By Allan Richardson
Unless Erwin Schrödinger and Dr Anne Twomey have secretly colluded, I’m not a constitutional lawyer. Nor am I even a conveyancing clerk. The nearest I come to law offices is to sign compulsory documents, when electronic signing is unavailable. That establishes my law credentials. Although I am seeking involvement in the burgeoning APT (Australian Pub Testers).
It’s said that it’s the people who make the ultimate decision in a referendum. This is superficially true, but the wording of the referendum is the real driver. This is common knowledge to the proponents of both sides of the argument of course, but as soon as the major political parties decided that it was their responsibility to join the fray and to drive everyone into making political decisions, it became as dishonest and grubby as an election campaign! As always, the white noise obscured the facts. Dutton will never recover from Widening the Gap, but so what? He’s just another LNP black hole.
The failure of the referendum will not be the shock to the First Nations community that has been mooted. It becomes just another disappointment in an endless catalogue of FNP subjugation and disenfranchisement.
The real loser of a referendum fail is the Australian electorate. The opportunity for major reforms to our defective social cohesion has just been squandered by both major political parties, and both need to be held accountable.
It may be counter-intuitive but compare Albanese with Netanyahu. The latter is said to have deliberately strengthened Hamas, the theory being that he was seeking justification for an all-out assault on the Palestinians, so as to reverse their ‘illegal’ occupation once and for all. Albanese deliberately insisted on bundling the Voice with Constitutional recognition of the FNP, and refused to consider any changes to the wording, knowing that this applied the kiss of death to the entire process, while blowing millions of dollars and many months of government commitment. And as expected, Dutton did what Dutton always does, and said No to everything. The No campaign was never going to have a head-to-head debate, as it had no substantive argument, so the outcome was pre-determined. Do not for one minute imagine that the Prime Minister will be outraged, disillusioned or aghast after the failure of the ‘reform’. It’s just the hocus-pocus of politics.
Why do we continually allow ourselves to be duped by those for whom we’ve entitled with our votes? Whilst we continue to elect party politicians who prioritise self and party ahead of their electorates, or even the national interest, we can no longer uphold our pretence at democracy.
The party-political shenanigans must stop. Vote Independent where possible. Even when it’s as unlikely as a Teal defeating a ‘popular’ sitting Treasurer. Oh, wait …
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