August Online 2023 Volume LXVII, Number 8online, No. 598a
Locking Us Out of Our National Parks
Telling the Whole Truth about Aboriginal History
‘Wominjeka’ to a Divided Nation
The Voice Referendum: Cheating the Constitution
The Vision of the Anointed
Why Aborigines Always Had the Vote
Contents
-
If Australians don’t raise a fuss, we risk being locked out of so many wonderful things. Uluru has already been snatched, likewise Mount Warning and, in Victoria, some much-loved Grampians climbs are now off limits -- these bans and exclusions all based on race. The omens are grim, especially if the Voice gets upSeptember 12, 2023
31 mins
-
The worst aspect of Victoria's Yoorrook Commission is its defined purpose to ascribe all blame to 'the impact of colonialism', rather than the persisting deficiencies in traditional Aboriginal society. A failure to take note of, let alone examine, these gross, often horrifying, shortcomings can only produce findings written in the ink of obfuscation and deceptionSeptember 11, 2023
12 mins
-
Perhaps Aborigines, rather than being told what is good for them by a few alleged spokesmen schooled by inner-city Anglo know-alls, should be asked in a referendum which culture they would prefer to live in. The one we have, or the older one as it was in the barbaric days before our nation was founded. An indigenous voice on that question would be instructiveSeptember 4, 2023
7 mins
-
Most Australians want first peoples recognised in the Constitution. The polls leave no doubt about the strength of that sentiment, and this suits a government doing its devious best to make sure voters remain uninformed about the thrust of all three elements the Voice proposes. What we are witnessing is a classic bait-and-switch, a veritable constitutional fraudSeptember 1, 2023
16 mins
-
The elite’s geographical and intellectual isolation from their fellow Australians leaves its members struggling to comprehend how anyone could be against enshrining race in the Constitution. Blinded by self-virtue, the motive they wrongly discern is deep-rooted racism and hate. Regardless of how the referendum goes, the real causes of indigenous disadvantage will remainAugust 28, 2023
7 mins
-
Megan Davis claims that at Federation the notion of 'the people' specifically omitted from the Australian polity Aborigines, women and Chinese and Kanaks by denying them all the right to vote. This claim reveals her complete ignorance of Australia electoral history. Alas amongst her fellow 'Yes' activists she is far from aloneAugust 24, 2023
24 mins
-
There is no love for Aborigines in this referendum proposal, just ego. Aboriginal people in remote and blighted communities are radically disabled. They are self-determining all right -- sitting on country, not speaking English and dying early. Aboriginal leaders, CEOs and the Prime Minister think this is a good idea. That must be their view, because their solution is to change nothingAugust 22, 2023
12 mins
-
A constitutional scholar writes: 'If section 129(iii) prevails, what might happen under the aliens power in section 51(xxvi)? Could the Voice determine in exercise of its presently unspecified powers that some of the Australian population are aliens? Could those 'aliens' be all who are not Aborigines? It is conceivable that most of us might end up classified as aliens in our own landAugust 18, 2023
5 mins
-
Several indigenous agencies whose purpose is to improve the status of indigenous people by influencing or advising the government already already exist and are generously funded. Why, then, the purported need for a new organisation, and why can't the functions set out in the proposed constitutional amendment be undertaken by the existing bodies?August 17, 2023
9 mins
-
The push to install the Voice in the Constitution is underpinned by a re-imagining of Aboriginal culture, which now bears little resemblance to the reality of the past, having morphed in the popular imagination into a New Age idyll that is arguably as much Disney as DreamingAugust 16, 2023
50 mins
-
Naturally, being emotionally exploitative, politically compromised and horribly woke, the AFL joined the NRL, Football Australia, Netball Australia, Tennis Australia, Cricket Australia, Rugby Australia and everything else with an 'Australia' suffix to back the Yes vote. It's amazing how much obedience large grants and a new stadium or two can buyAugust 11, 2023
4 mins
-
When an oil outfit sought to drill near P Hill in the Kimberley, the rocky hump had been part of local mythology beyond memory. By the time the saga ran its course, it was being hyped as 'supernatural, supreme of God'. There's a lesson here for cynics, who regard all sites as fabrications, and also for those who believe all sites are as sacred as claimedAugust 10, 2023
17 mins
-
The Big Man of the Northern Land Council used politics to gain the right to charge rents to big corporations, and he artfully persuaded politicians and the media to influence the judiciary. Of those rents paid to organisations under his charge, very little was invested and very much spent on conspicuous consumption by the local Aboriginal eliteAugust 8, 2023
67 mins
-
By 2011 the white takeover of Aboriginality was so complete that at the Andrew Bolt trial no one who voted in support of the 1967 referendum would have identified any of the plaintiffs as Aboriginal. It had taken 30 years, but Henry Reynolds' agenda had come to pass. 'The prerequisite of Aboriginality,' he told the likes of Al Grassby in 1981, 'is cultural loyalty and not any false nineteenth-century genetic theory'August 5, 2023
9 mins
-
-
Only a racist could be against it, surely? We hear this from those who call for a calm, civil, 'conversation' before launching into vicious attacks on naysayers who see through the sanitized, idealized understanding of indigenous culture. That the enshrinement of such myths in law and policy does further harm to the very people the ideologues claim to help seems to matter not at allAugust 3, 2023
23 mins
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The Langton–Calma blueprint proposes an electoral college model, with local or regional Voices created and members selected or appointed to the national Voice. Notice, no voting -- and if that wasn't enough to condemn this bizzare proposal, there's a mandated 'gender balance' contrary to the Sex Discrimination Act and the binding international convention on which it’s basedAugust 2, 2023
20 mins
-
-
-
-
Not so long ago, an exhibition purportedly devoted to the Endeavour's voyage featured artefacts from Captain Cook’s day on the one hand, and a bizarre attempt at cultural equivalence on the other by crowbarring invented indigenous history into a spot of parallel importance. Bruce Pascoe may be Australia's leading cultural counterfeiter, but he is far from aloneAugust 1, 2023
20 mins
-
-
In recent decades escalating disapproval has been directed at the […]
July 31, 2023
22 mins
-
Part One: A Plea to Reconsider. I support recognising indigenous […]July 31, 2023
23 mins
