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Episode 402 - Final Thoughts on The Voice

In this episode, I talk about:

(00:24) Introduction

(14:59) History

(27:17) The Proposal

(31:18) Ideas about Racism

(49:04) Ideas about Class and Identity Politics

(01:12:18) Not Heard

(01:14:46) Name an issue that The Voice would've improved

(01:35:20) Bike Shedding

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Transcript
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We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

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We need to learn stuff about the world.

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We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

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review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

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We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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Hello and welcome, dear listener.

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This is...

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Episode 402 of the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

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This is one that's pre recorded, not done live on a Tuesday night.

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It's just me, no Joe, no Scott, and I'm going to talk about the voice

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and Indigenous issues because I've got a lot of notes and I just need

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to basically tell you the stuff I've found, talk about it because I'd feel

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really disappointed if It was all left on the shelf and never discussed,

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even though we've already done a few episodes on Indigenous matters, so...

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This is going to be a long one, it's just going to be me talking solo.

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Hopefully you'll find it informative and entertaining.

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Right, the voice.

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Why should we vote yes for the voice?

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The official yes case is that it will provide recognition.

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of Indigenous people.

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And secondly, that by listening to what Indigenous people want,

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we'll get better results and better outcomes for Indigenous people.

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That's it in a nutshell.

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First off, I've got no problem with the recognition aspect.

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Any clauses or amendments or additions that simply want to recognise historical

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facts about Indigenous occupation of Australia, makes perfect sense to probably

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put in the preamble to explain how we got to the point that we got to when

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we sat down to write the constitution.

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That makes sense.

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So anything to do with recognition, I'm not really going to be

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dealing with because I accept that recognition is a good idea.

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But I would also say that can be done without giving a voice.

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So really the main argument that I'm gonna be dealing with then is this argument that

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indigenous people have not been heard.

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That the voice will provide a mechanism for listening that hasn't been there

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before, or at least hasn't been as good, and that . As a result, there will be

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better outcomes for indigenous people.

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So, I've got a little introductory sort of bit which will go for probably five

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or ten minutes and then various ideas, various articles, various people that I'll

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be quoting, but I thought I'd just sort of give my pitch and I'm really saying

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this not because I'm actually have a strong desire to convince you one way or

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another it's just more for my own benefit.

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And it's also just to add to the kit bag of knowledge that

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listeners have about the topic.

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And if you choose to come to a different conclusion to me, I'm not particularly

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offended to tell you the truth.

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So, yeah, I'm not a I'm not a preacher for this.

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I'm just analysing what I see and stating what I see without

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a, without a strong compulsion

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It might seem that that's not the case as we go on, but in any event,

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that's where I'm coming from.

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All right.

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So here's my introductory remarks.

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So the yes vote argues that Indigenous people have not been heard.

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The voice is a way of ensuring they are heard, and if they are heard,

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then better outcomes will follow.

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I think that's a fair summary.

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I say that is not correct.

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I say that Indigenous people have been heard, governments

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have consulted with Indigenous stakeholders on numerous problems,

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but those problems remain unsolved.

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It's actually insulting to thousands of good people working for decades in

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the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and other departments to suggest they

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have been implementing programs without consulting Indigenous stakeholders.

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It insults well meaning ministers and staff to suggest they are so

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stupid, biased or lazy that they haven't consulted Indigenous opinion.

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We'll talk about the history in a moment, but since 1973 there have

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been five national Indigenous bodies advising Australian governments.

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Indigenous people are over represented in our Federal Parliament.

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And as different topics have been raised with me and I've investigated

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the background to them, I've been impressed by the level of

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consultation in various reports.

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I think the people who are alleging that Indigenous people have not been heard,

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really should have placed caveats,

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I think they should have been more careful with their words.

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You know, the thousands of people who have worked to try and help Indigenous

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people, that they haven't been consulting?

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It's, it's like a giant conspiracy, in a sense.

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Or are we not supposed to really take it seriously?

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Oh, there has been some consultation, but not good enough.

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Well, we'll then say that.

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But very often it's a blanket statement.

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We Indigenous people have not been heard.

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It's a nonsense.

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So, when Noel Pearson says we have not been heard , an empathetic response

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is to look at the outcomes and assume he is correct, but he is not.

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So what does it mean?

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It means despite Indigenous advice, the problems persist,

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so something else is needed.

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So that's the conclusion I come to.

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Despite Indigenous advice, the problems persist.

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How could Indigenous advice fail so badly?

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Well, you should not put oil industry executives in charge

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of solving climate change.

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You should not put Indigenous culture warriors in charge of solving a

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problem which requires cultural change.

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We'll get to that.

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If Indigenous people are to thrive in a modern 21st century first world

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community, then they need to embrace that community and drop cultural impediments.

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that prevent proper participation.

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So I'm not saying that people have to assimilate and become

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Western and drop everything.

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But I am saying that if you want to compare Indigenous communities to

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the rest of Australia, you're not really comparing apples with apples.

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You're comparing two different communities.

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You should be surprised If there are not differences, Indigenous advocates

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have failed to recommend that there are problems with cultural impediments.

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The voice will not recommend changing culture.

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Programs will continue to fail until cultural roadblocks

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are recognised and discarded.

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I'll get on to some of those.

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To repeat, I'm not saying people have to assimilate.

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But if you want to measure closing the gap by comparing Indigenous outcomes

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with mainstream outcomes, you're not comparing apples with apples until the

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Indigenous community joins the mainstream.

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At this point, yes, voters would argue that the voice will at least provide

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more information, and that can't be bad.

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Even if things are unlikely to prove, they might improve, so why not try it?

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And my answer to that is...

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Because the voice encourages racism, it promotes racial thinking, it divides our

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community by the social construct of race.

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It is divisive, now that's bad enough as a general characteristic, but

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that promotion of racial difference makes closing the gap even harder.

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Promoting racial difference to help solve closing the gap.

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is like throwing fuel on a fire that you're trying to extinguish.

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So the voice, I say, imagines a consultation problem that isn't there

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and promotes a racially divisive solution that is harmful to our

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entire society and is especially harmful to those Indigenous people

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needing cultural change to solve their

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I'm a bit saddened by the calibre of debate.

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Yes advocates who promote a racially divisive policy accuse no voters of

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Orwellian doublespeak when it is the yes advocates who are guilty of doublespeak.

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This is a proposal that's giving special lobbying rights to a racial group.

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Now some of those members of that group might be suffering terrible poverty

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and other circumstances but this is , a right to lobby based on race.

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Just because you feel sorry for a group, doesn't mean you

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give them whatever they want.

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I understand people's empathy.

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I understand people looking at remote, poor communities and thinking,

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Let's just do something, anything.

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Let's try it even if it probably won't work.

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Let's just give it a go.

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But just because you feel sorry for a group, doesn't mean you

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give them whatever they want.

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How did that work out with the Jews and the State of Israel?

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Yes advocates abhor racism, but often resort to promoting racial difference

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when justifying their yes vote.

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It's incredible to me that these people who are critical of racism

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rely on racism to promote their ideas.

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Ideas such as Aboriginal people have a special attachment to the land,

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Indigenous people carry within them a cultural history of 60, 000 years.

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Indigenous people inherit the pain and trauma of their ancestors.

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Indigenous people know what is best for Indigenous people,

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as if they all think the same.

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These are often described as biologically inherited traits,

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as opposed to cultural practices.

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The wording may not always be that explicit, but it's implied.

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There's a lot of woo thrown in with this stuff.

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There's a lot of inherent characteristics.

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Ascribe to Indigenous people.

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These ideas are laced with racism, yet yes advocates can't see it.

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I highly value universal rights.

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Equal rights are important to me.

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When Christians want special privileges or special exemptions, I

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say no, we all share the same rights.

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You don't get special rights just because you're a member of a cultural group.

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And in a previous episode I gave the example of a thought experiment

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of an Islamic voice to parliament.

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I said perhaps they too could prove a form of racism or xenophobia.

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Higher incarceration rates for Muslims.

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Poorer income.

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Poorer health outcomes.

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They too could claim they're not heard and need a voice.

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And in countering...

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The call for an Islamic voice.

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I'd be able to say no We have an equal rights policy here.

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No special lobbying rights for cultural or religious groups Yes advocates

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for the indigenous cause if ethically consistent Couldn't say that because

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really if you're voting yes You're saying cultural groups can get special

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rights if things are bad enough all a yes advocate could say to a proposed

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Islamic voice is your outcomes at the moment aren't bad enough to justify this.

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Now this isn't said as a slippery slope argument.

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There's no call for an Islamic voice, and I don't think there will be.

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It's a hypothetical case to demonstrate the principle of

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consistent ethical and moral positions.

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So I don't say do nothing.

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There are better solutions.

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I'm happy to spend triple, quadruple, whatever amount of money

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is necessary on poor Indigenous communities to help them get ahead.

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I say we should focus on class, not race.

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Many black American leaders would agree with me, I'll be talking about that.

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I say we need experts on poverty, not race.

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If this voice to parliament was to be made up of experts on, on, on getting people

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out of poverty, social science experts, other experts regardless of colour.

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I might be more inclined to agree to it, but this this assumption that people

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of a certain race know what's best for a certain race is a racist idea.

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It assumes people think the same.

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Imagine if I tried to speak on behalf of all white people, as if

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all white people think the same.

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A big part of the problem is maintaining traditional cultural

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lifestyles in remote locations.

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We need experts on changing culture, not experts on maintaining cultural purity.

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There we go.

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That was the initial blurb.

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Let's talk about some history so we've got some context for all of this.

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Since 1973, there have been five national Indigenous bodies

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advising Australian governments.

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Four were elected and one was appointed.

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I'm getting all this from Wikipedia, by the way.

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1973 to 1976 we had the N A C C, the National Aboriginal

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Consultative Committee.

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What are we in now, dear listener?

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So that was, that was 50 years ago was the first of the National

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Indigenous advisory bodies created by the Whitlam government.

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Its principle function was to advise the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

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and the Minister on issues of concern to Aboriginal and

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Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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That, to me, is a perfectly sensible committee to have.

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Advising the Government on Indigenous Affairs, directly advising the

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Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

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Perfectly fine.

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The NACC saw itself as a legislative body, while Government expected

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them to be purely advisory.

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This along with other conflicts led to the end of the organization and the

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Fraser government , concluded it hadn't functioned as a consultative committee

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and had not been effective in providing advice or making its activities known

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to most Aboriginal people in 1977.

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We then had the N A C C reconstituted as the National

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Aboriginal Congress, the n a c.

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And this had indirect voting of members and a more explicit advisory role.

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Hawke government commissioned the Coombs Review, which found the body was

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not held in high regard by Aboriginal communities, and it was abolished.

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So then the Hawke government, in 1990 established ATSIC, the Aboriginal and

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Torres Strait Islander Commission.

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And it was an elected body which had responsibility.

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Not only for advising government, but for administering Indigenous

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programs and service delivery.

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It was successful in some areas as being a combined deliverer of services,

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however there was a low voter turnout for ATSIC elections, there were

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allegations of corruption, lack of government support led to the demise

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of that organisation, eventually abolished by the Howard Government.

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Howard Government then established the NIC.

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An inquiry subsequently found that its members were respected but had no

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support in the Indigenous community and

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in 2008, the Rudd government, announced the National Congress

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of Australia's First Peoples.

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and the establishment of a body independent of government.

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Fewer than 10, 000 Indigenous people signed up as members to elect Congress

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delegates, and the Abbott government cut off its main funding in 2013.

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So that's the sort of history of previous National Indigenous advisory bodies.

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Some of them going back as much as 50 years.

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And surely in there, we have had consultation with Indigenous

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people about what to do.

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And those opinions and recommendations finding their way

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to government, yet we still have what seems like zero improvement

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in remote Indigenous communities.

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Constitutional proposals.

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The next little historical area to cover.

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The history of constitutional proposals.

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So the main one I wanna deal with is a joint select committee on constitutional

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recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from 2013 to

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2015, which made recommendations in 2016.

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What did they recommend?

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Basically, recognize, acknowledge and respect indigenous culture.

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The relationship to land and history, put something in the constitution to say that.

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And get rid of a couple of particularly ugly sections that were in the

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constitution related to race.

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Repealing of section 25 for example.

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Section 25 says, because it's still there, for the purposes of the

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last section, if by the law of any state, or persons of any race, are

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disqualified from voting at elections.

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For the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then in

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reckoning the number of people of the State or of the Commonwealth,

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persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted.

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Really, it's a section saying, if a State decides to exclude people

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from voting because of their race, then we won't count those people.

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Of course, get rid of that section.

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Terrible racist section.

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So, And including a power for the Commonwealth then to make laws

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with respect to Indigenous people.

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That was 2016.

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No mention of a voice.

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Simply, let's recognise history and culture of Indigenous people, let's get

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rid of some ugly existing provisions in the Constitution, slip in a provision

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to say, yes, the Commonwealth can make laws with respect to Indigenous people.

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No mention of a voice.

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I could easily agree to those recommendations.

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There's no special rights given to a special group in that situation.

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Michael Mansell, he's chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania and

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has been active in Indigenous Affairs Matters His entire life, it seems, I seem

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to recall hearing about him when I was a teenager and my mother complaining that

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he didn't look Aboriginal enough for her.

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What was he doing representing Indigenous people?

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That seemed to me something my mother was saying 40 years ago.

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He's still around.

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And what does he says it's a weak idea that

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will do nothing.

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Now, if you thought that Michael Mansell is part of the Lydia Thorpe camp,

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where basically he's a no voter because he thinks the voice doesn't go far

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enough, and he wants a treaty and other things, you'd be 100 percent correct.

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That's what he thinks.

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But he makes some interesting comments about the Constitution.

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He says, The normal process for friendly governments advancing the cause of

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Aboriginal people is through legislation.

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When Gough Whitlam wanted to remedy racial discrimination in 1975,

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he did not hold a referendum.

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He legislated the Racial Discrimination Act.

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When Malcolm Fraser wanted to give land to Aboriginals in the Northern Territory,

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he did not ask for a referendum.

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His government enacted the Northern Territory Land Rights Act.

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Likewise, when Paul Keating promised to shore up native title,

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he did not go to a referendum.

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He legislated the Native Title Act 1993.

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Legislation is the normal way to change things.

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I'm still quoting Michael Mansell here.

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He says the Australian Constitution is an agreement between former British

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colonies to form a federation of states with a national parliament

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and a court to resolve disputes.

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Its purpose is not to declare human rights.

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I agree with him.

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Think about it.

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Land rights is such an important component of Indigenous rights, and

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it just happened by legislation.

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It's way more important than a voice to parliament.

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And it was just done by legislation.

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Any good ideas out there to deal with Indigenous people and improving their

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lot can be done by legislation tomorrow.

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This is the Noel Pearson thought bubble that's just got out of control.

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He goes on, Michael Mansell.

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The proposal for a so called voice that cannot return land, raise a tax,

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have no resources to distribute, or deliver no services, He's not able

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to stop a racist law or even build a single house for the Aboriginal homeless

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means it is a shockingly weak idea.

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The whole voice idea has sucked many in emotionally.

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The Yes campaign uses emotion to win over well meaning people.

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Think rationally.

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I'm still quoting Michael Mansell here, sounds like me to some extent.

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Think rationally.

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How could an advisory body diminish racism or close the gap?

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When a Prime Minister, State Premiers, and Peak Aboriginal

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Organisations have been unable to.

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And he goes on to say that don't need another advisory body there's

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domination by white people.

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He seeks in particular Aboriginal representation in every se in, in Senate.

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So, don't agree with that, of course, well I don't, but, interesting ideas

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about the purpose of the Constitution, and, he also in another article talks

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about the voice isn't permanent.

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Michael Mansell again says, the pro voice group claim that putting it in

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the Constitution will prevent any future Parliament from dumping the advisory body.

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That claim is factually and constitutionally wrong.

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Putting the voice in the constitution does not override parliamentary sovereignty, i.

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e.

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no parliament can bind another.

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Take this example.

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The Interstate Commission was set up under Constitutional Section

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101 which states, There shall be an Interstate Commission, blah blah blah.

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The now defunct commission was dumped in 1950, despite

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the constitutional provision.

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The same result can apply to the constitutionally entrenched voice.

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It's not permanent, dear listener.

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I haven't heard that argument from anywhere else.

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That's Michael Mansell talking about it.

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It seems legit to me.

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Interesting.

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You could think about it and say Isn't this just like ATSIC or one of those

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other groups, but in the Constitution?

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If I didn't complain about the NACC, the NAC, ATSIC or the National

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Congress of Australia's First Peoples, then why complain about the voice?

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Which is the same thing, but it's in the constitution.

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My answer is it confers rights by putting it in the constitution.

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The right to special lobbying privileges.

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I view sort of groups like ATSIC as advisors to the department.

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The department would draw up plans, taking into account stakeholder

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submissions, but charged with acting in the overall benefit of all Australians.

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With the voice, we may see competing advice to parliament.

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And The Voice will only be considering what is best for Indigenous Australians.

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We're setting up a broadcast facility for a group who will push

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for racial advantage, which will undoubtedly lead to racial division.

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They're charged with just looking after Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

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Not Australians overall.

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So their advice to Parliament is going to have that bias.

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It's not healthy.

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So the proposal.

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We've looked at the history of previous bodies, and we've looked at

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previous constitutional amendments.

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What are we faced with here?

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Well, we've moved on from the simple proposal of 2016, which was simply

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recognise Indigenous people, get rid of some ugly provisions, And

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put in a simple provision saying the Commonwealth has power to make laws

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with respect to Indigenous people.

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What we've got now has its genesis in 2014 in Noel Pearson's quarterly essay

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titled A rightful place, race recognition, and a more complete Commonwealth.

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So that's where he raises the concept of the voice in 2014.

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In 2016, the Referendum Council released a discussion paper, which included a call

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for an Indigenous voice to be discussed.

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This led to the First Nations National Constitutional Convention in 2017,

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whose delegates collectively composed the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

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And as the 2018 Joint Select Committee notes, the Uluru Statement

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from the Heart largely defines the parameters of the current debate.

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What does the Uluru Statement say?

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I'm paraphrasing it here, I'm using words in there, I'm just leaving a few

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words out just so that it reads clearly.

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easier for you.

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We, our people, when we have power over our destiny,

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we call for the establishment of a First Nations voice

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enshrined in the Constitution.

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Makarrata captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship

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with the people of Australia based on justice and self determination.

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We seek agreement making between governments and First Nations.

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and truth telling about our history.

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So there's a lot of we, Indigenous people, making a relationship

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with the Government of Australia.

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It's about a voice which will then lead to treaty and truth telling.

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That's what the Uluru Statement's about.

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Look, again, it's full of racist thinking.

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It's dividing Australia on racial lines.

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So in a few years we went from, let's acknowledge history, get rid of racist

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concepts and treat everyone equally, the 2016 version, to our people are

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different to other Australians, we have special rights and claims and needs.

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That's, that's what's changed.

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So we've got a special referendum question, a proposed law to alter the

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constitution to recognise First Peoples of Australia by establishing the voice.

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Do you approve?

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Will be the question.

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Now, the proposed Section 129 does not mention that membership of the voice must

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be exclusively Indigenous, but that's been openly stated as a key characteristic

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and a key reason for creating the voice.

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So when I speak about the voice, I refer to the proposed Section 129 combined

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with the proposed membership eligibility restrictions, and the fact that the

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voice emerges out of the Uluru Statement and voting yes will encourage further

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claims for treaty and self determination.

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Is something to take into account.

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It's not just a question of he wear the slippery slope.

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, it's the birthplace of the voice is the Uluru statement.

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It's context.

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It is context about the voice.

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Let's talk about racism.

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If you're interested in race, there is a book by Augustine Fuentes called Race,

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monogamy, and Other Lies They told you.

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Interesting book about race.

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It'll help clarify the idea that race is a social construct.

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There is no biological evidence of racial difference.

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We are what he calls nature nurtural.

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Nature, of course, is your DNA.

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Nurture is your environment and culture.

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So.

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He says, we are a synthesis and fusion of nature and nurture.

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It's just , not a product of adding nurture to nature.

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What we think is normal, rarely arises from some inner biological

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core, rather, it's usually the result of experiences we've had.

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Grow headhunting community and you'll think headhunting's normal.

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We are who we meet.

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Our social development, schooling, gender acquisition, peer group interactions

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and parental and sibling interactions have an enormous impact on shaping

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our schemata and how our brains and bodies respond to social stimuli.

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So the way you're nurtured can affect your nature.

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If you grow up in a, in a little contact society, meaning people

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don't hug each other very much.

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And are later immersed in a high contact society.

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You might feel socially uncomfortable, you will also feel physically uncomfortable.

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You will have a physical response.

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Culture helps us to perceive what is good and right, specific to

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our historical and social context.

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Cultural construct is a concept or a belief or a social ideology

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about the world that originates within a particular society and is

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generally shared by its members.

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So in the West,

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a cultural construct would be the acceptance of the nuclear

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family as a normal mode of life.

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Social organization.

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Whereas in other societies, more extended families might be considered more normal.

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Cultural constructs are not necessarily stagnant.

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Things change.

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For example, gender roles used to be husband worked, wife,

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housewife, homemaker, and mother.

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That's changed.

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That cultural construct has changed.

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It's normal for culture to change.

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Cultures are not sacrosanct.

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They're not sacred.

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Race is not biological.

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It's a cultural construct.

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The categories are socially defined.

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Anyway, that's a bit of an intro to race and the idea of thinking about race.

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What is racism?

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According to the Human Rights Commission, racism is the process by which systems

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and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and

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outcomes for people based on race.

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So, I say the voice is a racist proposal.

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It uses race to determine eligibility to certain rights.

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It divides Australia into racial groups.

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It relies on the notion that Indigenous people share common

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opinions by virtue of their race.

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And that only Indigenous leaders can best collate those opinions

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and inform the government.

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And it gives a racial group special representation rights.

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Now ironically, the advocates of this racist policy often claim

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that their opponents are racist.

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Maybe they are, but it's not because they're a no voter.

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It could be a no voter with the cleanest, most anti racist view

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of how ethics should be conducted.

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Just a couple of sidelines there.

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Mentioned briefly, I'm uncomfortable with this idea.

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It seems implicit in a lot of the conversation, is that

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Indigenous people share common opinions by virtue of their race.

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Now the whole idea of the voice is to gather the opinion

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of the Indigenous community.

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And implied in that is an expectation that,

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on things that affect the Indigenous community, and the idea

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that there'll be an overwhelming consensus, quite often, in this.

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And I don't think that's the case.

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I think across the Indigenous community, there's going to be a much wider

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spectrum of opinion than people think.

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And that the voice, if it's being truthful, in representing to Parliament.

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Indigenous opinion is going to have to say more often than they'd like, well our

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community is actually divided about this.

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Because there's this broad spectrum of opinion.

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I mean, just look at some of the issues that we've faced over time.

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Some Indigenous leaders have been very poor.

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Anthony Mundine advised against vaccinations.

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Many Indigenous leaders were against marriage equality.

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Ken Wyatt is part of a government that, through reckless tax cuts,

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sabotaged the welfare system that many Indigenous people rely on.

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I'm uncomfortable with the implication in this of a consensus of Indigenous opinion.

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It smacks to me of a racist acceptance that all black people think the same.

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Even on something like income management, this came up as a topic where...

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I was looking for an example of where the voice might have made a difference,

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had the voice been in place, and somebody mentioned income management.

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Looking at reports after that decision, communities, remote Indigenous communities

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that, that, where that system was employed, are today 50 50 divided as

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to whether it was a good idea or not.

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So, it's, it's an awkward thing.

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More awkward than what people are expecting to come up

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with an Indigenous consensus.

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And a lot of reports are often stating that these things are regional matters.

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In some regions people want this, in other regions people want that.

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I guess the voice can say that, and say in this region people want this,

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and in this region people want that.

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But it seems to me there's an expectation that the voice will somehow come up

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with this Overwhelming consensus of Indigenous thought that must be there.

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Now, the intellectually honest approach would be for yes voters to admit that

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yes, the voice is racist, but, like affirmative action, gender quotas,

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etc, the ends justify the means.

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Just as discrimination can sometimes be fair, the voice is racist, but

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it's not unfair, because it seeks to help a disadvantaged group.

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That would be the intellectually honest approach for a yes voter

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to talk about this, but instead we get Orwellian doublespeak that

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the no voters are the racists.

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Saddens me, the level of debate.

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So, if somebody was to argue that, that yes it's racist, but the ends

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justify the means just like with gender quotas and affirmative action, well do

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the positives outweigh the negatives?

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And this is a judgement call, and opinions will vary, depending

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on how you prioritise things.

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So, I acknowledge there are disadvantaged Indigenous

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people, and I want to help them.

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I believe there are successful, flourishing Indigenous people

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who do not need special help.

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Just on that score in 2012, the Melbourne Writers Festival, Aboriginal author Marsha

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Langton was confident to state that there is a growing Aboriginal middle class.

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Stan Grant said, we are now in an era where we are seeing second

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generation Indigenous PhDs.

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There are class differences within the Indigenous population.

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So for me, the key criteria is disadvantage, not indigeneity.

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I don't care about race, I care about class and disadvantage.

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I think a lot of Australians voting no think the same.

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If the voice was to represent the lower class on a colourblind

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basis, I'd support it.

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True racists of the Ku Klux Klan type, see racial differences as real,

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inherent, hardwired character differences.

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Those black people are different.

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That thinking was used to justify slavery.

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It's used today to justify inequality.

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Black people don't like to work hard.

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Black people don't like to save.

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These true racists see these problems as inherited characteristics.

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We've spent several centuries disavowing that notion.

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Our DNA differences are negligible.

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Biologically we're the same.

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But now, via the politics of identity, the left wants to

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circle back to those differences.

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, your racial thinking in the voice is just encouraging racial thinking

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everywhere then, including from some nasty elements on the right.

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As Ken and Malick says, we live in an age in which most societies...

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There is moral abhorrence of racism.

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We also live in an age in which our thinking is saturated with racial

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ideology in the embrace of difference.

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The more we despise racial thinking, the more we cling to it.

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It's like an ideological version of the Stockholm Syndrome.

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That's the end of the , Kenan Malick quote.

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If the left thinks it's okay to accentuate racial difference for

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positive reasons, then it can hardly be surprised when the right accentuates

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those differences for negative reasons.

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Reopening racial profiling reopens the door to racial thinking

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and racial discrimination.

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More by Ken and Malik on racism.

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Those who call themselves progressive or anti racist often draw upon

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ideas that are deeply regressive and rooted in racial ways of thinking.

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And that the consequences of identity politics and of concepts such as

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cultural appropriation is to bring about not social justice, but the

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empowerment of those who would act as gatekeepers to particular communities.

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Noel Pearson in 2015 said this, At the moment, for example, we're characterised

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as a race and it affects our whole psychology, not just the blackfellas,

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the whitefellas too, because the whitefellas think we're a separate race

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and treat us as a race and we see, and we ourselves have internalised that.

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I think the moment we move to recognition of Indigenous First Nations.

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We'll enter a phase where race will just be a concept from the 19th and

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20th century that we put behind us.

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And we, as blackfellas, won't have this negative idea of race about ourselves

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and hopefully the wider community will stop having low expectations of us.

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This is a concept I've noticed in Noel Pearson's writings and in Marcia Langton's

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writings where, where the rights that are being sought are for First Nations

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peoples rather than for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Because they both know there's no such thing as race.

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There's racism, but not race.

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There's no such thing Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander race.

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So, they seem to want to talk about , Indigenous First Nations, First Peoples,

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and basically the people who were here first and those who are descended

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from them, as moniker rather than...

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and that somehow this

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will escape the whole racism problem.

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I don't see how it does that.

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More by Kenan Malik, on noble savage mistakes in Australia,

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because he visited Australia.

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Ah, no, he wrote about it afterwards.

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The debate about Indigenous peoples seems, at least to me an outsider,

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to take place on only two registers, on one hand silence, on the other a

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romanticisation of Indigenous life.

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It may seem odd to speak of silence in a nation where the issue of Indigenous

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rights is so prominent in public life, but silence can come in many forms.

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The affirmation of Indigenous ownership at public events has become little

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more than a ritual incantation.

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That allows white Australians to assuage guilt without taking the action necessary

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to challenge racist marginalisation.

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Equally troubling is the romanticisation.

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It has become the accepted truth that Indigenous peoples have a culture

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stretching back 65, 000 years.

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Humans have been on the continent for that long, but no culture

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extends over such a time span.

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Today's Indigenous Australians.

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No more have the same relationship to the spiritual tradition of Dreamtime

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stories, as did those first inhabitants, than modern Greeks relate to the Iliad

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in the way their ancient forebears did.

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The idea of an unbroken, unchanged culture has a flip side that

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has always animated races.

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It was once used to portray Indigenous Australians and other non white races as

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primitive and incapable of development.

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Likewise, with another common claim, the Indigenous people have a

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special attachment to the land and a unique form of ecological wisdom.

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This too draws on an old racist trope, a reworking of the noble savage myth.

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The fact that in contemporary debates, such ideas are deployed.

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And support rather than denial of Indigenous rights does

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not make them more palatable.

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Still on racist ideas.

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In Queensland we've got a Minister for Treaty, Leanne Enoch, and in

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this article , she stood by removing non First Nations Department

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staff from introductory meetings.

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So, when she has a meeting.

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Stakeholders and other groups, she will say, who's the Indigenous people here?

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You all stay so that we can sort out our family and cultural relationships.

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And while we do that, you white people leave the room.

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And she says that that is a normal cultural practice for Aboriginal people.

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And she labelled criticism of that practice as racist and defamatory.

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Well, it might be typical Indigenous practice.

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We're living in a community where openness and accountability in government

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is important and we need to know about conflicts of interest and we need to

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know people are treated equally and running that sort of operation prior to a

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meeting casts doubt on whether there are special arrangements for special people.

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This isn't open government when you do this.

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Now, she might feel that's insulting to Indigenous people if the white people

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can stay there, but in our culture in Australia today, needing open and

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accountable government with our fears of corruption and undue influence.

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With needing to know conflicts of interest, it's vitally important that

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such meetings are open and everybody understands where everybody sits.

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But, she declares the people complaining about that to be racist.

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This is where we get to with Orwellian doublespeak.

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Well, that's ideas about race.

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We now need to talk about class and identity politics.

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Because what we've had over...

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Recent decades, dear listener, is the demise of the union movement, and where

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people formerly identified by class, working class, middle class, and fought

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for rights for themselves and their fellow class members, for the working

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class to get a fair deal, for example.

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With the demise of the union movement and the change of work styles.

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We've lost class affiliation and perhaps because even when it was

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there, it just wasn't working well enough and people were falling behind.

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So people started resorting to their cultural, ethnic, religious, cultural

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groups for support and identity.

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And we've ended up in a form of identity politics.

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As opposed to class politics.

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This is what I see the problem, one of the problems with the voice,

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is I see things at a class level.

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I want to help disadvantaged people regardless of their cultural identity.

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Whereas the voice seeks representation for a cultural group without any account

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being taken into for class differences.

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So.

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Ken and Malik.

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Class and identity politics.

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The shift from class to culture is part of a much wider set of changes.

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The broad ideological divides that has characterised politics for much of the

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past 200 years have all but erased.

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The old distinction between left and right has become less meaningful.

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Old forms of collective life, usually based around class, have weakened.

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In politics, universalist visions have waned, while particularist

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perspectives gain strength.

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Meanwhile, the market has expanded into almost every nook and cranny of social

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life and institutions that traditionally helped socialise individuals, from

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trade unions to the church, have faded.

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We live today in a more fragmented, atomised society.

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Partly as a result of such social atomisation, people have begun to

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view themselves and their social affiliations in a different way.

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Social solidarity has become defined increasingly not in political

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terms, but rather in terms of ethnicity, culture, or faith.

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The question people ask themselves is not so much, in what kind of society

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do I want to live, as, who are we?

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The two questions are, of course, intimately related, and

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any sense of social identity must embed an answer to both.

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So the answer to the question, in what kind of society do I want to live,

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has become shaped less by the kinds of values or institutions people want to

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struggle to establish, than by the kind of people that they imagine they are.

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And the answer to who are we has been, become defined less by the

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kind of society they want to create than by the history and heritage

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to which supposedly they belong.

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The politics of ideology has, in other words, given way

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to the politics of identity.

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People have lost class ideology,

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, for some people,

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, you look at the world today and The 1 percent controls 90 percent of the

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wealth, for example, or the top 10 percent controls the top 90 percent

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of wealth, whatever the figure is.

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Let's say it's the top 10%.

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There are lots of people out there who would be fine with that, provided that

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in that top 10% the proportions of ethnicities and religious groupings and

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race matches the general population.

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That sort of disparity is fine, provided in that top 10%, 3.

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3 percent are indigenous, and 2.

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6 percent are Muslim, and 50 percent are women, and whatever

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the necessary proportion is are queer or, or homosexual, whatever.

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This sort of thought of representation of my group must be at least equal

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to its proportion of the community, without the consideration of, well,

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where's the community actually at?

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Anyway, I've digressed there.

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Kenna Malick again.

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Whites are seen as divided by class.

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Non whites as belonging to classless communities.

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It's a perspective that ignores social divisions within minority groups, while

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also racialising class distinctions.

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You hear a lot about the white working class, the white upper class.

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You don't hear about the black upper class, the black middle class.

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It exists.

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For example, he says in Britain, White working class boys, white

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working class boys, perform the worst of any group in British schools.

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Then, as now the picture was more complicated than the public debate

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suggested, black pupils were not alone in performing badly,

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nor did they all perform badly.

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Three ethnic groups lagged behind, African Caribbeans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

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Three groups fared better than the average.

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Chinese, Indians and Africans.

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But the differences were not simply ethnic.

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African Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrants to Britain

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have come largely from working class and peasant backgrounds.

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Indian, Chinese and Africans tend to be more middle class.

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Racism undoubtedly played a part in the poor performance of children

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from certain minority groups.

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So did class differences.

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So fixated, however, were academics and policy makers by ethnic categories.

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But they largely ignored the latter, that is, the class differences.

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The 2000 Ofsted report, for instance, demonstrated that the impact of social

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class on school performance was more than twice as great as that of ethnicity,

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yet it disregarded its own data and focused almost exclusively on the

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problems posed by ethnic differences.

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If we're serious about tackling the problems facing both working class

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whites and minority groups, it's time we started thinking of the relationship

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between race and class in a different way.

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Right.

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Talking about culture and identity, and identity politics, I've got

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a description from Katherine R.

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Stimson.

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Identity politics is contemporary shorthand for a group's assertion that

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it is a meaningful group, that differs significantly from other groups, that its

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members share a history of injustice and grievance, and that its psychological and

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political mission is to explore, act out, act on, and act up its group identity.

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My fixation with class.

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over race.

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Many black activists would agree with me.

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We have to stop thinking about race and start thinking about class.

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Well known black activist leaders like Martin Luther King and

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Malcolm X would agree with me.

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So Martin Luther King.

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I mean his famous statement, judge somebody by the content of their character

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rather than the colour of their skin.

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Martin Luther King recognized too that equality meant more than

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simple civil and political rights.

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What does it profit a man?

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He asked to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he

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doesn't earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee.

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In 19 60 70, he launched his Poor People's Campaign, telling a reporter

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that we are dealing with class issues.

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The Gulf between the haves and the have-nots, more importantly,

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or relevantly, or just as Relevantly King was about.

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Removing the barriers of segregation and of having black

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people achieve equal rights.

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It wasn't about black people achieving or gaining special rights.

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Malcolm X John Lewis, the chair of the SNCC, recalled a conversation in

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which Malcolm X talked about the need to shift our focus from race to class.

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Thanks for watching!

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He said this was the root of our problems, not just in

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America, but all over the world.

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I've spoken previously on the podcast of Malcolm X's transformation

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at the latter end of his life.

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Franz Fanon would agree with me.

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Franz Fanon was born in 1925 and was a hero of the Black Power

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and Black Panthers movement.

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But Fanon disagreed with those who promoted negritude.

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Fanon rejected what he saw as the trapping of black people within a

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fantasy carpus of culture and history.

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Fanon rejected the very idea of a single black identity.

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There is nothing he maintained to warrant the assumption that such

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a thing as Negro people exist.

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Nor do all blacks have a single set of experiences.

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The Negro is naughty, added any more than the white man.

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My black skin is not the wrapping of specific values.

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His solidarity is not with those who share his skin colour, but with

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all those who share his ideals.

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Amiri Baraka, the poet and critic, Amiri Baraka was a founder

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of the black arts movement.

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Baraka shed his nationalism for Marxism in the 1970s.

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He recognised the dangers of appropriating racial thinking,

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even for the cause of equal rights.

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He recognised too the importance of class in any struggle for equality

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and he came to realise that simply having black faces in position of

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power did little to combat racism.

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Or empower working class blacks.

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So there's some famous American black activists.

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Marsha Langton, she's obviously one of the most prominent people speaking on

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behalf of The Voice, her and Noel Pearson.

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She did a lot of work in, in describing how The Voice would operate.

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Back in 2012, she said things then, at the Melbourne Writers Festival, that

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seem to be at odds with her position now.

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Her thinking and her statements back then.

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just over 10 years ago, seem to contradict her position now.

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So this is Marsha Langton writing in 2012.

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It's a fairly lengthy bit, I'll be saying.

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I have the words I'm reading are the words she wrote, but I am leaving

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out some words in between, just to sort of paraphrase, if you like.

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So I'm not making up any words, but I'm leaving some out in some passages.

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Just to make it easier for you as a podcast listener to follow what

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she's saying and to highlight the bits that I want to highlight.

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So, so I'll start now with exploring what she wrote as part of the

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Melbourne Writers Festival in 2012.

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She writes, I want to explore in this chapter the problem

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of how to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.

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I am arguing that defining Aboriginal people as a race, As the Constitution

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does, sets up the conditions for Indigenous people to be treated, not

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just as different, but exceptional and inherently incapable of joining

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the Australian polity and society.

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Exceptionalist initiatives that have isolated the Aboriginal world from

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Australian economic and social life.

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In turn, many Indigenous Australians have developed a sense of entitlement and adopt

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the mantle of the exceptional Indigenee.

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The subject of special treatments on the grounds of race.

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This exceptional status involves a degree of self loathing,

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dehumanisation and complicity in racism.

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It is vital that treating Aborigines as a race must be replaced

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with the idea of First Peoples.

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Dear listener, I'm interrupting here with my own thoughts.

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This is what I was talking about with Noel Pearson earlier, and this is also what

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Marcia Langton is trying to say in that

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instead of using , Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, which is racial, they

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want to use the idea of First Peoples, which is legal, if you like, in the sense

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of legal inheritors , of land rights.

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I'll go on with what she wrote.

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This is Marsha Langton.

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What Andrew Bolt cannot suspect is that many Aboriginal people, including me,

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are just as cynical and sceptical About all the claims made to Aboriginality,

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or to the use, or, to use the even more modern and meaningless phrase,

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Indigeneity, by people raised in relative comfort in the suburbs.

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They cannot be described as disadvantaged, unless you take seriously the racist.

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Proposition that one is automatically disadvantaged by having an Aboriginal

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ancestor and a trace of Aboriginal racial characteristics, yet they are eligible

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for special Aboriginal non government scholarships and special consideration

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for enrolment in universities.

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I have served on scholarship selection committees, and I contend that

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economic disadvantage must be one of the grounds for selection, and not

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simply identifying as Indigenous.

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It is nonsense.

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To hand out scholarships funded by philanthropic efforts to people who

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are not economically disadvantaged.

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Being descended from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person who

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lived before British annexation of our lands is not sufficient reason

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by itself to hand out money to people who make a claim to being Indigenous.

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This attitude of entitlement is poisoning Aboriginal society.

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Just as much it is as it is poisoning Australian attitudes to indigenous people.

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Now I'm gonna interrupt you with my own thoughts.

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I don't see in the debate that we've had on the voice, any nuance from

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yes voters about class distinctions within a Australian indigenous,

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indigenous community about, I mean, these are rights given to all

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indigenous people to lobby this.

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It's always framed as.

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the Indigenous community.

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It's never the poor Indigenous community, the disadvantaged Indigenous community,

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as distinct from the advantaged, well to do Indigenous community.

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It's a big part of my problem with this proposal is there's no

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class distinction in it at all.

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We're giving rights to Jonathan Thurston's kids, who I assume

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are financially very secure.

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Thank you very much.

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This is a big part of the problem.

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She's, in this essay, recognising how scholarships and whatnot shouldn't

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be granted to Indigenous people.

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Just, just being Indigenous isn't enough.

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You should be disadvantaged.

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I don't see the same distinctions happening in the voice debate.

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She goes on.

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The debate about what constitutes an authentic Aboriginal identity

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It's so fraught and toxic.

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Anything from growing up in the suburbs with a family that denied its Aboriginal

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roots, to feeling very spiritual,

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are being touted as legitimate grounds for claiming to be Aboriginal.

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Not just Andrew Bolt, but also hundreds of Aboriginal people who suffered

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because they did not want to hide their identity, are fed up with this

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creeping post modernist ideology of indigenism and indigenous exceptionalism.

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The key reason for our contempt for this lifestyle option is that most of its

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proponents, having never suffered racial discrimination, do not understand the

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need to be free of racial discrimination.

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So she's making the point there that

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just growing up, if you grew up in the suburbs with a family that denied

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its Aboriginal roots, she questions.

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Whether you can be an authentic Aboriginal person.

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She also talks about lifestyle choice.

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I know Tony Abbott was criticised heavily for saying that

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ascribing to an Indigenous culture was a lifestyle choice

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and people howled him down.

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Marsha Langton in this essay seems to me to be saying that for some people

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it can indeed be a lifestyle choice.

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She goes on to say that, and this is back in

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2016, our proposed bill to alter the constitution that we should put to

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the Australian people is as follows

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the Commonwealth shall not discriminate on the grounds of race.

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And that doesn't stop the Commonwealth from making laws, overcoming

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disadvantage, Ameliorating the effects of past discrimination.

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And she says, so that's like a fairly simple proposal,

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that, that they want in the Constitution something to allow the government,

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to make it clear the government has the power, to make laws that do

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discriminate, if it's for overcoming disadvantage, or ameliorating the

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effects of past discrimination.

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She goes on to talk about that to say that there was one problem that Noel Pearson

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raised, the problem of how to gauge the progress in removing disadvantage

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and thereby remove from legislation the special measures designed to address

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them once the goals were achieved.

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This is an absolutely necessary part of the puzzle.

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We must address this problem in order to remove the scourge of

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racism from the constitutional wheels of our social machine.

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So she's saying, if we're going to make provision...

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For Indigenous people to fix the gap, we should put in there the

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mechanism by which that special benefit closes once the gap closes.

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She says it's part of human rights practice to allow for special measures

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that discriminate in favour of a disadvantaged group, but these measures

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must be temporary or the fabric of human rights law and its principle is breached.

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There is a growing Aboriginal middle class.

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The climb out of poverty and disadvantage has paid off for their children as well.

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And, for these children, no special measures are required.

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They should continue to identify as Aboriginal.

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They should learn and practice their culture.

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But there are no human rights grounds for them to receive any

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special assistance, except in some circumstances such as disability.

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Don't see any of that in the current debate.

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She says it requires imagining the Australian society in which we see

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each other as individuals, each unique with a multitude of characteristics.

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Being Aboriginal in that circumstances would not be extraordinary or

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contentious or reason for hatefulness.

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She then goes on to quote Morgan Freeman, the American actor, and I've previously

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played the clip with Morgan Freeman.

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I'll just quote her first of all.

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Morgan Freeman, the American actor, explained in an interview why he hates

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the idea of Black History Week, even though he is on one side of his family,

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the descendant of an African slave.

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There is no White History Week.

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Black history is American history, he said.

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She goes on, When you think about it, our historians and intellectuals

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should have reached this realisation without the trauma of the culture wars.

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I hope we can put this idiocy behind us, and define human beings

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in ways that does not involve outdated and unscientific concepts.

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and the prejudices that have grown up around them.

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Can't believe you would write such an essay and then 10 years later be calling

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for a voice which makes no reference to class and disadvantage and gives broad

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lobbying rights to Indigenous people,

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many of whom have no special, are not suffering any particular disadvantage.

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But there you go.

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Here's the clip from Morgan Freeman Black History Month.

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You find ridiculous.

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What?

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You're gonna relegate my history to a month.

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Oh, come on.

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What do you do with yours?

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What?

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Which month is White History Month?

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? Well, come on, tell me.

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Well, the, I'm Jewish.

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Okay.

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Which month is Jewish History Month?

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There isn't one.

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Oh oh, why not?

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Yeah.

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Well, you want one?

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No, no, no.

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I don't either.

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I don't want a Black History Month.

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Black history is American history.

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How are we going to get rid of racism?

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Stop talking about it.

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I'm going to stop calling you a white man.

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Yeah.

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And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.

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I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.

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I just want to talk about this I just want to circle back to the argument

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that Indigenous people are not heard.

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We are not heard, is the claim.

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We need to be heard, the voice will fix that, but we are not heard.

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When measuring the gap, everyone compares poverty, incarceration, education rates

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of Indigenous people, bearing in mind their percentage of the population.

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Indigenous people are either over represented or under represented.

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Typically overrepresented in incarceration rates, underrepresented when it comes to

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high sort of income levels, for example.

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It's a comparison between, you know, Indigenous people are, for example, 3.

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3 percent of the population but make up over 10 percent

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of the incarcerated people.

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That sort of statistic is trotted out, and with good reason.

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But that statistical method is thrown out the window when it

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comes to the voice and Indigenous representation in Federal Parliament.

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The 2022 11 Aboriginal parliamentarians, representing 4.

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8 percent of all parliamentarians, which is higher than the Indigenous

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Australian population of 3.

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3%.

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So, the first point of call in a democracy, as to

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whether you're being heard...

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is, are there people in Parliament like you who are able to

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inform the Parliament and their colleagues about your experience?

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Well, 4.

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8 percent of them are.

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That's a, that's a good rate of representation.

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Sometimes when you listen to these debates, if you came from overseas or

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from outer space and were plopped in the middle of this debate, you would

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swear that Indigenous people didn't A vote is sometimes how it's described.

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So, what do we think those eleven Aboriginal parliamentarians are

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doing when they're in parliament?

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What do you think they're doing there?

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Of course they're going to be passing on thoughts of their constituents,

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who will include Indigenous people.

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I have, in the past, looked for an example of an idea, an instance, a thing.

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Where advocates for the yes vote could say, look, if only the

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voice had been in place, then this would have been different.

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We would have had a better outcome, given that the role of the voice is to

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notify Parliament of Indigenous opinion.

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It's really looking for things where the Parliament did not know

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what Indigenous people wanted when it came to a certain issue.

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And if only the voice had been there to tell the Parliament, money could

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have been saved, better outcomes could have been achieved, pain

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avoided, happiness perhaps achieved.

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And I mentioned before that during the podcast somebody mentioned

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the Income Management, which was introduced in response to the findings

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of an inquiry into sexual violence against Indigenous children in 2007.

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But when I investigated that and looked into it, reports that were retrospective

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were indicating that the Indigenous community was split as to whether they

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approved or disapproved of the program.

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And that's touted as an example where the voice would have said, Oh, well, we

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definitely shouldn't do that program.

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But depending on the community, that may not be what the community is.

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opinion was, or even still is.

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So, a footnote to that report.

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By the way, dear listener, patrons get full show notes of all the articles and

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references that I've describing here.

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It's probably going to be a, I don't know, it could be a, it could be about a

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70 page document at the rate we're going.

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We'll see.

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Anyway, from this report, Evaluations of Income Management, and Footnote 13.

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The report presents the perspective of aboriginal men and women in the

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N T E R measures from six case study communities in central Australia,

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tmu, Ali, and Hermannsburg.

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It's based on detailed participatory evaluation survey of 141 Aboriginal

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residents in these communities.

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The survey questioned participants awareness of the NTER measures, feelings

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on the measures and the effect of the measures on them and their community.

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The survey included a self assessment scale.

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The community surveys were augmented by 51 semi structured interviews

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with other community based employees or agencies, government agencies

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and GBMs in survey communities.

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Additional data was provided by the NTER Operations Centre, Department

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of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and Centrelink.

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The research conducted clearly, the research conducted demonstrates clearly

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the diversity of opinion around the NTER measures across communities.

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As well as amongst community members resident in a community.

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Income management responses across survey participants were almost evenly

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divided between people in favour, 51%, and opposed, 46%, to income management.

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Gender and age were not significant factors influencing people's level of

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support, however income type influenced people's support for income management.

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Blah, blah, blah.

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After one of my episodes, I was emailed by a listener called Andrew, and he accused

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me of being ignorant and he referred to my call out for one of these examples of

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something that would have been different had the voice been in place, and he

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said, That there was a 1 million wasted in Central Australia on a market garden.

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So I emailed him back and said, Well, what's the story about the market garden?

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Give me a link.

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And he responded and he said that There was a Zoom meeting with a university.

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Let's see which one it was.

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Anyway, it was a university, it was a panel discussion, there was an

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artist from Central Australia told the story, Andrew thinks it was

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Sally Scales, and indeed it was.

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It was held at Australian National University, ANU, Mark Kinney hosted

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it various people on the panel, and so I found the I found it on

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YouTube, I think he might have sent me the clip, from YouTube.

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And I'm going to play you now what Sally Scales said at the 1 minute and 10 1 hour,

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10 minute mark of that, of that clip.

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Talking about realistic changes in a community, like I was 19

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when our, our communities asked for food security changes in

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our regional remote communities.

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Now, the APY lands is 18 hours from Adelaide.

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It's nine hours from Alice Springs.

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Our food comes from Adelaide.

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You know, 14 years ago, an iceberg lettuce was co costing $14.

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A box of nappies was $48, and I'm talking black and gold and that I'm talking 20.

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And we asked to subsidize a cost of freight and a minister

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chose to do a market garden.

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In the remote communities.

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Now, I'm from a desert, arid community.

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We advised this minister this is not gonna work.

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Her Aboriginal Affairs Commissioner said this will not work.

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She chose to do it anyway.

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She wasted a million dollars that we were asking for 500, 000 over five years.

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So in it she says,

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I'm from a desert community and we advise this minister, it's not going to work.

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Her Aboriginal Affairs Commissioner said this will not work, blah, blah, blah.

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So what Sally Scales is saying is that the minister was told

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it's not going to work and the Aboriginal Affairs Commissioner knew.

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Was told this will not work.

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That's the whole point of what we're talking about here is will

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the government Know something that they didn't know before.

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So this is an example actually of where Indigenous people were heard.

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She admits they were heard.

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It's just that the minister sister.

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It's just that the minister Decided to do something different

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to what their advice was.

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Now, that's what's going to happen with the voice as well So this was hardly

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an argument in favour of the voice, it was an example of how actually

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Indigenous people have access to the minister to advise the minister of

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their opinion, and then guess what?

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The minister can sometimes ignore them.

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That's what's going to happen with the voice.

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This was not an argument in favour of showing how the voice

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would create a different result.

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I'm still waiting on one.

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Now, the same thing happened with Noel Pearson.

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At the press gallery lunch not so long ago.

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And in that

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in that, he gave the example of rheumatic heart disease as an example of an

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issue that would have been different, would have been treated differently by

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government had the voice been in place.

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And so at about the 16.

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In that 55 second mark of that clip, he says, I've learned that

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listening makes it possible.

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Rheumatic heart disease is a scourge.

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Rheumatic heart disease is a scourge.

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A disease largely eradicated in the rest of the world, but allowed to

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fester in the paradise of Cape York and the remote communities of Australia.

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At an event yesterday in Brisbane, doctors confirmed this terrible

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disease kills two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people per week.

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Young children, teenagers and young adults in their 20s and 30s.

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They drop dead swimming down the creek or on the football field,

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sleeping in their beds at night.

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Yet, when I searched Hansard, I found the local federal member of parliament for

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Cape York and Torres Strait, ensconced in his seat for 26 years, never found time

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to mention rheumatic heart disease in our nation's chamber of democracy even once.

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He did for the first time when I mentioned this in this campaign.

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This is a problem only a voice can overcome, to ensure people who represent

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us, who make laws about us, who determine so much about the reality of our lives,

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listen to our advice, blah, blah, blah.

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I thought, well, that's potentially the example I'm looking for, that this

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disease of rheumatic heart disease, local member didn't know about it, and, or if

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he did, never mentioned it in Hansard.

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in Parliament.

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Well, you do a quick Google search of that disease and Indigenous People

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Australia, and of course you find any number of efforts to treat this

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issue by all sorts of organisations.

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And it's not an issue that the government is unaware of and has done nothing about.

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Quite the opposite.

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So, the government is aware of that disease in Indigenous communities

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and there are various programs.

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With various success rates or failure rates, but it's not an

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example where having a voice is going to make a difference in the

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sense of telling the government stuff that they didn't already know.

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And a quick Google search reveals the extent of consultation

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knowledge and programs that are already in place on that one.

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Just for your reference.

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Why is there such a prevalence of this disease in Indigenous communities?

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And the answer is that it's directly related to poverty, overcrowded living

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conditions, where people get scratches and infections, multiple strep infections.

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leads to this form of heart disease.

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So it's, it's really a consequence of poverty and living

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conditions is, is the issue.

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And that's why you don't see it in mainstream Australian society, but

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it is a problem in overcrowded, poor, Unhygienic Indigenous communities.

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It's a, it's actually a culture problem again.

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Just going back actually to the story about the Market Garden.

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And I mentioned before that it was an example where the government

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actually knew the opinion of Indigenous people, so the voice wasn't going

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to make any difference to that.

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But I found a submission by Money Mob Talkabout to the House of Representatives

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Senate Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs in Canberra, who were holding

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an inquiry into food pricing and food security in remote Indigenous communities.

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Money Mob provides financial counselling, financial literacy,

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education and a range of other financial service supports to the Aboriginal

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population in remote communities.

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There are experts in this field and you might remember that in

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that clip Sally Scales talked about the need for a freight subsidy.

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Instead they got a market garden.

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What good was that?

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And we know what we need, it's a freight subsidy.

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Well, actually, according to Money Mob, it's way more complicated than that.

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And in this submission, which was to an inquiry on food pricing and food security

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in remote Indigenous communities, in particular, the remote South Australian

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community that she was talking about they say this, while a lot of attention

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is given to the freight costs.

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There are many significant factors that contribute to the

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higher end price to the consumer.

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From our experience, some of the unique operating expenses of a business or

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organisation in a remote environment are higher wages and salaries, providing

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and maintaining housing for staff, training, retention and turnover of

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staff, and governance for boards.

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These are factors.

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Which are echoed by remote stores, and they make the point that if

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you want outsiders to come and work in these remote communities,

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you have to pay a very high wage.

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That offer may arrive, find they will get trained up, understand the lifestyle is

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not for them and disappear quickly, so you end up retraining people very quickly.

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In terms of local people, very difficult to employ and recruit

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and train local staff as well.

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Many Indigenous employees struggle to retain employment.

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They face a range of pressures, including providing high levels of financial

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support to extended family, which can act as a disincentive to work.

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They suffer violence and abuse from the broader community.

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There's also lack of childcare, and balancing cultural and work obligations.

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And, if they don't speak English, that adds to the problem.

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So, very difficult staffing, huge levels of damage to premises, and

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also theft by customers and staff.

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This extract from the Impampa Community Store financial statements.

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It illustrates the impact of theft.

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As the community is relatively small and the corporation's turnover also

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relatively low, Outback Stores has moved the store over to the light model

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where Outback Stores is assisted by community members to run the store and

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to help achieve the mission, vision and nutritional aims as detailed above.

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When this was first implemented, family and other community members

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would go into the store and hassle and humbug the working community members.

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Which resulted in the loss of stock in theft.

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They go on to talk about the actual percentages and amounts.

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They make the point in this report that it's difficult to explain to

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people that it's not just freight and that it's all these other issues.

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They also talk about governance arrangements, that it's often local

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community leaders who are in governance of these projects, but that doesn't help.

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Necessarily, and can cause a problem when people want to complain,

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but it would be divisive in their community if they were to.

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They also point out that the their buying power is not like a Coles or a Woolworths.

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So they purchase through Metcash, which means they don't have the buying

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power of a Coles or a Woolworths.

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So the prices are going to necessarily be higher as well.

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And they talk about poverty and cultural factors influencing consumption.

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And quoting from the report, Indigenous community, Indigenous consumers living

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in remote communities do not have the same shopping behaviours as consumers in

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regional, urban and metropolitan areas.

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Many factors, including persistent poverty, overcrowded, freely

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accessed housing and a concomitant.

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Inability to retain food in the house and the lack of essential white goods

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such as fridges Results in many remote indigenous consumers living day to day.

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In food purchasing terms for many people This means purchasing food from the

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store daily sometimes at each mealtime.

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Dear listener, if you've got money and you're in this community You can't go to

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the shop and buy two or three days worth of food and stick it in a cupboard Because

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people are walking in and out of your house all the time and just taking stuff.

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These are cultural issues affecting food security for people in these communities.

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And finally in this report, it talks about the community gardens

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and acknowledges that these haven't worked.

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And I'm just quoting from the report here.

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Remote Indigenous residents we spoke to confirmed these observations.

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One noted, there was previously a community garden, however it wasn't used

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and eventually died or was destroyed.

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Another interviewee from a Northern Territory community stated, the

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community garden is maintained through the Community Development

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Program, which is work for the Dole.

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It is abundant, however, only the local police officer uses

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it to make his smoothies.

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A third person stated, People are too lazy to look after a community

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garden, harvest the produce and then take it home and cook a healthy meal.

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We believe what is labelled lazy is more likely attributable to the dispiriting

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effects of current, intergenerational and community trauma which can lock

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individuals and communities into a cycle that saps their hope, health and energy.

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This in turn can affect one's ability to make practical life decisions, healthy

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choices and significantly change.

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their circumstances.

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So, the picture painted by Sally Scales was that the land is too arid,

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so a community garden's hopeless.

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But the picture painted by this report is that in some circumstances

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you can do it, and it has been done, but people don't even eat their

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vegetables or salad items, even if they are there, to cook a healthy meal.

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It's a far more complicated and nuanced problem.

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Food security.

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than what was painted by Sally Scales.

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And guess what?

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It involves a whole bunch of cultural issues.

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Hard cultural problems.

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Things where you need to say, we need to change culture, if

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we are to improve food security.

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But that's the last thing culture warriors will admit.

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I'm going to finish off.

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I've got various other notes, but...

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In the scheme of things in Australia, the amount of time

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and energy that has been spent on this issue is like bike shedding.

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So bike shedding is this phenomena.

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It's like where they were going to construct some nuclear power

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plant and there's a committee that's reviewing the decision.

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And, you know, a hundred and...

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$20 billion is allocated to the reactor and people go, yeah.

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Okay.

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And another $5 billion to environmental measures in dealing with stuff.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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And then, you know, one of the final item agendas is, you know, the staff will be

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working there an allocation of a $1,500 for a bike shed so that people can ride

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to work and store their bikes in a shed.

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And rather than driving to work.

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The story is that the committee then spends an hour and a half arguing over the

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type of bike shed, whether it should be a colour blind roof or how big or small it

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should be, whether it should be attached.

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All sorts of details relating to the bike shed are examined in minute detail,

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whereas these other big items had just sailed through sort of without discussion.

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And, and what it demonstrates is that people will talk about topics that they

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have some knowledge of and people could all talk about a bike shed because it was

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something within their experience, whereas the nuclear reactor, they just, you know,

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it was 50 billion or a hundred billion.

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They just had no idea.

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So, you know, the debate on the voice There's a little bit of a bike shedding

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moment in that everyone can easily have an opinion and talk about it, when there's

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a whole range of other issues confronting our society, like this government

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is heading us to war with China, is hitching us onto a wagon with the United

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States and the UK over an AUKUS deal.

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That is diabolically dangerous for us, and yet it hasn't got a

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scratch of a fraction of the, of the discussion that The Voice has got.

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And there are other issues in terms of, you know, economics

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and inequality in this community.

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People still think trickle down actually works, but you know what?

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Foreign affairs geopolitical stuff, economics.

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currency, interest rates too hard.

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So nobody talks about them.

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But they're the important things and we're fluffing around on, on what should

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really be a minor administrative matter in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

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This is just typical of the left.

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What's left of it?

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I mean, Labor's not a left wing party anymore, but the left as a movement

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can talk about Voluntary Assisted Dying, Abortion Rights, Marriage

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Equality, simple things like that.

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We've got some of that up in recent times, but only because it coincides

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with a libertarian right wing view of freedom of the individual.

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There's no hard intellectual left arguments explaining, promoting,

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complicated, hard ideas that people need to get their head around.

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We just muck around with this voice rubbish.

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And I've done the same for nearly two hours here.

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There we go.

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If you're a patron, you'll get a PDF that you can access , 40 pages of

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notes from the articles I've quoted.

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That's all I've got to say on Indigenous matters for quite a while.

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Talk to you next time.

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Bye for now.

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Dear listener, not too long ago you looked at your podcast app and saw that

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a new episode of the Iron Fist and Velvet Glove podcast was available to download.

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Did you silently think to yourself, wait, a new podcast?

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I like listening to those guys.

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If so, then you qualify as a potential donor to the podcast.

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Your donation will help cover some expenses.

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But more importantly, your donation tells the boys that they are on the

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right track and to keep up the good work.

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A dollar a show is all they ask.

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Go to their website at ironfistvelvetglove.

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com.

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au and click on the donations link.

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The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
News, political events, culture, ethics and the transformations taking place in our society.

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