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.

  • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    53·
    1 year ago

    “I’ve spoken to indigenous people.”

    Where did they say that? Are you really going to call the user a liar for saying they know Indigenous Australians? That’s weak tea.

    • spiffmeister@aussie.zone
      61·
      1 year ago

      Literally every one of my indigenous friends and colleagues that I’ve spoken to are voting no,

      Did you forget what you wrote?

      2 points:

      1. Anyone can say they have indigenous friends or have spoken to indigenous people. In fact Peter Dutton has been doing that this whole time. This is a largely anonymous forum so there’s no reason to believe anyone who says “ah yeah I spoke to a guy.”
      2. We have polling on indigenous peoples opinions on the voice. The people we surround ourselves with or we encounter in our daily lives are an insignificant sample size and subject to selection bias.
      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        42·
        1 year ago

        I didn’t write it. Whirlybird didn’t just say “I’ve spoken to indigenous people” they gave examples of the different people they spoke with. Just because you haven’t ever had a real conversation with an Aboriginal Australian doesn’t mean none of us have.

        1. If you don’t trust anyone on here why bother? It isn’t difficult to discern a bad faith argument.

        2. You trust polling but not another human that you are peaking to through the internet? Anecdotal evidence isn’t perfect but polling has financial reasons to push lies and special accounting tricks to make the numbers say whatever they want.

        The polling is massively skewed. I cant find a single poll where they exclude anyone who hasn’t read the proposed amendment.

        Indigenous peoples want a voice to parliament that is enshrined and protected by the constitution and so do I But the majority of the yes voters have been misled to believe the referendum will give them that. Anyone who reads the constitutional amendment critically will see it is the way the referendum is written is just a empty gesture to delay real action.

        • spiffmeister@aussie.zone
          2·
          1 year ago

          They didn’t give any more examples than a politician saying they’ve spoken to people in the community.

          1. If you don’t trust anyone on here why bother? It isn’t difficult to discern a bad faith argument.

          As far as I’m concerned anyone making this sort of argument should be ignored because it’s the easiest form of bad faith argument.

          1. You trust polling but not another human that you are peaking to through the internet? Anecdotal evidence isn’t perfect but polling has financial reasons to push lies and special accounting tricks to make the numbers say whatever they want.

          This is true, and you can make an argument against the polling, but that’s an argument that can actually be had. You can’t argue with random anecdotes. I don’t understand how you can simultaneously point out legit issues with polls but also accept unverifiable anecdotes.

          Anyone who reads the constitutional amendment critically will see it is the way the referendum is written is just a empty gesture to delay real action.

          I agree it’s a risk. There’s a lot of really easy things the country could be doing to help indigenous Australians and this may not help while just being a massive distraction.

      • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
        43·
        1 year ago

        We have polling on indigenous peoples opinions on the voice. The people we surround ourselves with or we encounter in our daily lives are an insignificant sample size and subject to selection bias.

        You think the people responding to polls aren’t subject to selection bias? I don’t care what polls of random people with unknown selection criteria and reach say, I care about what the people I know and trust have to say on the issue. Blindly believing polls is absolutely absurd.

        • spiffmeister@aussie.zone
          31·
          1 year ago

          Polls are only so accurate and can be subject to a range of issues as well sure. The difference is the sample size is much larger, and you can generally find a polling organisations methodology so you can probably see how they collected results broadly, if you have an issue with the methodology you should argue with that.

          Cool, so why should anyone listen to anything you say?

          You shouldn’t if I make claims that I know people and they say X.