EDITORIAL: The outcome of the recently held referendum in Australia that sought to address the entrenched inequality indigenous populations face shows racial prejudice still runs deep through that ‘Lucky Country’ — so dubbed for its immense wealth of natural resources.
The referendum proposed engaging the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the democratic process through ‘Voice to Parliament’, a consultative body, which could weigh in on laws that affect the indigenous peoples.
The move, initiated by the Labour Party’s government, was in conformity with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which, among other issues, calls for their right to participate in decision-making in matters affecting their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions. But nearly 60 percent of white majority voted against the proposal.
Some have tried to explain the negative vote by blaming it on disinformation campaign on social media that claimed the proposed constitutional amendment would lead to land seizures or that it was part of a UN plot. The main opposition parties also stoked fears about the role and effectiveness of the “Voice to Parliament”, asking people to vote “no” if they were uncertain.
The torrent of disinformation and the opposition encouraging naysay may have played a part in it, but the very fact that the referendum sparked a racially tinged debate makes it manifest that the white Australians are still not ready to hear the voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the affairs of the land they have inhabited for at least 65,000 years, i.e., until the British colonised it.
These people make up just 3.8 percent of the country’s 26 million population, allowing them deal with their own matters would not have changed anything for the majority’s way of life.
But even such a small allowance proved to be too much for the forces of regression, which let their latent racism rise to the surface. In practice, though, it is evident everywhere in the discriminatory treatment meted out to the indigenous people.
By all socio-economic measures, whether health, life expectancy, education, employment or housing, they have been left far behind. The settler majority has now said it aloud that it wants them to remain consigned to the fringes of society.
Predictably, those on the receiving end of blatant injustices have expressed anger and anguish at the white majority’s rejection of what they have described as calls for a reckoning with the country’s bloody colonial past.
“This is a difficult result, this is a very bad result”, said Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin, though striking an optimistic note, he added: “we will come back from this.”
Prime minister Anthony Albanese, who had campaigned for a yes vote as a step towards racial reconciliation, also tried to put a brave face, saying too often the disadvantage confronting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been relegated to the margins “this referendum and my government has put it right at the centre”.
But the dishonesty underlying this sordid saga suggests the second class status to which the First Nations people have been relegated is unlikely to change in the near future.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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