On the Aboriginal Uluru statement of June 2017 on Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, the Referendum Council co-chair Mark Leibler has told a parliamentary committee there are only two options — either abandon efforts altogether or fully adopt the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s recommendations.
With this uncompromising, take or leave it, all or nothing approach, if a government of either persuasion opts to fully adopt, then when it ever gets to a referendum, the Australian people will decide to leave it.
Apart from the constitutional overreach, part of the plan is for ‘A First Nations Voice’ or an aboriginal advisory committee to advise government on matters impacting on Aboriginals. This advisory committee has been referred to as a third parliamentary chamber to sit alongside the House of Representatives and The Senate.
This is nothing short of elevating one group of Australians and embedding identity politics into the constitution.
As is always the case with these things the devil is in the detail and once in place they tend to take on a life of their own, incrementally expanding their remit into areas that either weren’t envisaged or intended.
This very thing has already happened in recent weeks.
If the committee goes rogue, for example with a few activist appointees who agitate and foment dissension and discord on the most spurious of grounds, who knows where it could end up. Abolishing it, as happened to its predecessor, ATSIC, in 2005 (with the support of Labor) would not be an option due to the fact that it would be baked into the constitution. It could only be abolished by a referendum and only 8 out of 44 referenda have ever been successful since Federation. So good luck with that.
Impossible, can’t happen, won’t happen, I hear you say?
Back up and rewind and recall the recent case that makes the point as to how something that had absolutely nothing to do with aboriginals suddenly became very much something to do with aboriginals, because some interfering aboriginal elites made it so.
Only a matter of weeks ago we were made aware of an exhibit of Viking artefacts on loan to the Melbourne Museum from Sweden. The exhibit featured nothing but Viking artefacts. Included in the cache that arrived in Australia were some Viking human remains which were to be on display.
But not anymore. Why?
Because of complaints from the usual suspects of Australian “First Peoples” as they like to characterise themselves, Aboriginals elites with their bogus and fraudulent claim that such a display would cause distress and sadness.
Remember, we are talking about Viking human remains.
This exhibit had nothing to do with Australian Aboriginal until they made it their business to make it so.
All it took was for a few aboriginals in 21st century whose heritage and very existence is light years away from, and has no connection with marauding Vikings from the 8th century of the Northern hemisphere and somehow they are dictating what will be on display at a public museum in Melbourne in 2018 on some flakey, foney and fraudulent claim that Viking human remains will cause distress and sadness.
And if they were seen on a History Channel documentary?
So for the sake of trigger warning signage (which most would also find unacceptable because it would be regarded as an admission that they had a point,) just as on television that ‘this program/exhibit features, coarse language, nudity, violence and drug references’ but this particular warning would refer to human remains, the Melbourne Museum caved to their wishes.
As is always the case with these things the devil is in the detail and once in place (and with this particular advisory committee, its very existence will be embedded into the constitution) they tend to take on a life of their own and incrementally expand their remit into areas that weren’t envisaged or intended.
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