What if they lose?

I RECENTLY heard a commentator on the Voice referendum asked, ‘what does each side say they’ll do if they lose?’ Acknowledging that both, of course, seek to push the possibility aside, he said that YES (i.e. the Labor government) will probably seek to devise a de facto Voice mechanism, or process, after consultation with the Uluru statement originators.

But it was his comment on the NO side that was interesting here. He said: “Nothing much, and that’s consistent with their position.” (He meant, for the mainstream conservative Voice opponents). I’m a YES voter, because the invasion that began Australia so blighted the people already here for millennia that justice says, ‘back the Voice, as most of what we’re doing hasn’t worked’. 

But this comment touched what I suspect is a veiled reality in the debate, and in much of non-Aboriginal Australia’s thinking.

Missing from the public NO case – because it’s widely seen as not PC – is the assertion that, for enduring change for the better Aboriginal Australians with multiple problems need to pull their socks up! I think some unthinking Voice opponents actually believe this is all that’s needed. More see this as complementary to continuing – maybe enhanced – government support programs. Some, like myself, see it as a key ingredient for change, a vital, distinct investment that only Aboriginals themselves can bring to their future.

If the YES campaign is to win, does it need to acknowledge, even promote the contribution Aboriginal parents and community leaders will need to make, anew, if the gap’s to be closed? Along with claims for the Voice being a way to ensure that Aboriginal lives and experience can be better if governments really listen to Aboriginal recommendations, will more Australians vote YES if they hear its Aboriginal advocates committing to this? Committing to addressing, where and when possible, Aboriginal Australians’ own part in many of the failures, mistakes, waste, frustrations, wrong assumptions, ideological blind spots, missing resources, distress that be-devil Aboriginal life in many remote, rural and some urban settings? In family violence, in school attendance, in out-of-home care, in housing dysfunction, whatever… 

I am not hearing it. It would be truly unifying if we could.

This is not to blame the victim; here, that’s a lazy cop-out. Aboriginal leaders say they want their people to own the process through which we can close the gap. But they need to own the achievement too. 

And it does not at all diminish the continuing legacy of colonial theft and brutality, and more recent indifference, on Australia’s first people as a reason we settlers must do better –  much better, ourselves – to achieve that goal.

Ken Blackman, Inverloch