Advocates behind the Voice to Parliament being taken up as an amendment to the Australian Constitution strongly support reparations to Indigenous Australians via a fixed percentage from GDP, land tax, or royalties, documents reveal.
The Albanese government has been pushing for an “Indigenous Voice to Parliament.” Originating from the Uluru Statement, The Voice would be entrenched into the Constitution as a dedicated advisory body to the federal government to represent Indigenous Australians.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously promised to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart “in full.”
Mr. Albanese has described the statement as a short document that would take about two minutes to read.
However, the full 26-page version of the statement released by the NIAA through the FOI request shows how proponents ultimately intend to establish “Makarrata,” or Treaty, with the Voice to Parliament as the first step.
According to its roadmap, once The Voice body is established, it will undertake a Bill to establish a Makarrata Commission that will supervise the agreement-making of treaties between the Australian governments and Indigenous people.
The full statement also includes detailed meeting outcomes and transcript excerpts from 13 “dialogues” that led up to the final statement.
The publicly promoted Uluru Statement openly states that “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle.”
“We need to remember that ‘if there is no struggle, there is no progress,’” a speaker said, a sentiment that was accepted at the Adelaide dialogue.
“That’s why we see The Voice not as a gesture of kindness but as a Marxist movement with specific goals that, if successful, will see the good Aboriginal people become the greatest losers,” Dr. Zekri Palushi said.
Demanding Money from Others
The full statement of the Uluru Statement from the Heart also reveals that advocates of The Voice will unlikely stop at just constitutional reform but could at some point fight for land rights and potentially water rights; pursue a Treaty for purposes of sovereignty, autonomy, and self-government; and seek “financial settlement” for past and future criminal acts to Indigenous people.While details are still up for discussion, these are some of the goals they want to achieve under the establishment of a Treaty.
In discussions for where the financial settlement could be drawn from, some suggested securing economic independence through land tax, tariffs, or other forms of levies.
“It is important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are able to access the wealth of the nation being extracted from their lands,” the statement of record for the Cairns dialogue in March 2017 said.
Some even went as far as to suggest an “open chequebook” for Aboriginal people while discussing the “Pay the Rent” campaign.
“This government and the previous government and the previous one and the colonial governments before them have been pulling resources out of the ground, and they are still doing it,” one speaker said during the Melbourne dialogue.
“If we talk about ‘pay the rent,’ how about all these multinational corporations start to give us one percent, two percent, five percent? It’s about time they started paying the rent.
Power Central to Movement
The documents state that increasing political power and authority are central to the movement.In its campaign for The Voice, the Labor government has repeatedly assured voters that it would not function as a third chamber of parliament and would not have any veto powers.
However, records from the Dubbo and Darwin dialogues, both held in February 2017, show that there was a “strong view” that any Indigenous body must have the power of veto in order to have “real power” and make a difference.
“If this Voice to Parliament doesn’t have enough power to force the adoption of the 339 recommendations of the deaths in custody report, don’t bother, because it doesn’t have any power,” one speaker said, according to a transcript excerpt.
The full Uluru Statement notes that there was concern the proposed Voice to Parliament would lack power if its role was “advisory only,” which is how it is currently promoted.
Shelved Alternatives
Alternatives to The Voice that were considered included establishing a “Black Parliament” or designating a number of seats in Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.“We need a Black Parliament,” a speaker said.
This is a record high for officeholders from the Indigenous Australian population.
Indigenous members account for 10.5 percent of the Senate, which in proportion to the 3.2 percent Indigenous population in Australia, is a significantly high level of representation. In the lower house, Indigenous members of Parliament make up 2 percent of the 151 seats.
Prominent Indigenous commentator, Warren Mundine, a proponent for the “No” vote, said people are often misled by media to believe that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are united in their support for The Voice.
“We have tried Indigenous representative bodies, Indigenous advisory bodies, and Indigenous consulting bodies multiple times over the decades. None have lifted Indigenous people out of poverty. None have ‘Closed the Gap.’
“Why would a repeat of the same old, same old be different?”
