Saturday, December 7, 2024

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5 Dangerous Blind-Spots In ‘Yes’ Arguments (Part 1)


Where there is much desire to learn,
there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions;
for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

John Milton

Libertarians believe in free speech.

We do not have to agree with the arguments we hear.

I therefore defend the publication of former Senator Duncan Spender’s debut article It’s Not Our Fight Vote Yes, and I welcome him to the publication.

If you haven’t read his piece, you should before reading this response.

I’ve read and reread his article. I’ve endeavoured to be as open-minded as possible, but he hasn’t convinced me.

I am firmly in the ‘No’ camp and stand by my 14 Reasons To Vote No In The Voice To Parliament Referendum.

In this piece and two others, I’m going to do my best to expose five blind-spots in his arguments.

Today, the big one.


BLIND-SPOT #1: SYSTEMIC RACISM

One thing I’ll say in favour of the former Senator’s arguments is that, as a Yes camp advocate, at least he doesn’t slip into the ‘you’re a racist’ slander. Name-calling is never a winning formula when the burden to convince is on your shoulders.

In fact, he concludes with an undeniable ‘indifference’ – his word. We are offered a kind of reluctant accommodation for race-based activism. For precision, I’ll use his words:

“While there remains a constitutional power to make laws about race, and while we only specifically legislate about the Aboriginal race, it is reasonable for there to be an explicit constitutional provision about an Aboriginal body making representations to the Parliament and Government.”

If it has a racial-entry criteria and is being put into our system, it is systemic racism by definition.

I’m a simple fig farmer from the Adelaide Hills. But I’m left feeling empty at this meatless argument. More nourishing would have been ‘systemic racism is wrong’ and ‘race-based admission criteria to a constitutionally-empowered body is dangerous’.

Knowing my limitations, I checked with leading libertarian minds. I’m reminded of the great Thomas Sowell who wrote:

man
Leading libertarian, Thomas Sowell

Racism does not have a good track record. It’s been tried out for a long time and you’d think by now we’d want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.”

Is it just me or does the prospect of systemic racism under the new management of the Voice’s architects fill us with dread? At the risk of being accused again of ad hominem, these people are animated by collectivist values, whether race-based or communist. And I am no collectivist.

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.

A properly-centred libertarian cannot simply rationalise the Voice as something to accommodate because we have a Race Power. We must say No, and fight to remove the Race Power at the very next opportunity.

The former Senator either agrees the Voice is a race-based project or not. As I see it, it self-evidently is. If it has a racial-entry criteria and is being put into our system, it is systemic racism by definition. The burden of proof sits with the Yes camp to demonstrate why systemic racism is desirable.

It is philosophically unmoored to say “this is not a libertarian issue.” Murray Rothbard, no less, wrote:

Libertarian philosopher, Murray Rothbard

“Racism is a particularly odious form of collectivism whereby an individual is presumed to possess certain characteristics and moral attributes, or defects, solely because he is a member of a particular race or ethnic group.”

Should we Australian libertarians in 2023 limply concede systemic racism because it is “prudent and gracious”. Or should we listen to Ayn Rand:

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social, or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”


Tomorrow, I’ll cover Duncan’s two leading arguments and their defects as I see them, being:

Until then, I’d love to see your thoughts to this piece in the comments section below.

It’s Not Our Fight. Vote Yes.

I read hundreds of bills when I was advising Senator Leyonhjelm.  

Some of the bills would significantly alter the size of government or the extent of government interference in the lives of individuals.  For these bills, my advice and the Senator’s decisions were aligned and easy to predict.

But most bills were not like this.  

We should consider ourselves lucky that, in Australia, the descendants of displaced inhabitants aren’t reaching for rockets

Most of the bills wouldn’t make Australia less libertarian or more libertarian.  They represented tinkering with the labyrinthine statute book of a bloated state.  They were fiddles while Rome burned; a re-arranging of deckchairs on the Titanic.

There were bills to change the composition of agencies that shouldn’t exist, the elements of pointless regulations, and the application process for unwarranted handouts. 

I still provided advice on these uninspiring, run-of-the-mill bills.  If such a bill might marginally improve the functioning of our dysfunctional bureaucracy, and if it was supported by a smattering of individuals who had to deal with that bureaucracy, I would advise the Senator to vote for the bill.

I feel much the same way about the Voice referendum, which is why I will be voting yes.

… if we instead see the election of some Aboriginal leaders who believe in the individual rather than the collective, it would be worth it.

The Voice referendum isn’t a particularly libertarian issue.   It has little bearing on the extent of government interference in the lives of individuals, or on the size of government.

A bureaucracy making representations is not an infringement on anyone’s freedom, and the passing of the referendum would do nothing to reduce the existing ability of anyone to make representations.  The Voice is hardly the evil of affirmative action.

The passing of the referendum would require the indigenous bureaucracy to be reshaped, and would likely increase it in the short term.  But the overall size of Australia’s indigenous bureaucracy, and the bigger issue of indigenous-specific handouts, would remain a question for Australia’s parliaments.  Reducing indigenous-specific bureaucracy and handouts will remain an important task for libertarians, whether the referendum passes or not.

Some argue against introducing race into our Constitution.  But, unfortunately, race is already in our Constitution.  While there remains a constitutional power to make laws about race, and while we only specifically legislate about the Aboriginal race, it is reasonable for there to be an explicit constitutional provision about an Aboriginal body making representations to the Parliament and Government.  Just as, if we were silly enough to have laws about Dutch Australians, it would be reasonable to be explicit that Dutch Australians can make representations to the Parliament and Government.

Some argue that the Constitution should remain limited to our major institutions.  But our Constitution already has provisions for minor institutions.  Consider Section 105A, inserted by referendum in 1928, to underpin the now moribund Loans Council.  I suspect that those who wax lyrical over our Constitution have only read bits of it.

Other arguments against the Voice referendum represent a cavalcade of fallacies.  

The passing of the referendum would require the indigenous bureaucracy to be reshaped, and would likely increase it in the short term.

There are straw-men: arguments against a body whose advice needs to be waited for and listened to, when no such body is being proposed.  

There are slippery slopes: arguments against separate things, like treaties and a different Australia Day, that will be argued for regardless of the referendum result.  

And there’s ad hominem: arguments against proposers rather than the proposal.

For me, there are two half-decent arguments in favour of the Voice referendum.  

Firstly, Aboriginal affairs couldn’t get much worse.  If the Voice delivers more of the same, we haven’t lost anything.  But if we instead see the election of some Aboriginal leaders who believe in the individual rather than the collective, it would be worth it.

The Voice is hardly the evil of affirmative action.

Secondly, saying no would disempower Aboriginal leaders pushing the Voice and empower militant Aboriginal leaders instead. If you say no to Martin Luther King you end up with Malcolm X.  We should consider ourselves lucky that, in Australia, the descendants of displaced inhabitants aren’t reaching for rockets, as occurs in other countries.  We should not be so naive to think that such violence is not possible in Australia.

Despite the popularity of tribalism, not every issue warrants a strong, certain, and unwavering response.  Some issues warrant only weak support or opposition, or even indifference.  This is one such occasion.

As our libertarian principles are not at play, we should be prudent and gracious, and vote yes – then move on to more consequential matters.

No Insults, Prime Minister

Plato said that under tyranny of the master passion, a man becomes in his waking life what he was once only occasionally in his dreams.

In his victory speech of 21 May 2022, Anthony Albanese declared to the Australian people that the government he leads “will respect every one of you every day.”

One year later the insults began to fly.

Those opposed to the upcoming referendum on the Voice have been referred to as conspiracy theorists, radicals, and racists.

Perhaps the most vexatious comments were made in a speech given at the Lowitja O’Donoghue Oration on 29 May 2023 where he referred to opponents as “Chicken Littles of the past,” a comment which he later doubled down on in a radio interview with Nova FM on 30 May 2023, declaring the need to “be straight with people.”

I confess to being confused. Was he being straight with people when he told them he would respect every single Australian on the night he won the federal election? Or is he being straight with people when he ridicules those who oppose his edicts on the Voice?

He cannot have it both ways. Or can he?

Had historians been on the Prime Minister’s staff, they could have guided him back 2000 years to review what Julius Caesar had done in his attempt to take the temperature of the people when contemplating his next big move.

Caesar was ruthless in his pursuit to become sole ruler of Rome. He aimed for kingship. But the Romans had ended monarchy in 509 BC when the last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was banished and the Republic was born.

Rome would never again be ruled by a king. Any move to usurp the authority of the Senate would be seen by the people as treachery.

At the annual festival of the Lupercalia in 44 BC, Mark Antony, Caesar’s most trusted confidante and fellow Consul, attempted to place a laurel wreath on Caesar’s head as he sat on a gold chair in front of the rostra overseeing festivities. The historian, Appian, narrates the would-be king’s handling of the situation:

Julius Caesar rejects the diadem offered by Mark Antony. The crowd roared its approval.

“When they saw this, a few people clapped but the majority booed, and Caesar threw away the diadem. Antonius replaced it, but Caesar again threw it away. While they were having this altercation with each other, the people remained quiet, nervous of which way the episode would end, but when Caesar carried his point, they roared their delight and applauded him for not accepting the diadem.”

Despite public opinion being against Mr Albanese’s proposal, and suggestions from various political quarters to withdraw, delay or compromise on the Voice referendum, he is refusing to do so.

Now, the comparison I’m about to draw will undoubtedly elicit gasps of horror from the reader. But I assure you it is merely to make the point that hubris is the common denominator of political leadership no matter the skill of the leader or millennium.

Caesar considered the Republic as insubstantial and admonished its very existence. The historian, Suetonius, wrote of Caesar’s arrogance:

“The Republic is nothing – just a name, without substance or form; Sulla was a fool when he gave up the dictatorship; men should now have more consideration in speaking with me and regard what I say as law.”

Today’s political left continually declares how progressive they are, hence, any talk of dictatorship in the modern West would be laughable – surely?

Mr Albanese told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on 14 August that if he were dictator, he would ban social media. Yes, this was a hypothetical question put to him, saying that he doesn’t support dictatorships. But two ominous points emerge:

The Prime Minister interviewed by Neil Mitchell.
  1. Perhaps he should have declined to answer such a hypothetical and sinister suggestion given that we are a democracy.

  2. The fact that he highlighted social media, the very tool used to communicate and share thoughts and deemed to be the right of free people, is authoritarian in its very uttering.

Add to that, his comments to faith groups on 22 February 2021 that individualism is a “dangerous fantasy,” and an “indulgence ill-suited to the current reality,” and it reveals a leader stuck more in the ancient past than in the progressive present.

Here ends the one mirroring example of two very different leaders in very different times. Gasping can now cease!

Caesar was a master strategist, so when it came to public admonishment, personal insults would not do for the man who would be king. A peek into his playbook would perhaps serve Mr Albanese’s cause better.

Julius Caesar met his end with a brutal slaying by 23 stab wounds in the Roman forum. Australia in 2023 exists within the boundaries of law, not violence, so time will reveal the political fate of Anthony Albanese following the outcome of the referendum.

Politicians love to tell the people how much they value their vote and respect their opinions. It would augur well if they recognised that winning respect is not achieved through coercion and insults.

That, they must earn.

Trial The Voice At The ALP National Conference

Here’s a great idea. The Albanese government could trial the ‘Voice to Parliament’ by enlisting Aboriginal representatives to attend the national ALP Conference commencing in Brisbane on 17 August. The Prime Minister already has a posse ready to go, the members of his referendum working group, most of whom would be very familiar with ALP National conferences. Indeed, I observed a young Marcia Langton at the 1982 conference in Canberra having a very robust debate with delegates.

The Aboriginal delegates could have a right to advise on all motions of concern put to the conference. This may extend the conference by several weeks, but it would be an excellent opportunity for Labor to demonstrate how the Voice would work should Australia vote yes in the forthcoming referendum.

With the Conference dominated by left delegates, they would be falling over themselves to agree with whatever proposals the Aboriginal delegates would put to the floor. After day one, the Aboriginal delegates, emboldened, would put increasingly contentious proposals to the conference – what fun.

The 49th Australian Labor Party National Conference is the first National Conference in Queensland since the 1970s. Labor was then in the grips of the ‘old guard’, union officials in brown cardigans, intent on controlling all conversations, to the extent there were any. It was a dark and antidemocratic time for Labor.

Australian Labor Party National Conference

Much of the party’s electoral and policy history since has been far more open and enlivened, which is good. Its recent obsession with identity politics which will see it destroy its otherwise firm grip on reality, is bad.

This is most evident in Aboriginal policy.

The 2023 draft platform contains the oft repeated statement by the Prime Minister, “Labor supports the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full, beginning with enshrining an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Australian Constitution.

To nail the lid on the coffin, the draft platform also reads, “Labor supports all elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament, a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and a national process of truth-telling. Labor will take steps to implement all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in this term of government.”

But there is more. Labor commits to “a standalone piece of cultural heritage legislation.” Having leaned on the West Australian Labor government to withdraw its cultural heritage legislation, at least for the course of the referendum campaign, Federal Labor has vowed to step in to fill the gap. West Australian voters’ anger at the heritage legislation will become Australia’s anger. This is not a smart move. It is the opposite of Bob Hawke’s retreat from national land rights legislation under pressure from West Australian Premier Brian Burke in the 1980s. This time Federal Labor wants to double down on the foolishness.

The Uluru Statement From The Heart

A further disquieting step is “co-design” of “legislative reform, policy transformation, administrative improvement and governance”. It should be clear by now that the last 25 years in Aboriginal affairs has been an exercise in co-design. That is why there is a gap that needs closing. Aboriginal ownership and voice has ensured the livelihoods of university graduates of Aboriginal descent. It has locked poorly educated, non-integrated, Aborigines out of the market economy and the open society.

For example, Labor believes that “First Nations people have a right to live on their traditional lands. Labor also believes that it is crucial that “remote communities have essential services and are empowered to participate in the design and provision of those services as genuine partners”. All very well, but who pays for this ‘right’?  

Labor also asserts that “Strong cultural identity is essential to the health, social and emotional well-being of First Nations people.” Sorry, the evidence does not exist. Aboriginal-controlled services assert such things, they never prove it.

On one point we can agree. Labor believes what constitutes an ‘indigenous business’ should be re-defined to protect against ‘black cladding’ and ensure meaningful employment for workers. Who is game to ask who is an Aborigine?

I would be proud of the Labor party if they announced at the conference, ‘No race based policies by 2030’. Delegates of any background could have their vote and voice. Such egalitarian claims used to be the stuff of the old Labor party. Alas, it is no longer.

Gary Johns is the author of The Burden of Culture (Quadrant books) and a former Minister in the Keating government.

The New Gulag

Neil Oliver

In his famous three-volume masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the frozen wastelands of Siberia where political prisoners and dissidents the Soviet state considered dangerous were held (for their speech, not their actions). A gulag was a Soviet prison; an archipelago is a string of islands; hence the term ‘gulag archipelago’ – a string of camps, prisons, transit centres, secret police, informers, spies and interrogators across Siberia.

Today, people are frozen out of society in more subtle ways. The authorities no longer bash down your door and haul you off to a gulag for espousing the ‘wrong views’; instead, they silence and freeze you out of existence in other ways.

No-one describes the current situation better than Scottish commentator Neil Oliver in his Essentials of Life video clip here. More about that shortly.

Divide and conquer

As we know, the Left’s chief weapon is division. Unite the disaffected groups and those with grievances, and then ‘divide and conquer’ the rest of us. Divide along racial, generational, sexual, religious or economic lines. Any line will do.

What may have started as ‘the workers vs the bosses’ – ‘the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie’ – and ‘supporting the poor’, became just a ruse to gain power. Workers and the poor have long since been abandoned by the Left who now find other ways to divide and conquer.

In his excellent book, Democracy in a Divided Australia, Matthew Lesh writes:

Australia has a new political, cultural, and economic elite. The class divides of yesteryear have been replaced by new divisions between Inners and Outers. This divide is ripping apart our political parties, national debate, and social fabric.

Inners are highly educated inner-city progressive cosmopolitans who value change, diversity, and self-actualisation. Inners, despite being a minority, dominate politics on both sides, the bureaucracy, universities, civil society, corporates, and the media. They have created a society ruled by educated elites – that is, ruled by themselves.

Outers are the instinctive traditionalists who value stability, safety, and unity. Outers are politically, culturally, and economically marginalised in today’s graduate-dominated knowledge society era. Their voice is muzzled in public debate, driving disillusionment with the major parties, and record levels of frustration, disengagement, and pessimism.

For over a hundred years, Australia fought to remove race from civic considerations. Yet now we are being asked to permanently divide the nation by entrenching an Indigenous Voice into our Constitution. By the ‘Inners’, of course.

In the workplace, politicians are still treating workplace behaviour like a game of football. Australia’s employers (‘the bosses’) are on one team, and Australia’s employees (‘the workers’) are on the other. The game is then overseen by a so-called ‘independent umpire’ called the Fair Work Commission. But of course, this is not how workplaces operate at all. The ‘game’, if you even want to call it that, is played not by two teams of employers and employees, but by hundreds, even thousands of different teams, competing against hundreds and thousands of other teams of employers and employees.

Mark Twain observed, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example”.

Here’s one – the infamous Dollar Sweets dispute where unions were picketing Fred Stauder’s confectionery business. Other confectionery businesses were approached to support Fred but were rebuffed saying, “Why should we care if Dollar Sweets goes down? It will mean more business for us.”  So much for ‘bosses vs workers’.

While paying lip service to free markets, property rights, personal responsibility, self-reliance, free speech, lower taxes, the rule of law and smaller government, the Liberal Party in Australia has all but abandoned these ideals in practice. As has big business, which, truth be known, was never on the side of free markets. Corporations have always wanted markets they can dominate, and to eliminate the competition. If that means aligning with the Left or doing the government’s bidding, so be it.

Which includes – and here we return to our ‘new gulags’ theme – closing a person’s bank account, destroying them on social media, or excluding them from employment. Business is right on board with this.

The Left will keep pushing its woke agenda until it is stopped. And it will not be stopped with facts, figures, logic, evidence or reason. It doesn’t care about any of that. It will only be stopped with political power.

Holding conferences, writing opinion pieces, producing podcasts and YouTube interviews in the hope of persuading people have, I’m afraid, had their day. The ‘Inners’ now rule.

Stopping the relentless march of the Left will require political power. Seats in parliament. Which means like-minded people and parties forming alliances and working strategically and tactically together to win seats.

In Neil Oliver’s video clip, he says, “When it comes to the state, that which it can do, it certainly will do” and “What can happen to anyone, will soon happen to everyone”.  

So, if you belong to a think-tank, lobby group or centre-right political party, and want to stop the woke Left further ruining our country, then please encourage your organisation to place less emphasis on winning arguments and more emphasis on winning seats – as previously outlined here and here.

Thank you for your support.

Welcome To Warburton, Where Yes Is A Death Sentence

Warburton WA

Shareholders are being taken for a ride, as are donors, trade unionists, sports fans and taxpayers. The relatively few high-profile CEOs, charity leaders, trade union leaders, sports administrators and politicians foolish enough to forsake their duty and send other people’s money to the referendum Yes case are doing harm. Many of their supporters and funders, and possibly a majority, are against the proposition. They are not as foolish as their leaders.

Leaders who think that a solution to Aboriginal despair lies in permanent government intervention in the lives of those few Aborigines who are failing in this modern society should think again. It is not all about government. Changing the Constitution does not change behaviour. Changing the Constitution will not get children to attend school. Changing the Constitution will not stop the grog, or the abuse, or the awful habits that cause early death.

This week, Aboriginal children will walk into the store at Warburton in Western Australia and purchase the typical fare of an Aboriginal diet. On the same latitude as the border of Northern Territory and South Australia, Warburton is as remote as it gets. But cake, Coca-Cola, and energy bars are all available, and expensive. For adults, throw in smokes. These are typical purchases. Week in and week out. Eating and drinking junk foods, not working, and having no purpose in life other than consumption, is a death sentence. No amount of government intervention can save this. No Voice, no committee, no treaty, no ‘truth-telling’, no Makarrata can save these people.

Warburton Art Gallery

Aboriginal people are a modern people. In Warburton, mobile phones are commonplace. Electricity keeps the food and drink cool. Without the paraphernalia of the modern world there would be no Warburton, it would have closed decades ago. Aboriginal people rely on modern means to survive. Most have no idea how it is made. This is cruel. 

The task of leaders is to have every child understand how it is that the mobile phone and electricity that makes their food and shelter available comes in to being. Government may be the provider, but it is not the maker.

Government makes nothing, it merely covers the indignity of woeful ignorance.

Why do governments refuse to teach their citizens how their lives have been degraded to the point of begging? This is no gracious gift; it is stealing the future of these people. It is an abandonment of leadership. Recognition is not the same as reconciliation.

Kids enjoying the Warburton Swimming Pool. Picture: Steve Girschik

Aboriginal parents face an awful choice. To keep children ‘safe’ on country, away from the worst of modern life, grog and drugs, or in doing so, condemn their children to live restricted lives, with poor education, few prospects and a poor diet. The great lie of this referendum is that choices can be avoided. Somehow, 24 select delegates in Canberra will solve the parents’ dilemma. They will not; they will continue to mask the choice and, in default, make the choice for them. A slow death on country, rather than to break free, with the help of their families and guidance from outsiders on how to handle the wider world.

There is no love for Aborigines in this referendum proposal, just ego.

The Aboriginal people at Warburton are radically disabled. They are self-determining alright, sitting on country, speaking language, and dying early. And CEOs and the Prime Minister think that this is a good idea.

They must, because their solution is to change nothing. Not to learn how to create value, not to adapt, but to wait. Government monies as a permanent way of life are poison.

Gary Johns is President of Recognise a Better Way

14 Reasons To VOTE NO In The Voice To Parliament Referendum

On Monday 19 June 2023, the Australian Senate passed a bill for a referendum to occur later in the year to establish a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament.

In short, and especially for our subscribers outside Australia, the Voice proposal is for a consultative body – let’s be blunter and say it’s a representative body – to which all federal government policies and legislation impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will be referred for consideration.

The battle for and against is now formally engaged.

Here are 14 reasons Australians should vote against the proposal.

1. Systemic Racism

Libertarians are Australia’s leaders against racism. We reject collectivism of any kind and judge individuals on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin or any other group attribute. Labor and the Greens are seeking to introduce a procedural body into the legislative process based on race, hints of Caucasian rule in Rhodesia or South Africa. The Left’s much hackneyed phrase of ‘systemic racism’ applies. If it’s part of the system and it’s based on race, guess what? It’s systemic racism.

Libertarians say Vote No.

And frankly, that’s sufficient reason.

But I have 13 more reasons …

2. Fractious Treaties

Supporters of the proposal have said the next step after a Voice are formal treaties. It’s a slippery slope. Freedom House says there are only 17 genuinely free nations in a world of 197 countries and that Australia is one of them. As a libertarian, I’d like to keep it as free as possible. That’s not compatible with negotiating treaties with 500 ethno-state ‘First Nations’, as woke activists now strategically call this part of our citizenry.

3. Communist Mastermind

The author of the Voice To Parliament is Thomas Mayo. He is a communist, a supporter of an ideology which has thus far killed 100 million people.

Don’t believe that he’s a communist?

Here he is in his own words …

4. Preferential Rents

Ethno-nationalists Senator Lidia Thorpe and Mr Mayo are openly calling for freehold title holders to pay rent to indigenous leadership groups. Will Australian mortgagees and tenants be required to add an indigenous rent?

5. Economic Drag

With the ambiguity on not knowing what the Voice To Parliament will recommend to the Government, will there be new permits required for economic activity.? What grifting black tape will be placed on a business sector already constrained by green and red tape?

6. Impossible Reversal

If the Voice To Parliament, enshrined in the Constitution, became a corrupt rabble like ATSIC, we would not be able to remove it from the Constitution except through another referendum. We’d be stuck with the constitutional vandalism.

7. Ambiguous Scope

As much as we’ve asked, we still have no understanding of the scope of the Voice To Parliament. Will its recommendations be binding on Parliament? What are matters affecting indigenous people? Remote communities? Native title property portfolios? Aboriginal-only businesses? United Nations treaty implications? Australians need to know the scope of this body before voting. We ask. We get no answers.

8. Undefined Structure

How many people will sit on the Voice To Parliament? 5? 18? Will there be one per tribe, so 500 of them? None of us know. Who will be eligible to serve on the Voice? Certainly not all Australians. Again, this is systemic racism in action. How is aboriginality defined? DNA? Statutory declaration? Tribal declaration? Still, no answers.

9. Uncosted

From a standing start, the NDIS now spends more of our hard-earned tax dollars than Medicare and Defence! With form like this and the same people pushing this new proposal, can you imagine the cost of the Voice To Parliament? We’ve asked for a budget. No dice!

10. Ignored Communities

It’s not as if most aboriginal communities on the ground were consulted or were yearning for a Voice To Parliament. Videos are emerging of everyday indigenous citizens explaining that they’ve never heard of a Voice To Parliament.

11. Elitist Gravy Train

The proposal is being pushed by Canberra-based, virtue-signalling, snouts-in-the-trough, activists. Decades of collectivist molly-coddling by Labor has created a gravy-train of the most bloated kind. Woke identitarian activists trying to create an indigenous industry, with all the non-productivity of the old-world European aristocracies.

12. Partisan

This is a Labor and Green project. A weepy-eyed, spend-what-may socialist wet dream. A one-sided wank job.

13. Referendum Funding

To drive home the point, Government is funding the yes campaign while struggling citizens under cost-of-living pressure are expected to fund the no campaign. Equity? Shhhhhh.

14. Ends Reconciliation

The Reconciliation Movement had noble ideals when started. After 20 years, we now see clearly where it is heading. An elite land grab, the fracturing of Australia into ethno-microstates and the distribution of a lot of money for a non-productive industry.

But as I say, none of this matters. It is sufficient reason to Vote No that they are proposing a race-based system.

The moment freedom lovers regain power, a priority must be to repeal s51(xxvi) of the Constitution to end this race-baiting once and for all.

Why I Oppose The Voice

hf

Whether to oppose or support the Voice referendum is an easy decision for me. The proposal is fundamentally racist, and I’m a libertarian. Racism is a collective concept and simply incompatible with libertarianism.

Libertarians see people as individuals, not as members of a group.

The proposal is for people of the Aboriginal race to elect members of the Voice, which will have the right to give advice to the government and executive. Non-Aborigines will not have a vote for the Voice, and will have no comparable means of giving advice. Australians will thus be divided into two groups – Aborigines and non-Aborigines, with Aborigines having rights that non-Aborigines do not have. Moreover, by being in the Constitution, the Voice will have a status not held by any other advisory body.  

Dividing people into groups, whether it is race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual preference, is collectivism.  It might be appropriate on occasions for statistical purposes, but it is not acceptable as a basis for government policy.  The only legitimate approach, to libertarians like me, is to treat people as individuals.

That does not mean we lack concern for the welfare of Aborigines. Like Australians generally, we are distressed at the pathetic improvements revealed by the Closing the Gap surveys. Indeed, the third world conditions of Aborigines in remote regions is a national disgrace that I railed about regularly when in the Senate.

And yet, there are plenty of Aborigines who participate in Australian society on the same terms as other Australians. They have jobs, are not poor, their children attend school, and they are not involved in substance abuse. Moreover, there are plenty of non-Aborigines who do not have jobs, are poor, abuse drugs, and neglect their children.

Treating all Aborigines differently because some are poor and disadvantaged makes no more sense than treating non-Aborigines differently because some of them are poor and disadvantaged. The problem is that these issues exist, not the race of those who suffer them.

Libertarians see people as individuals, not as members of a group.

We share Martin Luther King’s dream, in which he hoped that one day his four little children would be judged on the basis of their character, not the colour of their skin.

Racism is a collective concept and simply incompatible with libertarianism.

Collectivism, which includes defining people by their race, is rejected. If someone is poor and disadvantaged, the appropriate response is to overcome the disadvantage that keeps them poor. This is true irrespective of the race of those concerned, or indeed any other collective characteristics with which they might be defined.

Voting no to the voice referendum can be justified on several grounds, including the fact that it will seriously compromise the role of parliament once the High Court gets its hands on it. But for libertarians, the simple fact that it is based on racism is sufficient.

Section 51(xxvi). Repeal. Rescind. Delete!

zxc

By crikey, I’m a little bothered we’re always at sea politically.

The Left is pounding us with wave after relentless policy wave.

The Liberal Party has drowned, its body face-down, bobbing and drifting. We libertarians, classical liberals and the otherwise centre-right are in danger of the rip sweeping us to sea.

Things are perilous. Just look at the eddies and currents fatiguing us:

  • Familiar places and landmarks being renamed in costly rebranding programs
  • Activists undermining joyful time spent on Australia Day
  • Oversized government expenditure now exceeding 50% of our entire economy
  • A hundred separate genders yet female athletes and prisoners forced in with biological males
  • Citizens now being denied access to much-loved national parks
  • Flag confusion
  • Victorian bullets in the back
  • Multiple treaties with multiple tribes, a native patchwork of 500 jurisdictions
  • Some kind of republic
  • Locked in your home for hundreds of days
  • 15-Minute cities, free movement lost on the altar of climate alarmism
  • The Voice To Parliament.

If we continue only to oppose these ideas, as is the conservative instinct, but not counter with our own, we’ll soon lose more freedoms than is already the case.

We need bold classical liberals and pugnacious libertarians to fiercely propose striking new policies.

Take the Voice To Parliament as an example.

… classical liberals cannot support systemic racism.

But first, here’s a quick primer for our international subscribers. The Voice To Parliament is a government body proposed by referendum to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s stated purpose is to recognise Indigenous people as the first inhabitants of Australia and to act as an advisory board for any bills coming through the Federal Parliament which impact Indigenous people. The body would be comprised exclusively of ethnically Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The motivation for the Voice To Parliament is that Indigenous people suffer poorer life chances and that this is the result of British colonial invasion and ongoing occupation. The Voice to Parliament is said to be just one step in a process of Reconciliation, the duration and shape of which is unspecified.

In short, what’s being proposed is a new third-chamber of the Australian Parliament with a racial-eligibility criterion to participate.

Yes, it’s as bad as that sounds.

Think Apartheid.

Predictably, the Labor Government along with the socialist Australian Greens will vote “Yes.”

The feckless Liberals are confused and unable to take a view. Their paralysis is painful to witness.

Their Coalition partner, The Nationals, are deeply-rooted and sure in saying “No” and have weathered the storm of a confused defector.

Primer over.

So what do we do?

First, we vote “No.” We do so because we as classical liberals cannot support systemic racism.

Good so far but now we must plan to seize the initiative.

Second, we ask ourselves, “By what power or mechanism can the Labor Government even legislate something as abhorrent as systemic racism?”

The answer is in the Australian Constitution. Like the United States Constitution, Australia’s has an enumerated list of areas in which a Commonwealth government can legislate.

It’s section 51.

Run your finger down that list and you’ll discover subsection 26 furtively trying its best not to draw attention to itself …

Section 51 (xxvi)
“The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for
the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to
the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”

Yes, you read that correctly. The Constitution anticipates that a Federal government may legislate on the basis of race.

I don’t know about you but I find this abhorrent. What happened to equality before the law? What happened to judging not by the colour of one’s skin but by the content of one’s character? I’m thinking of 1933 Germany, 1970 South Africa, of Rwanda at its most bleak. Why look at people from a racial perspective at all? If we must have legislation, let’s not discriminate by the amount of melanin in the skin!

So, here’s the front-foot classical liberal in me …

At the very next electoral opportunity, let’s put a referendum of our own to the people. Let’s rescind section 51(xxvi) from the Constitution!

In one fell swoop, no Commonwealth Government will ever again be allowed to make laws with respect to race.

The benefits are:

  • No elevating one ethnic group at the expense of the other
  • No targeting one ethnic group for the purpose of disadvantaging them
  • No costly Department of Indigenous Affairs and the countless agencies which grift off it
  • The Federal Government has one less legislative jurisdiction, has its wings slightly clipped
  • With the money saved, we can repay at least some of the suffocating debt
  • Indigenous communities will be treated like all others and so weaned off the teat of the state. Same opportunities. Same laws.
  • Indigenous communities stuck in a cycle of inter-generational welfare receipt will learn self-reliance quickly.

It has a lot to recommend it.

So rather than simply react to a Leftist proposal and not respond in kind, let’s advocate a bolder, muscular kind of original liberalism, of classical liberalism, of libertarianism.

End systemic racism. Abolish s51(xxvi)!

Then we’ll never have race-based laws again.

Senator Thorpe’s Shock Resignation

unlucky women

Lydia Thorpe is out!

The abrasive and race-obsessed Senator, who resigned in disgrace as Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens in 2022, now resigns from the Party which made her career and had her return in 2022.

You can understand Adam Bandt’s ashen face. Loyalty be damned!

Greens in turmoil

Hemmed-in by a nation-destroying fence of her own construction, she’ll now enjoy a life on the crossbench, a lone political animal with an untested, so-called, “Blak” constituency. Oh, for spelling!

The ever-upbeat Senator Ralph Babet from the United Australia Party was characteristical swift in his reponse, telling Liberty Itch:

“I welcome Senator Thorpe to the crossbench and look forward to working with her in opposition to The Voice referendum.”

The Liberal Party, under the leadership of Peter Dutton, is the limp partner in the Liberal-National Coalition on The Voice. In contrast, the Nationals have offered stiff opposition to what many call a race-eligible third chamber, a principled position despite the risk of desserters.

Social media is saturated with a more blunt assessment of The Voice: apartheid.

Senator Babet’s enterprising bridge-building is work the Liberals seem long ago incapable of achieving.

Well may Liberty Itch subscribers wish the energetic Senator Babet good luck. He will need it. Senator Thorpe was initially against The Voice, then for, now uncommitted, hardly the history of a sure-footed politican with a clear voter-base.