Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Senator Price and others are telling us to vote ‘no’ at the Referendum because we don’t know what will happen and it is divisive. Let’s take that advice and consider it further.

Most Australians have had a loan for some reason at some point in their lives. Essentially what you do when applying for a loan is (with your hand on your heart) suggest to the people that are considering giving you what is sometimes a multiple of your annual income that you will be able to pay it back with interest – over a number of years. Realistically, you don’t know if you can keep you end of the bargain this time next year – let alone in 30 years’ time. Using Dutton’s logic, if you don’t know what is going to happen you shouldn’t be taking out a loan for a car, house or anything else for that matter because you can’t guarantee you’ll pay it back.

It is generally acknowledged that compulsory superannuation (introduced by the Hawke/Keating Government) has and will allow most Australians to retire and look forward to a better lifestyle than the Age Pension would have allowed without supplementation. The problem with Superannuation is that each individual’s funds are combined and large sums of money are invested by ‘specialists’ in various ways to ensure there is more money returned to the ‘specialist’ either through continual income or a lump sum payment. If we don’t go near anything where we don’t know what is going to happen, why would you let someone else take your money and invest it anywhere? After all, even the Superannuation funds acknowledge that every so often you will have a negative return on your investment – in short, the ‘specialists’ sometimes get it wrong. You’d be better off stashing the money in your mattress, until your house burnt down or the mattress was thrown out by some well-intentioned relative during a clean out.

Most of us will leave our homes this week at some point for work, to buy food, see a medical professional, go on holiday or a million and one other reasons. We could choose to stay at home because we’re concerned that we’ll be in a car crash, the 8.04 bus won’t turn up and leave us standing in the sun or rain, the doctor’s office has lots of germs and you’ll catch a fatal illness, or the holiday starts with a Qantas flight and you don’t want to be stranded at the airport, If you did stay at home you could also have a problem. What if you stay at home and the power goes off and you can’t store food appropriately? What happens if your house does catch fire? What happens if a car runs into your house? How do you make sufficient money to pay the bills, buy food and keep the power on? 

Really it doesn’t matter if the 8.04 bus turns up at 8.17, there is a negative return on your Superannuation account for one year in several or if you have to ring the bank and ask for some clemency if you know you’re going to miss a payment. In the long term, none of these problems will change your lifestyle completely. In the scheme of things it might be slightly annoying that the plane to start your holiday is an hour later than you expected, but it’s not going to kill you. Even if you were unfortunate enough to catch a severe illness in the doctor’s office, Australia has one of the best and most affordable health systems in the world. 

The point is we all take risks, every day. To suggest that we shouldn’t support what is potentially a positive life-changing experience for our First Nations peoples because we don’t know exactly whats going to happen is absurd. The Referendum question goes too far (in Dutton’s view) or not far enough (in Price’s view) so potentially the question is pretty close to reasonable, especially when a representative body of First Nations peoples have said through the Uluru Statement From the Heart that this is their preferred option.

As far as Dutton and Price’s claims of divisive are concerned, they are even more ridiculous. Currently the average life of a First Nations person in this country is significantly below the national average. The average First Nations income is also significantly below the national average. the average First Nations person is not as healthy as the population generally. That is divisive – an attempt to listen to the ultimate consumer of services to ‘close the gap’ isn’t. 

First Nations people have been subject to measures to ‘close the gap’ being forced on them for two centuries. While some of the measures have been more ‘well meaning’ and ‘productive’ than others, none of them have been totally successful. We all know that people are more invested in a process where they have input to it. While in the past a number of versions of a representative body of First Nations people have provided advice to the government of the day. All of these bodies were formed by legislation which was subsequently repealed by a government with (lets be nice here) alternative agendas.

If we want our kids to eat dinner, it’s not a bad idea to ask them what they want rather than serve up something they dislike. No group of outsiders with a political agenda (a government) can ever hope to understand the needs of distinct groups around the country – and the needs of one group could be substantially different from another. If we really want to ‘close the gap’ between the national averages and the First Nations averages – why wouldn’t we seek advice from those affected?

Sure, a Voice to Parliament can be legislated again, but whats to stop a future government with an alternative agenda repeating the legislation – again? Since the current Referendum was announced the leader of the alternative government in Australia has had a number of different positions on the concept of a Voice to Parliament. None of the proposals saw the light of day in the nine years of Coalition Government where the current Leader was a ‘Senior Minister’. Don’t forget the last Coalition Government were responsible for income management for those on social security payments, an ‘intervention’ that was close to Martial Law in the Northern Territory, Robodebt, moving legitimate refugees to detention centres offshore and defunding of education, child care and aged care programs. And a lot of the moderate members of the last Coalition Government were voted out at the last election!

Doing nothing is always an option – but generally not a good one. To blindly accept the divisive and fear filled arguments of Dutton, Price and their fellow travellers to do nothing is a disservice to your intelligence and the nation. If you don’t know – do the research and make up your own mind.