off and a further pity you tend to have a bias, I suppose that's the point of you making this content.....not to worry I'll comment here. Re. your latest vlog on s25, with a constitution that as you point out doesn't have a racial discrimination clause rather the opposite and from an antiquated era of when racial discrimination was not necessarily seen as a moral conundrum, surely the irony is not lost where the current government is attempting to introduce a body that is only open to and specifically made up of a certain group of people that identify as a particular race, have ancestors of a particular race and are accepted as part of this group due to the fact that they are of this particular race. Regardless of whether or not one feels there will be merit to this body it's impossible to get past the fact that the formation of it is intrinsically discriminatory and racially exclusive. Doesn't seem fitting in today's age where racial prejudice and discrimination is considered taboo.
I've only turned off the comments on the ones re the Voice, as I don't have the time to moderate and delete offensive posts. I'll turn comments back on for future posts once the referendum is over. Re your question, it is answered in the opening words of the proposed amendment. The Voice amendment is not about race, it's about who were the First Peoples of Australia - i.e. who were the people of Australia prior to British colonisation. It could be one race, two races, or fifty-two races - it wouldn't matter, because the point of the provision is that it is addressing those who were here before colonisation, as they have continuing rights and interests from before colonisation. It is certainly conceivable that there were people of different racial backgrounds in Australia pre-colonisation. Aboriginal people are treated as a different race to Torres Strait Islander people, but it is also possible that Indonesians travelled to Australia pre-colonisation and became part of the society. The bottom line is that racial background doesn't matter. The question is simply whether a person is descended from those who were living in Australia pre-colonisation.
@@constitutionalclarion1901Thanks for replying, yes I understand some people are incapable of making a point without being abusive. I feel it's a matter of semantics re race. It is true anyone with enough of an understanding can effectively argue away the concept of race to a point where it is nonexistent or open to subjective interpretation. So define the group, cohort, collection of tribes or peoples, or "descendants" (as you have named them) of the first human occupants of the geographical region now defined as Australia, or any other way that best serves one's understanding. The inescapable fact is that unless you belong to this cohort of "descendants" which makes up approximately 4% of the population you will be excluded from the possibility of participation, acceptance.....whatever....from the governmental body that would be put in place post a majority yes vote. Fundamentally it's discriminatory regardless of how eloquently one may word it. Two additional things I feel are worth noting. 1. Rights only exist as an abstract human concept and if the collection of people that they cover believe they exist then they exist. If Australians (in this instance) don't believe Aboriginals have some specific rights based on ancestral geographical occupation they don't exist. 2. The wording of the question for the referendum is not a true reflection of history. Aboriginals were not the first Australians and to say so or "recognize" it as being so is a flat out lie, Australia/Australians didn't exist as a Nation prior to colonization.....Wording the question along the lines of...Recognize the first people's occupation of the Country/Nation....idk...whatever...now know as Australia would be closer to be correct.
If I subscribed to conspiracy theories I would say that what was put to the people in the referendum was done deliberately, designed so that it would fail. Being somewhat more grounded I suspect that it was created in a Canberra echo chamber with input from a very myopic viewpoint, with little to no regards to the rest of the population. How could you plainly get it so wrong? Recognition of first Peoples of Australia, no problem. Would have garnered 70+% support. Then legislate the "voice". What we ended up with instead was an absolute s*%t-fest. A miscalculation of the highest order. Unforgivable.
There is a great deal of rubbish being spoken about the Voice referendum, especially from the "NO" side. I find your videos really useful. For example, I'm a "constitutional purist" (politics junkie) and I was probably going to vote "NO" because I felt that the proposal created two types of citizens under out constitution - those with a "special" voice to the Federal Parliament and those who only had the regular election cycle to express their voice (you could talk to your local member to write to the minister I hear you say - lots of luck with either of those). Anyway, after watching your videos my mind has been cleared and I will be voting "YES".
My initial objection to the referendum poses a real ethical problem for me. My thinking was that I really wanted to support the idea of first nations people being recognised in our Constitution BUT I didn't want the Voice to be established under the Constitution. If the government wanted to establish the Voice by legislation then I would be in total support. None of this has anything to do with race, it's all about keeping the Constitution as simple as possible. However, the mere fact of voting "NO" has beed lumbered with racial overtones and I feel uncomfortable about voting the way I think is "constitutionally better".
I've probably rambled on about this but I wonder whether in a future video you could include an ethicist and have a discussion along the lines I've outlined above. Feel free to message me if you wish.
Thanks again for your informative videos.
YES - This video and channel is interesting and informative
Thanks. Glad you find it useful.
Thanks for the content, always interesting.
It's a pity that most of your content you have the comments turned off and a further pity you tend to have a bias, I suppose that's the point of you making this content.....not to worry I'll comment here.
Re. your latest vlog on s25, with a constitution that as you point out doesn't have a racial discrimination clause rather the opposite and from an antiquated era of when racial discrimination was not necessarily seen as a moral conundrum, surely the irony is not lost where the current government is attempting to introduce a body that is only open to and specifically made up of a certain group of people that identify as a particular race, have ancestors of a particular race and are accepted as part of this group due to the fact that they are of this particular race.
Regardless of whether or not one feels there will be merit to this body it's impossible to get past the fact that the formation of it is intrinsically discriminatory and racially exclusive.
Doesn't seem fitting in today's age where racial prejudice and discrimination is considered taboo.
I've only turned off the comments on the ones re the Voice, as I don't have the time to moderate and delete offensive posts. I'll turn comments back on for future posts once the referendum is over.
Re your question, it is answered in the opening words of the proposed amendment. The Voice amendment is not about race, it's about who were the First Peoples of Australia - i.e. who were the people of Australia prior to British colonisation. It could be one race, two races, or fifty-two races - it wouldn't matter, because the point of the provision is that it is addressing those who were here before colonisation, as they have continuing rights and interests from before colonisation. It is certainly conceivable that there were people of different racial backgrounds in Australia pre-colonisation. Aboriginal people are treated as a different race to Torres Strait Islander people, but it is also possible that Indonesians travelled to Australia pre-colonisation and became part of the society. The bottom line is that racial background doesn't matter. The question is simply whether a person is descended from those who were living in Australia pre-colonisation.
@@constitutionalclarion1901Thanks for replying, yes I understand some people are incapable of making a point without being abusive.
I feel it's a matter of semantics re race. It is true anyone with enough of an understanding can effectively argue away the concept of race to a point where it is nonexistent or open to subjective interpretation.
So define the group, cohort, collection of tribes or peoples, or "descendants" (as you have named them) of the first human occupants of the geographical region now defined as Australia, or any other way that best serves one's understanding. The inescapable fact is that unless you belong to this cohort of "descendants" which makes up approximately 4% of the population you will be excluded from the possibility of participation, acceptance.....whatever....from the governmental body that would be put in place post a majority yes vote.
Fundamentally it's discriminatory regardless of how eloquently one may word it.
Two additional things I feel are worth noting.
1. Rights only exist as an abstract human concept and if the collection of people that they cover believe they exist then they exist.
If Australians (in this instance) don't believe Aboriginals have some specific rights based on ancestral geographical occupation they don't exist.
2. The wording of the question for the referendum is not a true reflection of history.
Aboriginals were not the first Australians and to say so or "recognize" it as being so is a flat out lie, Australia/Australians didn't exist as a Nation prior to colonization.....Wording the question along the lines of...Recognize the first people's occupation of the Country/Nation....idk...whatever...now know as Australia would be closer to be correct.
If I subscribed to conspiracy theories I would say that what was put to the people in the referendum was done deliberately, designed so that it would fail. Being somewhat more grounded I suspect that it was created in a Canberra echo chamber with input from a very myopic viewpoint, with little to no regards to the rest of the population. How could you plainly get it so wrong? Recognition of first Peoples of Australia, no problem. Would have garnered 70+% support. Then legislate the "voice". What we ended up with instead was an absolute s*%t-fest. A miscalculation of the highest order. Unforgivable.