From the Editor
I’m pleased to be back home after a road trip of 4120 km. There’s a lot to see and do in our great land. I visited the Rotary Club of Longreach and there’s report on that in this newsletter. Thanks to Juris for his report on Professor Asmi Wood’s talk on the Voice referendum at our Zoom meeting last week. There’s information on our next two meetings, including this week’s roster; three upcoming events; and, as usual, some humour to end the newsletter.
Correction
Last week I accidently wrote “Melrose Primary School” instead of “Majura Primary School”. It is the latter that we are sponsoring book prizes for. I take this error as evidence that my travel was relaxing!
Stephen McMillan
Last week’s meeting: ANU Professor Asmi Wood speaking on the Voice
We’re so used to hearing politicised, overblown and sometimes clearly false opinions, on the forthcoming Referendum on the Voice to Parliament and Executive Government of the Commonwealth, that it’s possible we can’t tell fear-mongering and outright lies from an honest statement of the simple facts.
How good would it be for people all around Australia to hear the unvarnished and unembellished facts on the legal and Constitutional issues to do with the forthcoming referendum on The Voice, from Constitutional lawyer, Professor Asmi Wood, ANU College of Law, expert in Constitutional recognition of Indigenous people in Australia?
Professor Wood says, yes, there is about a 20 per cent minority of Indigenous voices saying that the Voice doesn’t go far enough. Sure. But it’s a start. Treaty and Truth-telling can come later. From his perspective as an expert on Constitutional law, contrary to a further strand of negative argument, there is nothing scary about the proposed Voice as it stands. The Voice will not adversely affect the people. The Voice will not racialise the Constitution. (Should I say it? It already is explicitly racist.) There will be no flood of cases to the High Court.
Professor Wood gave us a potted history of the efforts, successes and remaining hurdles to do with the history of native title and the seeking of an Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Voice to Parliament. He pointed out that the 1992 Mabo High Court decision on property rights to Native Title arose from English law as a burden on the King as applied to land. Freehold is a stronger right. Native Title is a much weaker right. Subsequently the majority of our Parliament voted almost unanimously for recognition in the Constitution done in Parliament.
We have, in effect, a Constitutional system which is hybrid: the “Washminster” system, a combination of the Washington and Westminster systems. Our Parliament is bound by the Constitution. Under it, we need a double majority to pass a referendum – more than 50 per cent of the people and more than 50 per cent of our States, unlike England, which does not have the notion of a referendum. The proposal is a modest measure, as indicated by the Prime Minister.
We now have a Bill for an Act in Parliament to alter the Constitution. The proposed Chapter IX, Clause 129, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, sets out three brief and straight-forward matters “In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia”. The first names the body; the second allows it to make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government; and the third allows Parliament to make laws with respect to that body (The Voice).
The key part of that second part, provision 129(ii), is “may make representations”. This gives Indigenous people a voice without taking away anything from the majority or from the power of the Parliament to operate efficiently or effectively. Most people, lawyers in particular, believe it would improve processes.
Professor Wood, whose second main strand of current research centres around Indigenous Participation in Higher Education, points out that most funding for Indigenous people in Australia has gone to the cities, little of which reaches the people for schools, hospitals and the like. He finds that education is of the greatest benefit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Establishment of the Voice is the most likely way that the current deficiencies for Australia’s Indigenous people might be remedied.
The referendum, if successful, entrenches a Voice. This is the key difference between the parties, i.e., the Coalition opposes entrenchment.
Either way (entrenched or otherwise) the functions of a Voice according to either side’s model will be legislated and therefore the function is determined by the government of the day.
Gaining the government’s ear would be easier and less subject to the whims of governments as they change through elections if the Voice were entrenched. One might expect a more continuous, productive and less frustrating arrangement of consultation from this than currently exists.
May more people hear what Professor Asmi Wood has to say on the subject!
Juris Jakovics
Visit to Rotary Club of Longreach