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Further implications
The Indigenous Voice to Parliament proposal centres on an acceptance of Indigenous uniqueness and a willingness to preserve it.Patrick Dodson, an Indigenous activist, and Labor Senator for Western Australia has written in a recent comment published in The Saturday Paper, 'When voters are told the referendum will deliver a Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, many are confronted by their own perspectives and cannot comprehend that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Peoples of Australia, that we are distinct and unique. We are not from the traditions of Western civilisation but from our own traditions, out of this country. Some think Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ought to be the same as the non-Indigenous population, and therefore should not have any recognition in the Constitution. This denies the uniqueness of who we are.'
As the original occupants of this land, Indigenous people lay claim to a set of moral and legal entitlements. Throughout Australia's colonial past these entitlements were ignored. The fiction of terra nullius, that the continent was effectively unoccupied prior to white settlement, justified occupation and only began to be legally challenged with the land rights High Court rulings between 1971 and 1996.
Additionally, as an occupied people, Indigenous Australians claim to have had a unique experience of displacement within this country. They did not come to Australia as immigrants or refugees seeking a more secure life. They were violently dispossessed, and their culture systematically dismantled. Their languages and traditions were banned, and their clans and families deliberately fractured, often in the name of offering them a supposedly superior alternative. The psycho-social legacy of this forcible dislocation is generally agreed to be profound and enduring. Indigenous Australians confront the 21st century in a problematic position. On the one hand many seek to preserve their cultural identity and believe that as Australia's First Peoples with the longest continuous culture in the world, they have something of unique value to offer contemporary Australia, particularly in the face of encroaching environmental disaster.
Their values of kinship, empathy, a holistic sense of oneness and interdependence, reverence for land and Country and a responsibility for others offer a counterpoint to many aspects of modern Western culture. On the other hand, significant numbers of Indigenous Australians suffer poverty, ill-health, imprisonment and disabling psycho-social conditions. The burden carried by Indigenous children and youth is particularly concerning. The Uluru Statement from the Heart brought these two aspects of Indigenous experience together. It seeks to retain cultural identity while overcoming disadvantage. It states, 'We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.' The key arguments behind the Indigenous Voice to Parliament are promotion of Indigenous wellbeing and respect for the unique requirements of Indigenous communities. The unique requirements of these communities are what is claimed to necessitate a Voice. This position was put by Professor Jenny Stewart shortly after the 2017 release of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. She noted, 'Public bureaucracies are good at carrying out specified tasks, where lines of accountability are clear and the expertise that is needed can be identified and applied. But engaging with Indigenous communities, particularly in remote areas, cannot be defined in these terms.' What Stewart highlighted is a cultural mismatch between government-deployed public servants and the demands of Indigenous communities. As Stewart explained, 'The communities may be small, but their situations differ from each other. In many cases, they have long-standing internal divisions. Communities want to develop, but not necessarily in the ways white people think they should.'
The preservation of cultural differentiation is part of what lies behind the request for a Voice which would allow distinct Indigenous perspectives to be put to government and Parliament.Many of the arguments against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament are predicated on a belief that Indigenous Australians ought not seek to preserve their cultural difference. They are essentially arguments for assimilation, that is, Indigenous Australians adopting an Anglocentric worldview, the legacy of British colonisation.
Assimilation or at least integration is linked with economic success which is in turn seen as the pathway to health, and general psycho-social wellbeing. Some Indigenous anti Voice campaigners, such as Warren Mundine, appear to be promoting an individualistic model of Indigeneity. He has stated that rather than a Voice, what is required is 'getting educated; getting a job; starting businesses; and using land rights as an economic asset and a springboard to individual financial independence and economic power.' This is not a traditional Indigenous worldview where Aboriginal health refers to the social, emotional, and cultural wellbeing of the whole community. Some opponents of the Voice suggest that what is needed to address Indigenous disadvantage is to discourage Indigenous settlement in remote communities. Henry Ergas, former Adjunct Professor of Economics at the National University of Singapore and lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and a No vote proponent, has argued that Indigenous disadvantage is closely linked to successive governments' readiness 'to maintain communities in places where there are no real jobs, where education is poor and the incentives to learn poorer...'
Much of the available data supports Ergas' suggestion that remote living correlates with Indigenous disadvantage. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework 2017 Report found that the relative disadvantage gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations was highest in Indigenous towns (89 percentage points) and remote dispersed settlements (81 percentage points). In 2017, compared with Indigenous people/households in major cities, Indigenous people/households in very remote areas earned $271 less a week, were 1.4 times as likely to be unemployed, were 1.5 times as likely to receive a government pension or allowance as their main source of income, and were far less likely to be working full or part time. However, the causal factors of Indigenous disadvantage are complex. There was no single area in Australia where the Indigenous population had better, or even relatively equal outcomes compared to the non-Indigenous population. This later finding suggests factors additional to remoteness are at play.
Though unemployment figures were highest in remote and very remote regions, they were high across all locations. In major cities 43 percent of the Indigenous population were either not employed or not in the labour force and the figure was 50 percent for inner regional areas.
In remote regions the low employment rate could be attributed to a lack of jobs. In major cities factors such as skill deficits or racial discrimination must be considered. In 2021, 41 percent of Indigenous Australians were living in major cities. Despite their increasing numbers, there has been limited attention given to identifying and meeting the needs, interests, and aspirations of urban Indigenous people. Some have suggested that this lack of policy recognition is based on historical ideas about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people not truly belonging to cities and large towns - and that those who live here are not 'authentically' Indigenous. A range of data suggests the link between remote living and the preservation of culture. Compared with Indigenous people living in non-remote areas, Indigenous people aged 15 and over in remote and very remote areas are more likely to speak an Australian Indigenous language (55 percent compared with 8 percent). They are also more likely to identify with a clan, or a tribal or language group; more likely to have been involved in Indigenous cultural events, ceremonies, or organisations in the last 12 months; less likely to have used drugs other than alcohol and tobacco in the last 12 months; and less likely to have experienced homelessness (18 percent compared to 32 percent).
Studies have shown that while living remotely 'on Country' has psychological benefits for Indigenous Australians, it has economic disadvantages. Those who live on their homelands or traditional Country are less likely to have completed Year 12, less likely to be employed, and less likely to be able to raise $2000 within a week when compared with Indigenous adults disconnected from their traditional lands. However, Indigenous Australians who live on their homelands or traditional Country are more likely to self-assess their own health as excellent/very good/good (78 percent) than those who were not allowed to visit their homelands or traditional Country (47 percent).
The connection with homeland also seems to create greater happiness. A 2010 study found that in remote areas, 79 percent of Indigenous people aged 15 years or older reported feeling happy, some or most of the time. In the major cities, however, the report showed 68 percent were happy. Support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament implies support to keep diverse Indigenous communities viable and to promote the practice of Indigenous culture. It is, as the drafters of the Uluru Statement from the Heart stated, part of a set of actions designed to encourage the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians and to enable them to make an accommodation between their traditional values and contemporary Australia. To walk in two worlds. The effort may not be successful, but whether Australia wishes to make it is the question being asked on October 14.