Referendum may be lost but the issues will not go away

Hopping, perhaps look back over the comments that had been made by the prominent Aboriginal “no” proponents, Price and Mundine. I don’t think your observation “I fail to see how it cannot be construed as a no to any further reconciliation and closing the gap” at all fits with what they say.

Their problem with the Voice, and mine, is that it is the product of the elitist establishment. The indigenous policy space has been dominated by the worldview coming from the universities into government, for decades now. People like Megan Davis and Marcia L. are products of the same system, with the same elitist orientation. Of course, those apparatchiks cannot imagine that any views other than their own are at all legitimate. And for that reason, they feel they need to hold very closely the reins of power, so that lesser beings cannot meddle. They have a monopoly over the policy space. And yet, the “Gap” has only widened under their watch. They of course, being incapable (at least in their minds) of being wrong, theorise and attribute the failure to a miasmic “racism” that permeates Australia. But when was the last time one of the rude plebs ever got within 100 miles of the sacrosanct policy spaces they control? So to me, continually yelling “racism” is a deflection from their own failure. The problem is their elitist establishment ideology.

You need to listen carefully to Price and Mundine, because they challenge that ideology. If you feel uncomfortable with their views, I’d counter it’s because you’ve “drunk the Kool-Aid”, as they say. I’d ask you to resist what Ian Bushnell here has done, and smear them with belittlement and imply they’re puppets. Because when you start going on about Aboriginal people having no agency and no ability to think for themselves; that all they are capable of is being led around by “enlightened” white people; well that is about as racist as it comes, a full 10. So be careful with reactionaries like Bushnell here.

As a practitioner in the field, it’s easy for me to see the failure. There’s an enormous reliance on “experts”, on a top-down control approach, fake “consultations” (that as I’ve written here before, are very easily manipulated to get presumed outcomes, much due to unconscious bias in favour of the establishment paradigm), and on shutting down any alternative approaches. Bushnell here even calls for state censorship of all views not backed by the establishment elites.

The way forward, is listen to people like Price and Mundine. They don’t have all the answers, but theirs is a fresh, non-establishment approach. Remember, the establishment paradigm has failed badly (but the elite won’t — can’t — admit it). I’ll throw in my 2c, based on my professional work: a bottom up and mid-level participatory approach over the entire policy cycle. This is very different from the elitist, top-down captured body that would have been the “Voice”.

The elite trope is a straw man argument. Privileged they may be now by many peoples standards, but those you name started out so far from this you might be surprised. In fact, your own Warren Mundine is the one with the most privilege – by all accounts went to a good school and is now a very wealthy man through his consulting and mining exploration companies.

Your 2 cents may work (doubtful though, based on past and current examples), but my point was, no Liberal or right wing proponent has come up with anything.

I believe the writer was promoting truth in political advertising laws to rein in the propagandists and trolls bent on manipulating and debasing our democratic system.

“elite trope is a straw man argument.” — you might have gotten away with that until we saw the map of referendum results. The only places “yes” got a majority was in the wealthy inner-city seats, where the prog-left live. It was a striking and unambiguous result. So, “strawman”: easy to say, but there it was, “yes” was an elitist position. That’s just common knowledge.

Warren Mundine good school, wealthy: I’d be tempted to say, so what? All that matters is what people bring to the table, though I’d qualify that with a commitment to mentoring of talent. But this is a major plank of progressive elitist ideology: the intersectional hierarchy of virtue. Handy to fob off Mundine eh? Not enough of a victim. It’s part of the cruel establishment paradigm that teaches people they ought to live their lives bitter, angry, hard done by, with no agency, and without hope. Cruel, because that’s not how the elite raise their own kids. They just feed this poison to other people’s kids. Nice.

Mundine and Price, who Bushnell describes as right-wing, have certainly come up with “anything”. Price made a move this week, but churlish Greens, Labor and our own star Pocock thought we ought to let child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities run wild, because, you know, elites are sooky this week, and anyway they aren’t into helping women and children, because reproducing elitist power structures is more cool. There’s ideas out there (Price & Mundine), but intolerant elites want to keep their monopoly of the policy (and keep their own egos puffed), so they cancel any other ideas by using noise about “racism” “the far right”, and “misinformation”. Oh yeah: and poor intersectionality score!

You’re obviously a top-down advocate, as evidently are the elites in this policy sector generally, so sure, you don’t like participatory approaches. That’s the establishment position. That’s why they wanted the Voice. It’s a creature of their own class ideology: agency for the elite, passivity for everyone else.

It was rejected because child abuse doesn’t just happen in indigenous communities as the Catholic Church well knows.

Mundine and Price are grifters who are using the people they claim to represent as pawns in their climb to the top. Literally trading in maintaining the misery.

Not a top down person at all. It takes all levels. And there in lies much misunderstanding of how The Voice would have worked. It wasn’t a Canberra Voice, it was a voice from all levels to one point, the federal government.

So many have taken the easy path out by claiming not to understand. How many times did we hear the ‘there’s not enough information’ cry? Waiting for the ‘give us the detail’ cries come the next election when parties on all sides start spruiking their wares. The irony of people who relentlessly shop online for crap to fill their lives, saying they couldn’t find any information.

A campaign based only on fear and exacerbated by the flat-footedness of the Yes campaign unfortunately.

I would welcome any way forward, but think I’ll be waiting in vain while Warren and Jacinta are in the mix.

Poverty doesn’t just happen in indigenous communities either, so why the different logic path?

Man, just say you don’t agree with Price & Mundine, and leave it at that. Your personal attack on them is completely disproportional and really reactionary: remember, you’re the establishment in this policy space, you’re not actually the underdog like the elites keep claiming. You guys have the power! Sure, you want *more* power, but you’ve already got a monopoly on what’s there now. But hey, this is what we saw all through the campaign: “yes” elites exploding in fits of blind anger, vitriolic personal attacks, punching down, and then all the condescension and high arrogance. It was an *appalling* display.

One of the reasons why the voice was needed according to the Yes campaign was because indigenous kids were over represented in child abuse statistics. You can’t have it both ways.

“And therein lies much misunderstanding of how The Voice would have worked. It wasn’t a Canberra Voice, it was a voice from all levels to one point, the federal government.” – who would know? There was no official position on that, or anything really. Different camps all had their own ideas. Remember, it was all supposed to be worked out later.

“How many times did we hear the ‘there’s not enough information’ cry? … saying they couldn’t find any information.” – Oh, we found information alright. It was called Document 14. Apparently a serious attempt to outline the context, reason, logic and overall form of the Voice (but, no detail as I recall), written by the very people who put up the Voice, like Megan Davis. Then we were told we were crazy, it was all a kooky right-wing conspiracy. (The reality was, by then the “yes” campaign had realised it was electorally toxic, so they disowned it).

All we really heard was some goofy guy with his nose in a glass of water, saying “errgh, it’s just a walk hand in hand down the road; ergh, just good manners; errgh, just the decent thing to do”. The whole “yes” campaign was built on dumbed-down marketing fluff that was probably internally market-strategised as “inspirational tone”. Boy, that went down like Bud Light after Dylan Mulvaney.

I don’t doubt the prog-left had a whole heap of opinion pieces buried away in their own corner of the internet, you know in Jacobin, and Matilda, and I really don’t know where. Oh the ABC, but I don’t recall even them getting serious. Just devout repetition of the new clergy. I know someone on here kept linking to Conversation articles, but again, I really don’t recall discussion of detail there, just “experts say”. And then, who cares? It was all random prog-left opinion pieces, not an official platform. What we kept being told by indignant and sneering “yes” commenters was “lol, the constitution isn’t for detail you hick, lol, that’s going to be decided by parliament later, lol, don’t you know anything, lol.”. The official line was, it was just a one-pager, detail shmetail.

There’ll be a way to slowly solve this problem, but it’ll take a lot more maturity than the toddler-adjacent “yes” side had. And for that, the whole policy debate needs to be taken off the entrenched prog-left inner-city establishment, a lot more respect shown, and opened right out to allow different value systems to weigh in without being called “racist”. Kind of like classical liberalism, before woke took over.

Agreed. This name-calling is not acceptable, and I am rather disappointed in RiotACT for letting it be published with this kind of wording.
Free Speech means you can state your opinion in a respectful way. Not bully anyone who disagrees with you.

Ad hominem vitriol has been the standard go-to for the Yes case, and so it continues. No surprise there. Jacinta has copped so much of it, I’m sure this author’s continued bitter, angry use of it won’t worry her unduly.

Whatever happened to journalists being objective?
Name calling and criticism is all I see here.

Quite ironic comment seeing as the purpose is to enable politicians to listen to indigenous constituents.

Quite ironic seeing as there’s nothing stopping politicians listening to Indigenuous constituents now.

Honestly, how laughable is it that some people are still running this line that basic consultation is not possible without constitutional change.