With the Voice to Parliament Referendum date announced to be October 14 2023, this thread will run in the lead up to the date for general discussions/queries regarding the Voice to Parliament.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

Past Discussions

Here are some previous posts in this community regarding the referendum:

Common Misinformation

  • “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is 26 Pages not 1” - not true

Government Information

Amendments to this post

If you would like to see some other articles or posts linked here please let me know and I’ll try to add it as soon as possible.

  1. Added the proposed constitutional amendment (31/08/2023)
  2. Added Common Misinformation section (01/07/2023)

Discussion / Rules

Please follow the rules in the sidebar and for aussie.zone in general. Anything deemed to be misinformation or with malicious intent will be removed at moderators’ discretion. This is a safe space to discuss your opinion on the voice or ask general questions.

Please continue posting news articles as separate posts but consider adding a link to this post to encourage discussion.

  • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zoneEnglish
    85·
    1 year ago

    and removed next term when the next quasi fascist gets elected.

    Come on, this is just FUD, plain and simple.

    If the voice does turn out to be a white elephant, then we should have the flexibility to remove it and try again with a different model. I’m 100% on board with the Government of the day legislating a body, but I don’t believe it should be in the constution, and I doubt I’m the only one.

    Using inflammatory language is not the way to try and convince people one way or the other.

      • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zoneEnglish
        53·
        1 year ago

        Of course that’s an option in theory - but in practice, referendums are incredibly expensive operations, not to mention generally damaging to public discourse of other issues.

        Most Governments would prefer to just reduce any funding for the body down to the bare minimum required, and have it sit impotently to the side, rather than front up and say ‘yeah nah, this didn’t work, so here’s another big money spend to fix the constitutional issue we created while we think of something else’.

        • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
          111·
          1 year ago

          But but that logic, it’s either not bad enough to be worth removing, or the government of the day has no real need to remove it.

          Ergo, it being in the constitution is not really a problem.

          • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zoneEnglish
            21·
            1 year ago

            The government only has no real need to remove it if they’re happy with the status quo regarding inequality - they can still point to the (presumingly failed) body and say ‘we tried’ and not bother with something better.