I just want to paint a picture of the obstacle between me personally and voting yes on Saturday.
1) I need to be confident I can exclude all parts of a possible interpretation of the proposed law as:
"The recognition of Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders as citizens of the commonwealth of Australia is through the provision of the Voice, Parliament shall have the exclusive right to dictate the composition, function and powers of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, and they are not bound to listen to the Voice."
I think I'm most persuadable by a legal argument, that "Australia" in the proposed law, can't be interpreted as "The Commonwealth of Australia" but given, the implied effort, and for I concede, complicated but good reasons the language does nothing to recognize First Nations sovereignty.
2.) That enshrining, and this is hard to word, these bodies is a good idea. Because we aren't enshrining one permanent incarnation of the voice. Success or basket case, over time legislation will transform the voice. So it's enshrining an ALP voice, a Coalition voice, a Greens voice, a One Nation voice and all the future governments that might revisit the legislation. It's a Voice when parliament has under-representation of indigenous members, and a Voice when parliament has overrepresentation in parliament.
I didn't get very far, largely because I've relocated myself half a planet.
So let me get to the new stuff I considered, though returns diminished.
Getting On The Ground
So, I think in every possible way, the insulation living in Mexico provided was advantageous. Wandering around suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne...
Let me put it this way, there's a certain vision of Australia embodied by Telstra, Qantas, Channel 9, Bert Newton etc. Qantas is in that list, they make these in-house productions for their safety videos generally with the Australian youth choir singing "I still call Australia home" and shit and hamming up Qantas is Australia, Australia is Qantas type vibes, and like "we Australians suck tea through a Tim Tam biscuit" and ran their current "feels like home" TV campaign where downsizing mum's sons get together and fly gay son back business class from Japan for her birthday and she cries and my inference is that this ad is pitched toward, you know, white Australia, negative gearing and low interest rates Australia.
Australia that reads about how their trips to Europe a coffee is now $8 AUD stories in the news, the Australia that leaves the AFL Grand Final at 3 quarter time to beat the traffic. That is Qantas and Qantas is Australia. Much moreso than I ever will be.
And then when our plane came into land at Kingsford Smith Airport the pilot did the acknowledgement of Country, which I understand has started to spread round the world, but it stretches my credulity that a fucking Airline respects the traditional owners of the land that was converted into, to quote Australian independent film "The Castle" "a bloody big driveway". It just seemed beyond performative into stark hypocrisy.
It's something to ponder for the autopsy, should the referendum fail, but in the widespread adoption of acknowledgement of country, particularly the corporate zeal, it wound up spoiling the nation's appetite for a Voice.
Once on the ground, obviously, a no campaign exists in some capacity, but speaking relatively, there is no "No campaign" I've seen reports on things said by maybe two to three No voters, and maybe one op-ed, but the Yes campaign is easily at least 10 times the size of any No campaign.
That said, in my current suburb, home turf of AFL team the Hawthorne Hawks, I guesstimate that there are more "Magpies Premiers 2023" posters in windows than "Vote Yes" or "I'm Voting Yes" posters and placards.
Apparently, celebrity endorsements of campaigns don't actually help a campaign. I suspect that if you live in a Mansion with a lookout tower, a pool, a circular driveway, a tennis court with views of 3 different elite private schools and you put a poster on the fence declaring your intention to vote yes, I at least get suspicious.
What I'm getting at, in a similar vein was expressed by Tyler Austin Harper recently on an episode of the Glenn Show:
Harvard can come out vocally in support of diversity and vocally in support of anti-racism and DEI while sitting upon billions and billions of dollars, then we should wonder to what extent are those ideas of the ruling class or to what extent are those ideas really about radical social upheaval. And the way that the administrators at Harvard claim you know um so I think if they you know if they care if they would throw money at it and I think the fact that they don't and the fact that they can support diversity and so on so vociferously um points to the fact that these are ideas that have totally been co-opted by the American Elite
I was walking to an Office Works to buy a keyboard and mouse and crossing through the park I saw a gaggle of Yes campaign volunteers holding a bbq, and I took a photo:
The photo won't tell you much, and we would generally expect that campaign volunteers will be amiable collections of mostly white elderly and students. I contemplated taking my concerns about how the High Court can interpret the proposed ammendment to the constitution, and you know, maybe I chickened out, but it certainly felt like asking would be trolling because nobody there would be able to actually argue the case. At best just assert that my concerns were unfounded.
I find the Yes campaign, highly unserious. An impression being on the ground has just reinforced. Okay, this is seriously the best thing ever:
 |
| "A meaningful step in the right direction." and "A simple, positive and practical step" |
Stirring and persuasive stuff. My impression of the Yes campaign, is an unflattering one. It looks and feels to me, like a bunch of wealthy White people just itching to start using Aboriginal designs as symbols of status. The implied no campaign slogan to counter this poster sufficiently would be "A potential misstep costing us decades"
My previous post went through how all the Yes campaigns arguments are bad. I feel they can just all be lumped collectively under "intentional fallacy" with the Yes campaign pinning everything on the Voice doing exactly what they assume it will do, with sufficient confidence they don't even have to talk about the content of the referendum as if everyone knows what the Voice will look like and what it will say and do. Which if true, would render the Voice redundant.
Anyway, to put it bluntly, the Yes campaign look, talk and act like untrustworthy losers and the No campaign is conspicuously absent.
Following the Flip Floppers Trail
So while I dedicated significantly less time and energy as I packed up and shipped out to this referendum, I did try to scan trash broadsheet rag "The Age's" most read stories to see if anything about the referendum cracked the top 9. I saw that the state of public discourse was so bad, that the media covered the flip-flopping of Malaysian born 88 year old singer Kamahl who flipped from No-to-Yes for like 12 hours and then Yes-to-No after those 12 hours expired.
Now, I don't give a shit what Kamahl thinks about the referendum, but the coverage put me onto Yes campaigner and constitutional law scholar Eddie Synot, who was on a podcast that briefly convinced Kamahl to flip, before he flopped.
Seemed worth a google and I found this article, that at the fucking least actually addressed the wording of the constitution. Something the Yes campaign I have found, is good at avoiding. My overall impression being that most people assume the proposed law says what they assume it would say.
So here's the article, that should you wish to cast an informed vote, I encourage you to read.
I'm not going to break it down, read it, think for yourself. If you can't think for yourself, you should vote no. It was helpful, but not sufficient to dissuade me from my impression that the Yes campaign, is predominantly based on an intentional fallacy - that being, the Yes camp, appears to believe that the constitution shall forever be, interpreted as the authors intended it. Which also presumes we know what the authors intended, which I am not persuaded of.
It did cause me to flip again on something though -
The sequencing of Voice, Treaty, Truth has been given significant thought.
Voice precedes Treaty because fair, modern treaty negotiations require first the establishment of a representative Indigenous body to negotiate the rules of the game with the state. It can’t be left to the state alone, and the state must have a group of people with whom to negotiate.
In Victoria, this was achieved through a specific representative institution – the First Peoples Assembly.
So my first post on this topic, documents how much weight I gave to my dislike of the proposed design, with its quotas and "cultural legitimacy" and what not, how much it had the stink of the times on it, and why I'd reject that for myself under a kind of Rawlsian original position.
My second post documents how I flipped saying I'd put too much emphasis on the proposed voice, because it is just short term and largely inconsequential given the expected longevity of the constitution.
Having it pointed out, by this article, that at least some party intend for "The Voice" to handle treaty negotiations, means I do have to weigh the risk of putting together something bad to handle such a monumental duty, it also effects other risks.
And I just included the sentence about how Victoria managed to assemble "The First Peoples Assembly" without needing some kind of state referendum, or the constitution to recognize it, as an example of how to defeat the point you just tried to make.
3AW also interviewed a constitutional law expert, though not to argue what is in the referendum but to reassure me about all the details left out. I can see her point, because in many ways, it is mine. That the voice will be defined by the government of the day is precisely my problem, because we have had some shit ones, and I wouldn't let Tony Abbott legislate what my voice is. Ironically, I could go for less detail in the proposed ammendment so it doesn't restrict Voice representations to "matters relating to" since I assume this means Parliament could censure the voice for say expressing solidarity with Hamas as "not relating to" but I feel the Voice is probably better governed by simply letting them make representations about whatever they fucking want to represent on.
So the thought of the proposed Voice handling treaty negotiations, gives me, at least a compelling reason to vote no. Not in isolation, I'm also considering the First Nations Sovereignty argument, that the indigenous parliamentarians cannot have "indigenous voices" because they serve the commonwealth, and this referrendum will, by my I think lucid reading of it's content stipulate that the commonwealth only recognize as the indigenous voice, one that has been defined by Parliament.
Regarding Constitutions, Context Shrinks to Insignificance
So this is just to point out, that for me, I haven't really looked at the No Campaign. What little exposure I have to it, I will say, while they can spew out some absolute garbage points, they generally do mix in, good reasons to vote No. Where I have not received a single "good" reason to vote Yes.
This is just to highlight the issue of like the US 2nd Amendment, being intended to keep the King of England out of your face, but has wound up making it extremely difficult to deprive mentally ill kids of the ability to take assault weapons into schools and punch holes in students and teachers.
Or that the 13th amendment, would come to protect the property rights of corporations, even though we can infer with some confidence, that the writers of the 13th amendment, meant it to protect the rights of former slaves. Not legal "persons" who are in fact, immortal abstract entities designed to limit the liabilities of their shareholders.
Which is all to say, I shall not be distracted from the words. There's a few more articles I found that actually address the wording:
This explainer from the ABC is a good way for anyone to ground themselves with the actual limits of what they are voting on and for if you have been bamboozled with all the peripheral shit of what polls show, and what the Yes and No campaigns are saying and what Kamahl had for breakfast vs what he shat out.
And deserving a spot on the journalistic wall of shame, is this opinion piece from The Age/The Sydney Morning Herald which threatens to address the wording of the proposed law, but is exclusively for subscribers. It is probably, a trite op-ed, but for me the headline reads like the piece is intended to be a public fucking service, so why the fuck make it "I'll tell you why to vote yes, but first you're going to need to subscribe to our piece-of-shit newspaper." Which I won't do and it should be noted, that The Age decided to potentially ensure "our nation's greatest day of shame" by selling out the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's for $2 per week.
Identically, Ross Gittins, who I don't mind, he certainly wouldn't crack the bottom 30 staffers employed by The Age/Sydney Morning Herald has an economic argument for voting Yes that is also behind a paywall. Again someone's advice on how to save the Australian taxpayers millions or bajillions of dollars in closing the economic gaps between Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders and the rest of Australia, is held ransom for $2 per week.
So again, I get the impression that the Yes campaign isn't very serious, and doesn't take the issues seriously, which explains how we got this bullfuck wording that isn't certain to be rejected but in my opinion, deserves to be.
From Here On Out
So what I'm going to do, is try to clearly explain what I need to get past to vote Yes. I'm going to break down what the referendum says, line by line, to try and make it as obtuse as possible. I do not care, what people think it means nor how they think it will be interpreted. I need reassurance that it can't be interpreted how I fear it can be interpreted.
As at writing, the referendum hasn't taken place, but I will get ahead of myself and do some more autopsying which I guess, pre-mortem is vivisecting, as to what went wrong. Because if I didn't look at the words of the referendum and go "yep, cool" something went wrong. What is now well documented is that I read the words and said "I don't know what this fucking means." and I still don't.
Don't Trust Me
Read the words for yourself.
First Line of Content: Recognition
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
Okay, so what I want it to say, is something to the effect of "The present territories of the Commonwealth of Australia, were not found uninhabited. They have been continuously occupied by people for some 60,000+ years. Terra Nullius was horseshit."
Now, would it be nice to to specifically name Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's as those people? Yeah, and I personally don't have a strong objection to mentioning it. I do feel though that it is a reasonable argument amongst those of the No campaign, to be touchy about singling out races and ethnicities in a constitution. I must begrudgingly admit, that Kamahl might have a point, and many other immigrants that may have dealt with explicit legal privileging of ethnicities or say a religious caste system, that the idea of naming any ethnic group in a constitution is not a good idea.
That aside, it doesn't say something as simple as recognizing that Terra Nullius was horseshit. It instead specifies how the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia recognizes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the "First Peoples of Australia".
This is something else I flipped on since my last post. And I'm going to bring in Casey Affleck now [booooo]:
He lied to me. I can't think of one reason big enough for him to lie that's small enough not to matter. ~ line delivered by actor Casey Affleck in "Gone Baby Gone"
Similarly, I found myself stuck on what I thought was a far-fetched hypothetical, where this addition to the Australian constitution is employed to overturn any possible future treaty. Last post, I assured myself by definition 2B of the Australian constitution, that the word "Australia" referred to geography, not the Commonwealth of Australia.
But it stuck in my craw, to paraphrase now, I can't think of a reason big enough to word "First Peoples of Australia" so ambiguously, that is small enough not to matter. In my second post, I detailed how the language now appears deliberately scrubbed of all notion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are a sovereign people.
I grant, that it is a sticky situation. How do you acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and Australia's actual history of colonization absent a treaty, while preserving them as citizens subject to the laws of the commonwealth of Australia in the Australian constitution.
That's a fine line. Acknowledge their sovereignty, and an indigenous person in custody is now a prisoner of an unresolved war of conquest, or civil war.
I have lost my confidence that some future High Court, won't look at section 9 of the constitution, and rule any treaty null-and-void because:
"It says, in return for recognizing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as citizens of the commonwealth of Australia, we gave them this Voice body. They get The Voice and in return become subjects of his majesty King Chucky"
And for me, it is simple. I vote no, and you go back and rewrite this as "Terra Nullius was horseshit, these lands have been peopled for 60 millenia." and have another referendum, and on this point, I'll vote yes. Otherwise, I need assurance that this cannot. possibly. be interpreted. as "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders cede their sovereignty for a representative body subject to the designs of Parliament."
I hope that is clear. I can't vote for this, without that reassurance from someone qualified to give it.
Second Line aka i
there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
This is the only clear and specific part of the proposed law, for me at least. There will have to be a body, and that body, has to, now and forever be called "the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice."
The bad news is, that given that this. This. This is the only thing that is really getting enshrined, it is such a bad idea that I would not want for myself, that it is sufficient to vote no. To put it in context, this is the specific "how" that the Commonwealth of Australia recognizes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It doesn't just plain recognize their existence and history, it does that through what Parliament can legislate to be an interpretive dance troop, or a sandwich shop.
It shall be called "The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" and any time, any indigenous person says "I demand recognition!" the high court will say "but we do recognize you, through the provision of a body called the voice. Now shut up and enjoy a delicious Voice Tuna Melt."
What is important, is that the constitution shall recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the original inhibitors of the Australian continent and surrounding islanders through one means and one means only.
Somebody photoshopped an old sci-fi cover, and when the dust settles and an autopsy that resembles my vivisection is conducted it will hopefully sniff its way back to the Uluru Statement from the Heart's call for an enshrined First Nations Voice in the constitution and conclude:
 |
| Constitutional recognition through a body, was in hindsight, a Shit Idea. |
It seems many people in the no-vote camp, though I have no real authority to assert this, are just like "why would I enshrine a body what I don't know what it is." and that to me, is actually a reasonable objection. Like, presumably the Yes campaigners are out trying to assure people "it'll be fine" through a reasonable argument, largely they appear to be arguing that research shows when you consult more stakeholders you make better decisions. How much better that argument if they could point to the functioning of an existing body that demonstrated that it did indeed make better decisions.
Ironically, I guess I would be reassured the stakes are lower, if I was assured that parliament could legislate the voice into a food truck that sold delicious grilled cheese sandwiches on the lawns of parliament, and staff members were able to "make representations" by speaking to any parliamentarians that bought a grilled cheese sandwich off them.
Third Line aka ii
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;
So again, everything, and I mean everything I've seen from the Yes Campaign appears to be an intentional fallacy, and here specifically it acts like "on matters relating to" is clear and specific language that couldn't possibly become a shitshow. And like "representations" is clearly, meaningful language.
Even the article by the legal scholars advocating for this ammended law, I suspect is because they've looked at precedents of how say sensible countries like Sweden have set up bodies for the Sami people and shit, which should be reassuring, but I feel they are so blinded by the tree they've been looking at that they cannot see the forest of possibilities.
"May" I will grant, makes it clear that this body wont have veto powers. But I need reassurance that it cannot also just be completely ignored at all. Again, a lucid reading of the history of the Commonwealth of Australia can be expressed as "you don't need to worry about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples" and that appears to be literally what we are here enshrining in the constitution.
I will also grant, this allows for a representative group to consult with the government and improve decisions made that relate to them. I get that that is what is intended, and could even happen, for a while, or frequently.
It also allows for an antipathy breeding annoyance, and constitutional grounds for Parliament and the Executive Government to ignore the Voice completely.
So, you know, it could protect the Voice from politics...
except. That even if Parliament and a Dutton government don't return the Voice's calls, they will probably mostly be producing press releases and tweets on "X" and other social media posts that can be reported on by the news. Which brings me to the significance of:
Fourth line aka iii
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.”
I remain confused and ignorant as to what "subject to this constitution" means. All I'm confident on, is that they can't rename the Voice officially. That's the only thing the proposed law specifies, and they can't get rid of a body called "The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" but they can change it's composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Meaning, to me, they can legislate it into a sandwich shop, and make representations through an esoteric code of how many slices of bacon they put in Peter Dutton's egg and bacon sandwich, but we'll burn down and dynamite and salt the ashes of the Kimberley region, if you spit in his sandwich or coffee.
I literally need reassurance, that in a convoluted and arse-backwards way, this amendment doesn't give Parliament the exclusive right to define what/who the constitutionally recognized voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is.
That after a series of unfortunate interest rate rises in an election year that sees us with a double majority Dutton government, that Dutton doesn't have the constitutional right to determine who the official voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People is, and maybe, even negotiate a binding treaty with that voice.
I cannot in good conscience vote for such powers, and those who argue it is purely symbolic, that's like saying I should vote for something pointless. No sale.
All Together Now
I need reassurance that no part of this reading of the law, is how the High Court will view it:
"The only way Australia is obliged to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who are citizens of the commonwealth and subjects of the British Crown, is in the provision of a body called the Voice and Parliament says what that body is and what it does and is free to ignore it should it wish."
That seems to be a step into a dead fucking end, should I vote for it.
Vivisection: Arse Backwards
The sequencing of Voice, Treaty, Truth has been given significant thought.
Voice precedes Treaty because fair, modern treaty negotiations require first the establishment of a representative Indigenous body to negotiate the rules of the game with the state. It can’t be left to the state alone, and the state must have a group of people with whom to negotiate.
In Victoria, this was achieved through a specific representative institution – the First Peoples Assembly.
Truth follows Voice and Treaty, because, as Torres Strait Islander political scientist Sana Nakata explains, Voice ensures Truth will matter more than just “continued performance of our rage and grief for a third century and longer”. Voice establishes the power for Treaty, and Treaty establishes the safekeeping of Truth.
As historian Kate Fullagar explains, truths about Indigenous history in Australia are well-known – there have already been royal commissions into colonial violence, the stolen generation, and Black deaths in custody. But they have been too easily forgotten, and they have not led to change. ~ From UNSW Article by Gabrielle Appleby, Eddie Synot
I mean, this excerpt is coherent. I feel, strongly, that the assertion it makes is arse backwards, and that hopefully will come out in the wash so another referendum becomes feasible. Not just another referendum but process.
I think the point they are making is because say, a Royal Commission to determine the capital t "Truth" didn't fix everything, that a body is needed before a treaty and then finally can the truth be told. The sequence remains, arse backwards for me, and a better argument is that much of the truth telling work has been done. At least in removing it from the pure legal fiction of Terra Nullius.
Much of the work to be done, is probably decoupling society from the idea that we need to have childishly idealised conceptions of our identity as Europeans or Asians or Indigenous Peoples. I feel a great text to assign a largely Anglo-European culture like Australia is a biography of the proto-Machiavellian prince of Wallachia Vlad "Dracula" Tsepes. Or maybe even David Mitchell's "Unruly" a history of the badly behaved British Monarchy from William the Conqueror through to the Magna Carta or something.
A mature westerner doesn't need to have a rose tinted conception of clean cut ANZAC Diggers fighting the Caiser but should be able to conceive that the boys in those trenches are more or less, identical to the people that now drive them into an impotent homicidal rage when they cut them off in traffic.
That the people now lauded for reducing the taxable income of the wealthiest 20% of Australians back in the day would have been lauded for dispossessing the indigenous. Maturation to me, is a process of accepting who we actually were and subsequently who we actually are.
With that, our populace could be in a position to perhaps actually make sacrifices, the public is nowhere near the neighbourhood of "Truth" and that really should come first. You know, like reading a contract before you sign it. (Which can be forgiven if it's a standard terms of use agreement or something, but this referendum is nowhere near a standard contract.)
Then I think you do treaty, because that's the real act of unification where we go from awkwardly superimposed nation on top of the world's oldest living culture, to an integrated nation and signing a treaty should justifiably involve some kind of goodwill payment to get us all on one team.
Then it is safe for indigenous sovereignty to be recognized by and as part of the commonwealth.
The idea that the commonwealth need to decide who they want to negotiate with, enter a binding treaty with a group that is part of itself and then tell the truth, I get the rationale but I just don't buy it.
I'd be more persuaded if the nation had united to identify Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu" as racist pseudo history. Instead, it seems everyone wants to ignore they agreed with colonialist notions that man stops being an animal when he becomes a farmer.
Vivisection: Bubble Trouble
I suspect the people who are for this referendum passing, a large chunk of them live in a bubble, or echo chamber. They should be aware that the polls say the referendum is likely to fail. I'm not sure it will.
The nation seems roughly 48% against, 12% undecided and 40% for. I ran past an early polling station today, and again, there are only Yes campaigners out. Admittedly, all I thought was "you're kidding me, you are handing out How-To-Vote-Cards for a Yes/No ballot?" But some 20% of No and Undecided voters may walk into the booth having given this referendum no thought, and ask the question I was a fortnight ago "Am I an arsehole?" and decide to play it safe and vote Yes.
Like, Canadian Television made a show and released it this year called "Robyn Hood" likewise "The Exorcist: Believers" was recently released and both have been shit canned by audiences and critics, but it seems the institutions making these shows have not clicked that general audiences hate this shit of dredging up old properties and tokenistically diversifying them and filling them with trite lectures about social justice.
I posit, that it is a very sane response to be sitting in a room full of white people at a real estate office as the boss reads an acknowledgement of country and question whether anyone acknowledges "traditional owners" as meaning anything of significance at all, like would the consult the Wurundjeri on the next planned awful apartment subdivision, or whether this is a tedious performance by people who have no intention of ever making any reparations to the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land taken by force that is now speculatively traded for profit.
The real damage potential to flow from the referendum will be in bubble residents telling themselves that it failed, not because it was rushed through with heavily compromised wording into a process where lay Australian's were asked to enshrine a never-before-seen government body, but a narrative that actually everyone outside of gentrified progressive communities are horrible racists that want their kids to die.
In 2020 I witnessed many lefties fail to parse certain details of the election that deposed Trump after 1 term, Biden secured the necessary electoral college votes before the outcome of Georgia was determined, thanks to states like Arizona and Michigan going blue, yet sufficient people basically credited the Biden victory to Stacy Abrams efforts to enrol black voters in Georgia. They also ignored the gains Trump made with Black and Latino voters the latter of which are likely tired of white people calling them "latinx" and ignoring both their voices and their heritage. Many on the left also ignored that Blue state stronghold California voters resoundingly rejected Proposition 16 which would repeal the Californian Constitutions ban on affirmative action in public office appointments.
So most people in a far left bubble, I observe tell themselves stories of evil people lurking behind every tree that are as comforting as any conspiracy theory and ignore that many memes pushed be the far left are not only unpopular but also bad.
We live in an unfortunate time where not only is the left uniquely unqualified to tackle issues of bigotry and discrimination, but they are uniquely emboldened to do so as ideologues.
Conclusion
Whatever happens tomorrow, I'm confident the result will be largely determined by bad reasons. I would prefer the referendum not pass, because if our constitution is a silly document that nobody really takes seriously, then we shouldn't have a referendum at all, and if it's serious we should give the government of the day the power to dictate what the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice is.
Whatever manifestation it takes, I can pretty much guarantee it won't be able to speak from the heart like the Uluru statement. Nor is a constitutionally recognized body necessary for a treaty though bipartisan support likely is. If you are worried a failed referendum will stop progress in its tracks, I invite you to look up the achievements of the EZLN in a far more violent and hostile nation, albeit one that miraculously could produce competent leadership.
Progress will depend on whether the relevant parties take responsibility, or opt for blame. I've hated this whole process and won't be happy regardless of what happens tomorrow.
