Thoughts on the referendum…

From before the referendum…

If you don’t know which way to vote, the simplest approach is to apply the philosophical principle of harm. On a personal level: could ‘yes’ do me any harm? No. Could ‘no’ do someone else some harm? Yes. Could ‘yes’ do someone else a potential good? Yes. Therefore: ‘yes’.

But to approach the substance of the referendum question, you might consider the following.

The proposal came out of a comprehensive consultative process - akin perhaps to the process undertaken by a Royal Commission. Australia has a very strong (bi-partisan) history of adopting Royal Commission recommendations, so you could apply a similar approach and adopt this proposal in recognition of good practice and the apolitical rigour with which the consultation was conducted.

Australia lives by the rule of law. That is not changed by a yes vote in this referendum. A yes vote does not limit any individual’s existing rights under Australian rule of law as it is today. A yes vote, however, does expand opportunities for engagement - ‘a Voice’ - for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups previously dispossessed and under-served by an occupying authority.

A yes vote recognises peoples whose long history of caretaking of this land afforded new peoples countless opportunities. A yes vote also recognises the well-documented disparities of fortune wrought by colonialism. Yes is a vote for progress and optimism.

It is only the person, peoples and countries that can adapt that will prevail in the coming years as we face increasing inequalities and climatic imbalance. This is a comparatively small ask, a minor adaptation, but one with significance for peoples whose survival could and should be a source of pride for Australia.

Seeing other people suffer doesn’t make me feel better about everything I’ve achieved, my good fortune. Just as seeing others do well does not diminish those achievements. So if there’s a way I can help others thrive and reduce my burden of guilt in the process - tell me where I sign!

Sure, this won’t mark the end of the debate, it might not even be the optimal solution. But it's the one on the table, and I can’t see a single reason we shouldn’t try and see what difference it could make. I remember many, many years ago the quasi-governmental body, ATSIC - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission - turned rotten (as all groupings do at one time or other). It was killed off, but it could have, and probably should have been revived in some alternate form. After all, we’re well-accustomed to replacing our politicians and political representation regularly rather than doing away with the system in its entirety.

The absence of ATSIC, or a similar function at Federal level, has created a vacuum for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation and self-determination, but now we have the opportunity to correct that course and ensure that if in the future there again comes a time where things go wrong, we can’t simply throw out the baby with the bath-water.

Constitutional recognition will demand that we do the difficult thing - the thing that functioning government needs and just society deserves - do better, solve problems, improve. 

Status quo will kill us.

Who knows, this evolution of form may be so successful it helps us reimagine politics and governmental bodies more broadly, and do away with some of the more grotesque and wasteful components of our current adversarial model.

Adaptation. Open minds. Optimism.

I will be voting ‘yes’.