Luke Pearson: The Voice to Parliament: Beyond yes or no…

Luke Pearson discusses The Voice to Parliament: Beyond yes or no…

Sadly, I know that there is like a common enemy to put aside our differences and band back together, and whether or not the referendum is successful you can be sure we will have many days ahead where there will be much less room for debate or division about who that enemy is or what we need to do in response to their attacks. There will be many more days when we start a conversation but end up becoming the object of debate, sacrificed on the altar of white people asking yet again ‘How do we solve the Aboriginal problem?’ not realising that it is not us who are the problem but them.

Emphasis Mine

Pearson correctly argues that the Voice Referendum is about white people, not Aborigines. His worry is that the debate about the discussions about the 2023 referendum will harm the cause of Aborigines by making Aborigines an object of white concern.

The Autralian Constitution was originally written to exclude Aborigines. The results of the 1967 referendum partially corrected that. Aborigines are still struggling to assert themselves into a foreign legal document, instead of the legal document struggling to adapt to an Aboriginal way of thinking.

Without a clear direction from the diverse Aboriginal communities about this referendum, I would find it hard to choose the proper vote to cast. The Aboriginal communities has far more serious issues to deal with rather than allowing white people to feel better about themselves with a cosmetic change to the Australian constitution.