Avoiding the blame game

Andrew, Poll Bludger has done a linear regression analysis of demographic variables which influenced the referendum result. If you don’t know about linear regression try Google. I spend decades teaching the stuff.

For a variable labelled Finished School, “yes did very considerably better in seats with high educational attainment”.

For a second variable Secular, the analysis showed that “seats with a lot of people who identified as having no religious affiliation were significantly stronger for yes”.

Would you interpret these stats as showing that God voted “no”? And that God is very skeptical of education?

I know God did not like my comments on the Voice because Eureka Street censored most of them.

The Catholic and Anglican churches should step into the vacuum the loss of the referendum has created. They should foster and fund in the first instance a body that will be a mouthpiece for First People voices. It could be called something like The Uluru Council. It would be staff ed - with indigenous experts - as a think-tank, with goals and activities that would reach to communities but be oriented toward advancing its constituents' well-being through political and society-wide communication. The Churches should commit substantial funding (even the tithing of dioceses) for the operation of the council, though it should also attract government funding.

I’m saddened that the referendum was rejected by the majority of voters of Australia. I’m shocked and saddened by the violence which has erupted in Israel and Gaza. The hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who worked so hard for change have been dealt a bitter blow. I hope that time and continued respect will allow us to heal and stay together. For the people of the Middle East I can pray that a solution will be found and build peace where I can.

In the end, voters rejected the vibe that the Voice was a magic bullet that would close the gap, a gap that had widened notwithstanding 50 years of separatist policies implemented by an "Aboriginal Industry" with massive funding. They were persuaded more by the gracious Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price who offered "a new era of Indigenous policy" not based on separatism and grievance.
Actions speak louder than words. After the barbaric cruelties inflicted on men women and children in Israel, the worst single day for Jews since the Holocaust, the reactions of many people revealed everything you needed to know about their real characters, unless one has "eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear."

I think the Voice was a dreadful tokenistic gesture which failed because most Australians realized they would be buying a pig in a poke. Some of the demands from the likes of Thomas Mayo and Michael Mansell are absurd. We don't need more committees; more aggrieved activists; more pseudo-experts or anyone else on the public gravy train. Someone like Jacinta Price is already in parliament and doing a wonderful job. We need more like her. Perhaps we might have the sense to preselect and elect Warren Mundine? Hopefully, there is a new generation of indigenous leaders arising who look forward to a shared future. Regarding the situation with Israel and the Palestinians, I think great caution is needed, because a serious Middle Eastern War could break out which could kill and maim hundreds of thousands more innocents.

Israelis are not the only victims here, and Hamas is not the only aggressor. What we are seeing are the consequences of Europe's last colonising project.

Several weeks ago a young Indigenous man named Myles Jerrard from the Northwestern Tableland was interviewed on Sky News.
While expressing "the utmost respect" for the Indigenous leaders of the YES campaign, he explained why he would be voting NO. His arguments was based on the need for personal responsibility on the part of the individual and local communities - as distinct from an exclusively self-appropriated victim mentality and its expression in what Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine have called "grievance politics." Myles Jerrard refuses to accept the definition of "inherent" indigenous disadvantage, regarding it as both self-defeating and a denial of the reality of opportunity offered and accepted in his own experience as a recent graduate in politics from Sydney University, and in the experience of highly accomplished Indigenous academics.
His statement strikes me as a strong reminder that without personal responsibility and commitment in our direct sphere of experience, structural or systemic change rings hollow - something that appears to be borne out by the result of the Voice referendum.
Also impressive was Myles' articulation of the need for new vision and indigenous youth involvement - a new generation - in leading reconciliation, which he believes is " . . . not a destination - it's a journey."

Let’s remember that polls were favourable to the referendum before Dutton adopted a very political No position after the Aston by-election, and that ‘No’ position was helped by the media (the Murdoch media in particular) in spreading demonstrably false and deliberately confusing stories about what the Voice could do in practice. Even the ABC was clearly intimidated during the referendum campaign, arguably defying its charter by presenting false claims in a serious manner.

That provided a rationalisation for the ordinary loyal conservative voters, the many with little knowledge of our proud indigenous history and identity (largely due to the shameful lack of pre and post colonial Australian indigenous history in our school curricula), the few racists, and the many who, often distracted by cost of living issues, were inordinately risk averse.

How did we get to a situation where journalists, even beyond the Murdoch media, felt obliged to report on demonstrably false political positions for ‘balance’ even when a position is supported by lies and gross misrepresentations?

We need a well-developed program of truth-telling regarding the full history of our indigenous people and their treatment post colonisation as a means of cultural development and education as to the real nature of our unique national identity.

We are in the UK having a lovely time. Israel/ Palestine war has kind of overshadowed the referendum in my mind at the moment. To me the situation in the Middle East clearly stems from the same problem as our referendum - not listening to each other, not treating each other like valued and valuable human beings, not seeing each other’s humanity and thus not treating each other fairly. Feel so sad for aboriginal people- they didn’t ask for much- just a voice to parliament in a country that was stolen from them. Not granting them this seems so ungenerous.

There is a tremendous difference between a legislated voice to parliament, which can be abolished if it goes wrong, like ATSIC and a constitutionally established voice to the executive, which can't. The supposedly 'stupid' punters saw this and voted accordingly.