Voting on 'The Voice': Will it fight racist violence?
amymcquire.substack.com
As the nation ramps up for a referendum on recognising First Nations people in the Constitution, its helpful to reflect on the past decade of the debate and consider what a Voice could really do.
Beware the prognostications of demographers. However, the number of Indigenous people is going from strength to strength, and this will manifest itself at the ballot box and political power. Already, more than 7% of babies born in Australia have Indigenous ancestry. During the intercensal years 2016-2021 the Indigenous population of Victoria was doubling every 11 years, and that of Australia every 15 years. This prodigious rate of increase is unsustainable, but it seems certain that most babies born in Australia this year will live to see an Indigenous population exceeding 10,000,000.
(From my settler-perspective) Wonderful article Amy. Though I'm sure you don't claim to speak for everyone, it looks like many will feel seen and heard by your article.
I'm a WesT Australian and can report that the shooting Joyce Clark got reaonable amounts of publicitiy here, though perhaps not as much as it deserved. The trial was publicized very heavily. That said I only get my news from the Good old ABCnews site and I suspect on crime/police mattres it has a tendency to only publicize things that occur in the state.
The desire and commitment of Indigenous Australians to accept their identity is a given. Ditto follow/honour their culture, kin and country (and whatever else I missed out). But can this be called ‘sovereignty’ if it has no political or legal status? Or is Amy calling for setting up of politically autonomous little regions run by local Indigenous Australians? I suspect she isn’t but I don’t really know what she does mean by the term she considers so important.
Beware the prognostications of demographers. However, the number of Indigenous people is going from strength to strength, and this will manifest itself at the ballot box and political power. Already, more than 7% of babies born in Australia have Indigenous ancestry. During the intercensal years 2016-2021 the Indigenous population of Victoria was doubling every 11 years, and that of Australia every 15 years. This prodigious rate of increase is unsustainable, but it seems certain that most babies born in Australia this year will live to see an Indigenous population exceeding 10,000,000.
(From my settler-perspective) Wonderful article Amy. Though I'm sure you don't claim to speak for everyone, it looks like many will feel seen and heard by your article.
I'm a WesT Australian and can report that the shooting Joyce Clark got reaonable amounts of publicitiy here, though perhaps not as much as it deserved. The trial was publicized very heavily. That said I only get my news from the Good old ABCnews site and I suspect on crime/police mattres it has a tendency to only publicize things that occur in the state.
Thanks for this Amy
The desire and commitment of Indigenous Australians to accept their identity is a given. Ditto follow/honour their culture, kin and country (and whatever else I missed out). But can this be called ‘sovereignty’ if it has no political or legal status? Or is Amy calling for setting up of politically autonomous little regions run by local Indigenous Australians? I suspect she isn’t but I don’t really know what she does mean by the term she considers so important.