Later this year, sometime between October and December, Australia is going to a referendum. The topic is whether or not we will change our Constitution to create a body called the Voice To Parliament. And the Voice will be for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to have a permanent way to make recommendations to the government on topics that concern them.
It’s a complex topic with some really interesting ideas that I hope everyone will think about. But like anything to do with Indigenous matters, there’s a lot of racists making a lot of noise about it. It’s hard to have a conversation about the pros and cons of the referendum and the Voice without them interrupting or leaving repetitive comments saying to vote No.
So this blog is going to be a place where I’m going to work through the details. I’m not going to pretend that I’m on the fence on this topic – there’s a 95% chance I’m going to vote Yes. But I don’t think that all No voters are racist. There are principled reasons to vote No, and I respect a lot of them even though I don’t agree. And there is that 5% chance that I’ll change my mind. I just feel like I haven’t fully explored all the ideas yet, and who knows, maybe one of them is the one that persuades me.
But any racism is going to be instantly deleted. Abusive commenters will be blocked. Content-free comments just saying “vote No” or “vote Yes” will also be deleted. They don’t help anyone have a conversation at all.
Yes to the Voice 