Dutton and the Voice

Peter Dutton's first response to the proposed Voice was to ask how it would make the children subject to sexual violence safer.

His argument for supporting the No case is that a national voice will achieve nothing, instead proposing regional and local voices and a mere symbolic constitutional recognition.  

Today he visited Alice Springs and met with his own Senator Price and one shopkeeper. He didn't meet with local indigenous groups saying "I'll let those organisations speak for themselves". In other words, they can be voices, but he won't listen to them.

Price is a bundle of contradictions, being a Liberal because she opposes government involvement in people's lives but being a proponent of extreme involvement (cashless debit cards alcohol bans) for her own people.

Let' just put this all in context. The Uluru statelent from the heart was the endpoint of a proposal for constitutional recognition that dates back to John Howard. That proposal was the same kind of smbolic recognition Dutts favours.

But when First Nations got asked what they wanted, a long process, including what was technically a Constitutional Convention at Uluru, said recognitioon without understanding was pointless. First Nations wanted a Voice to be followed by truth-telling and treaty.

For anyone still confused about "truth" just read the sections of the UK Parliament "Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes" report of 1837 that address Australia and the Pacific Islands. 

A whole lot of guff gets talked about under "sovereignty" - and the sovereign citizens show you how much is rubbish. That Australia was and always will be aboriginal land is anexpression of the cultural connection, not about a claim to governance. Inddeed, placing so much importance on the Voice being included in the Constitution is an embrace of oiur democratic forms.

The only people who have anything to fear from the Voice are people like Dutton who don't want to hear from First Nations people as organised representative bodies. They may pick and choose and find a few individiuals - a Price or a Mundine - but will be rejected by those who were formally their own like Ken Wyatt.

Dutton isn't just playing politics and seeking to differentiate himself from Labor. He isn't just trying to hold what's left of the Liberal Party together. He is simply opposed to the idea of listening to First Nations people because they don't deserve to be listened to. There is a label for that!

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Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans JWL