That’s very funny Muz. Lets just pretend the hundreds of thousands of Indigenous who arent in remote polling stations arent Indigenous anymore, because we dont like the way they voted.

Cant even spell idiocracy 😂

Just so you know, voting Yes doesnt make you smart. You of all people should know that. 

In answer to your question -- "Not sure what part of 'advisory' is problematic for you" -- it's the part where it is not actually advisory.

It is possible that you, Muz, do not realise the skill of the Left is the re-define words to the opposite meaning. Literally every buzz words that the Leftist Media and Academia come up with is opposite to its dictionary meaning.

In all likelihood, if the Labor Party had set up a true aboriginal advisory council, made up of selected people of aborigine heritage, whose task it was is to advise the government of policy needs of the aborigine community -- I think no one would have batted an eyelid. There is no need to go through millions of dollars to have a referendum just to set up an advisory council. Governments on both sides set up hundreds of councils for all manner of issues. No one is stopping anyone from setting up an advisory council.

Think!!!!! Even now, the aborigine community could go ahead themselves and set an advisory council. No one is stopping them. No one would want to stop them. They're welcome to set up whatever advisory council(s) they want.

But this referendum was not about a mere advisory council. It was to enshrine in the Constitution a power mandate given to the aborigine community, with the full force of the highest law in the Commonwealth of Australia that trumps every other law in the nation. All the aborigine activists were saying it, that once such a Constitutional advisory council was set up, if any government refused to follow the council's "advice", they would attack the government with the full force of their Constitutional power.

In other words, it's no longer "advice" if it is more than "advice". It's like some advisory board saying: we advise you to get jabbed, but if you don't, we won't let you enter your place of work. You can call it "advice" to make is sound nice - but it's not advice in any sense of the word.

p/s regarding 6,000 years and flat - if you bring that up in a separate thread, I'll put in my 2 cents worth. But it would clog up this present thread with off-topic discussion.

p/s tsf, what is it, in my writings, that makes you think I'm a troll? The Cambridge University online dictionary defines an "internet troll" as: someone who leaves an intentionally annoying or offensive message on the internet, in order to upset someone or to get attention or cause trouble. That's not my intention, so I cannot be a troll. Why do I write on this Extra Time forum? Because I learn a lot from engaging the "average Aussie" in debate. I learn how ordinary people think and reason. I see you, tsf and Muz and others, as ordinary Aussies - and I assume you take no offence at that, as I would not.

Yours sincerely
js

Clearly you have an agenda because the facts are the facts and you don't seem to want to accept them. If it helps you sleep at night to believe that Aboriginals didn't vote yes in the majority then you do that.

Here's some math for you. Try to keep up.

The highest indigenous seats have a maximum of about 30% eligible voters. Typically remote NT and remote WA.

Take 100 voters in this typical seat.

Given 70% of average Australians voted no that's 49 people voting NO vote before a single aboriginal person votes.

If you then add the indigenous vote. 30% of them voted no on average. That's 9 people . You get a total of 58% NO in that seat.

So keep telling yourself that aboriginals didn't want the voice. They did and the voting patterns bear that out.

In urban areas aboriginals make up a far fewer percentage of eligible voters. So if a seat is 10% indigenous (unlikely that high) then their votes get washed away by the 90% and are effectively irrelevant.

You meet at least 2 of these criteria. The 'ardent researcher' and the 'strawman fallacy'. 

https://samanthanorth.com/internet-trolling-tactics

You also get called out on falsehoods and lies and rather than address then you just move on. I can only assume you think we don't notice. The opposite is true of course. Every rebuttal you ignore is just another nail in your riddled credibility.

There's probably a name for that. Goalpost Shifting?

Anyway I'm not sure if you're a troll, deluded, suffering from Dunning Kruger or just thick. Probably a bit of them all.

The assumption you’re making is that based on remote poll data suggesting 70% of Indigenous voters supported the Voice. The mistake you’re making is assuming that Indigenous in remote polls vote the same as those in towns and cities, which is a bit like assuming white people in rural poor seats vote the same as white people in rich wealthy inner city suburbs. Last time I checked aboriginals who lives in towns and cities were still Aboriginal, however their voting patterns are far more difficult to discern due to diversity in those seats. There is also a lack of data concerning those who failed to cast a vote.

But even if we falsely assume the national Indigenous vote was 70% , it is still a full 10% less that the 80% that the Yes camp claimed. From a marketing perspective 70% is much harder to sell than 80%, so it could be said to amount to disinformation.

I also put to you this , you’re asking Indigenous Australians to vote on recognising themselves in the Constitution, and giving themselves special privileges that no other Australian can get, and only 70% (at best) wanted it. You would think such a proposal would have close to 100% support, but the proposal was so deeply flawed that a huge chunk of those who it was designed to serve didn’t want it. If Indigenous Aussies couldnt overwhelmingly get behind it then it’s unreasonable to think anyone else will.

10% less is misinformation. Yeah right.

Yes you'd think they'd get near 100% but the NO camp had some very effective campaigners like Price, Mundine, Thorpe and the other Mundine plus other indigenous leaders. And here's what might be a surprising fact to you, not all indigenous people think the same.

Having said that you can't get away from the fact that the majority of indigenous voters voted YES. 

No one is assuming anything. They're facts from the ground. Don't let the pesky facts get in the way of your wishful thinking.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-16/remote-indigenous-communties-backed-voice/102978972
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/15/indigenous-communities-overwhelmingly-voted-yes-to-australias-voice-to-parliament

But 74% of the 11,000 people that live in Lingiari’s remote areas voted yes, according to figures provided by Labor MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour.

The highest vote in support of yes was in Wadeye, at 92.1%. The Tiwi Islands voted 84% in favour, and Maningrida recorded an 88% yes vote.

Member since 2008.

mate I speak 4 languages have a masters in a second language - don't pull me up on a simple typo when posting on a phone ffs  :D

Yeah those are facts, but you’re only capturing those Indigenous from remote communities, there are hundreds of thousands of Aboriginals who don’t live in remote communties who are also Aboriginal and who also voted. Extrapolating the remote Indigenous vote for ALL Aboriginals is bit like extrapolating the redneck rural vote for ALL white people. It only leads to false assumptions and errors such as the one you’re making bruz.

Speaking four languages doenst make you smart either. Some would say vain.

I never said I am smart. I am just a normal guy. 

Can you not read? Aboriginals in urban or country urban areas would be lucky to be 10% of the local population. Whatever they voted, and you don't know how they voted, would be washed out by the other 90%.

And yeah I'd imagine those most at disadvantage, generally those in remote communities, probably think they had the most to gain from a voice and voted accordingly.

It makes no difference what the facts are our what I say. You made your mind up the minute they announced it.

Member since 2008.

What an idiotic statement by rusty.

I love the logic. Only in Australia is being educated a handicap to 'street smarts' or 'common sense'.

It's like people in Australia are proud of being uneducated.

You can almost hear Rusty typing away about 'typical elite inner city lefty Marxists at University who have no clue about the real world'.

I can read, not sure sure you can comprehend though? An indigenous vote in a remote community with 100% representation is equal to an Indigenous vote in the inner city with 0.1% representation. You simply cant take the remote aboriginal vote and extrapolate it for ALL Aboriginals. The fact is we dont have data on how ALL Aboriginals voted, regardless of their geography. The closest thing we have is an opinion poll pre vote which shows Indigenous support something like 60%. 

Being educated is fine. I too have a Bachelors Degree. I dont go around shitting on people who dont have one though, and I dont align my voting habits with other bachelors degree holders so I can feel part of the ‘knowledge elite’ citizenry.

Lived experience is also, and probably more, important than a piece of paper. The fact is those wealthy inner city seats probably are the most isolated from Indigenous culture and people. For many the only Aboriginal they would have encountered is on the Q&A panel.

People who have it good, ie high income, educated, own property, high net wealth, tend to have more time and interest in social justice causes than those who are what you might call strugglers and battlers. For them a vote for the Voice might lead to more bad policy which could mean increase in taxes or distraction from real issues. For the wealthy such things are unlikely to affect them, so a Yes vote is low risk and emotionally rewarding. It might also be a way of showing solidarity with the least economically privileged class, without having to turn over any money.

Yes this living out bush and being exposed to the indigenous doesn't explain the large NO votes in, say, the western suburbs or large country towns where their experience of indigenous culture is what they see on the TV or hear in the pub. 

Those that live in remote areas or towns bordering remote areas like Tennant Creek or Cooktown see the full gamut of bad indigenous behaviour. It seems to me that a lot of this was 'have a look at them, we're not giving them anything more', and 'why are they getting something when we're not'.

With a fair whack of 'this is just the thin edge of the wedge'. See (lowercase) johnsmith for an example of that. (Apparently the communists were coming to get us.)

Five minutes on facebook and you can see all kinds of 'they get everything for free' etc etc. That has been an ongoing theme since I was at school. 

I've stayed in Tennant Creek surrounded by a chain mesh fence topped with barbed wire, I lived in Darwin, Townsville and Cairns, I've seen loads of drunk, hopeless crackhead, long grass black fellas over the years. They shit me to tears.

That doesn't mean that they don't deserve help.

But it's a democracy. I'm not arguing the vote was wrong, I'm arguing that, in the main, aboriginal people wanted this. 



On a tangent, and a petty one at that.

There's no such thing as 'lived experience' it's 'experience'. The 'lived' part is redundant. There's not different types of 'experience'.

I agree with you about not extrapolating, but like it or not, it's a fair assumption based on literal facts. (You're saying 60%, that's still a majority.)

It's you and others that are claiming that because seats with high indigenous populations voted NO then that's proof 'that even indigenous people didn't want it'.

All I'm saying is those most disadvantaged, in the most remote communities, voted YES at about 70%.

Member since 2008.

A- from the school of hard knocks?
B- I don't look down on anyone less educated, only those unwilling to learn or think they know more than others when they are clearly thick. I know plenty of smart folks without high education levels. 

Only country that I am aware (besides Afghanistan lol or USA now) where teachers are looked on as hate figures ffs.

Massive insecurity complexes

Furthermore a sign of intelligence and emotional intelligence is also knowing when you don't know something about a particular topic and listening to an expert or a body of experts.

Well thank you for that completely unnecessary correction, Muz. I will write to the owners of Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries and demand they update their definitions!

Ya it's true, whether 60 or 70%, most Aboriginals wanted this. Who wouldn't want recognition and a special privilege in parliament that may lead to more money, and all they have to do is tick a box. But 60 or 70% in my opinion doesn't meet the threshold to claim they were united over the Voice. Most wanted it, many didn't, and the claim 80% were for it was blatant misinformation.

If you were to ask most minority groups in Australia; LGBT, homeless, mentally ill, refugees, Muslims, disabled, gingers etc, if they wanted constitutional recognition and Voice to parliament, I imagine most would say yes. But that doesn't mean we will give it to them. The constitution is designed to served all people equally regardless of race, background, gender identity or when you came here. That means I have as much my right to advise and inform parliament (by way of representatives) as does as an Indigenous person, and though I was born here a person who was born in Jordan, Muslim, sympathetic to Hamas and became a citizen last week has as much right to advise and inform parliament as I. And that's the way it should be, as soon as you start making exceptions here and there, you upset the balance of power.

Another reason the vote went down is because people are sick and tired of being told to feel shame for our modern history. We are not invaders, we are Australians and the land is as much ours as it is theirs. The Liberal senator and Jacinta Price among others were correct to point that colonisation has had some good impacts on the Indigenous community, which some people find threatening because it challenges the politically correct narrative that all ALL colonisation was ALL bad and evil. But truth telling is a two way street, Colonisation was neither all good nor was it all bad, nor is ancient Indigenous culture all good nor all bad. Until the leaders of the Indigenous community and political representatives are prepared to engage in two way truth telling I feel there won't much progress towards reconciliation. Most Australians are over being constantly browbeaten with how terrible and ashamed we should be of our British heritage.

Most people will form a view before they've chosen to listen to any experts, and then go in search of experts who align with and confirm their point of view. I find the term "expert" to be fairly loose these days. There are clearly experts in the fields of physics, science, medicine, engineers etc, whom should be listened to and their views respected. But there's also so called experts whom wrap up their industry knowledge with their personal politics, ideologies, values and biases, yet present their views as incontrovertible truth. And we should be very wary of these experts. 

You're welcome. (I did say it was petty.) There's no need to contact the dictionary publishers. They're 2 separate words with 2 separate definitions located appropriately, alphabetically.

Glad we agree that yes the majority wanted it.

I'll pull you up there. She (Jacinta) said 'NO ongoing impacts'. Clearly bullshit.

This is true with regards to be being browbeaten but I'm not exactly sure what 'two way truth-telling' aboriginal people can bring to the table regards what happened pre or post colonisation. Are they supposed to thank the government for tuberculosis treatment, sewage systems or iphones? 

A re-examination of what went on and how it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops is probably not a bad thing. It's probably the least we could do. NITV run that 'First Australians' doco a fair bit. I would say 90% of the bad things that happened to aboriginal people white people would have no idea about.

Just the massacres alone were horrible. As late as 1928 FFS.

That's not to say you and I are responsible but people should understand what happened. There's no need for self-flagellation but people should know about simple things like as recently as the 1950s aboriginals needed written permission to move about the country. 

I understand it's one in all in for you. Everyone is equal. That's a fair, rational and valid argument.

My rationale for this is they were here first, they asked for it and wanted it so who am I to say NO to something that, even if this voice was only 10% effective, would have improved their lot?

Because that is your worldview, you'd be stuffed when faced with a situation where experts, or bodies of experts, disagree with each other. From what we see, your fallback position is just to follow the biggest crowd of that the Mainstream touts as the "authorised" experts.

I realise that can sound like an insult, but can you see that, based on your manner of argument over many months on this forum, it is entirely true of how you think and reason?

In my field of training, we were specifically taught to analyse the reasons given for opinions. I've never studied languages, except in high school - where I was a dud at languages - but my guess is that analysis of arguments is not a major tenet of study of modern languages? (Maybe in linguistics).

You're talking about laws and norms in a society that existed 70 years ago

We say NO all the time when what people want is neither good for them, their children and their community.  Yes these are "white fella laws",  but nearly all of these laws are fair and none that I know include race as a criterion.

 I find it hard to believe that in 2023 we have numerous organizations and government departments and thousands of people and multi-billions of dollars over and above what communities receive, and none of this takes into account what indigenous people actually want so that it needs to be enshrined in the Constitution.  But if it is true why hasn't been audited and actioned?  Once auditing happens who is going to action it?

We've imported race-based politics from North America.  Whites are being guilted even if they are far removed from those in the distant past that did commit acts of racism..  Globally a common theme is indigenous populations want the ancestral lives of the past.  That's never coming back.  Anywhere.  And it shouldn't either.

A question for the YES voters.

The central theme of the referendum seemed to be that indigenous people needed a say to Parliament guaranteed in the Constitution about things that affected them and through that they would help close the gap in the various metrics of quality of life.

Did any of you actually research what exactly were the issues about indigenous people that weren't being heard, what are the current causes that lead to the gap in health, education and legal system outcomes, and how a Voice to Parliament would change those metrics?

No disrespect but how does a masters degree in a second language make someone any more qualified to vote on this referendum than someone with a vocational qualification?  In case you go there, yes I know about the claim that Arts degrees teach how to learn, rather than specific knowledge (as if that can't be learnt through other means and experiences) . 

Given that 1 in 3 have a degree these days, and how the entry standards and course grades have been watered down, a degree doesn't mean much these days.  In fact its allowed many people who lack the capacity for critical, logical and original thought to get a degree, who should never be there.

When my son graduated from RMIT a few years ago, I was astonished by the number of utterly bullshit qualifications that were being handed out.  Bet they mostly live inner city too.