J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,759 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 4, 2023 12:42:47 GMT
It's pretty obvious that in most settler colonial countries, the indigenous population is still significantly worse off After 950 years you can still see it in Britain as well. |
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Sept 4, 2023 12:53:14 GMT
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jamie
Top Poster
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Post by jamie on Sept 4, 2023 18:11:46 GMT
Essential for The Guardian:
No - 48%
Yes - 42%
Hard No - 41%
Hard Yes - 30%
The latter is better for No than earlier in the campaign, and Essential is still the best pollster for Yes.
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Post by greatkingrat on Sept 4, 2023 18:50:03 GMT
It's pretty obvious that in most settler colonial countries, the indigenous population is still significantly worse off than the majority and this is indisputably linked with the legacy of colonialism. In Australia, this is obviously true-Australian democracy does not work as well for Aboriginal Australians as it does for the rest of the population. They are around 30% of Australia's prison population for example, despite being around 3% of the general population, and around 10 years less in life expectancy (a gap which is shockingly widening, so Australia is not naturally trending towards progress and racial equality). These much worse outcomes are reflected pretty much across the board as is. The Voice isn't going to eliminate these gaps, but the chance that it will make a difference is worth taking imo. It is not about feeling guilty about the past. Australians, like New Zealanders, do need to understand history though and then fix the problems that exist right now so that racism is eliminated (as much as possible) as a fact of life in society, rather than just making the laws 'anti-racist' and leaving it that. Or to look at it another way, while Aboriginal life expectancy may be 10 years less than the "settlers", it is still way more than it would have been if Australia had never been colonised. |
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,426
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Post by iain on Sept 4, 2023 19:04:19 GMT
It's pretty obvious that in most settler colonial countries, the indigenous population is still significantly worse off than the majority and this is indisputably linked with the legacy of colonialism. In Australia, this is obviously true-Australian democracy does not work as well for Aboriginal Australians as it does for the rest of the population. They are around 30% of Australia's prison population for example, despite being around 3% of the general population, and around 10 years less in life expectancy (a gap which is shockingly widening, so Australia is not naturally trending towards progress and racial equality). These much worse outcomes are reflected pretty much across the board as is. The Voice isn't going to eliminate these gaps, but the chance that it will make a difference is worth taking imo. It is not about feeling guilty about the past. Australians, like New Zealanders, do need to understand history though and then fix the problems that exist right now so that racism is eliminated (as much as possible) as a fact of life in society, rather than just making the laws 'anti-racist' and leaving it that. Or to look at it another way, while Aboriginal life expectancy may be 10 years less than the "settlers", it is still way more than it would have been if Australia had never been colonised. There would be a hell of a lot more of them though. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 19:17:01 GMT
around 10 years less in life expectancy Or to look at it another way, while Aboriginal life expectancy may be 10 years less than the "settlers", it is still way more than it would have been if Australia had never been colonised. that is rather how the issue of Afro-American inequality in the USA can be looked at. The projected voting figures are interesting, the more First Nation citizens a state has the less likely it is to support the Voice. Tasmania is awkward to count, because they committed genocide against their First Nation I am skeptical about the proposal. Every Quango in Scotland is crammed with SNP activities, all claiming expenses. I do need to write my long rant about the long march through the institutions soon. |
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,426
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Post by iain on Sept 4, 2023 19:21:45 GMT
The projected voting figures are interesting, the more First Nation citizens a state has the less likely it is to support the Voice. Very much a case of correlation is not causation. And wouldn’t stack up at all if you included the Northern Territory. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 19:27:33 GMT
Mmm. Sort of. There is an almost laughable anomaly that Tas gets a veto when they exterminated their native population but Northern Territory doesn't because nobody except natives lives there.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Sept 4, 2023 19:42:16 GMT
Enough of the Australian population is of post-war descent that they're not going to up for being lectured about things that other people's ancestors did. Or have more than enough of their own grievances to take up their time.
See the 2022 Australian cup final for further details.
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Sept 4, 2023 20:08:30 GMT
Enough of the Australian population is of post-war descent that they're not going to up for being lectured about things that other people's ancestors did. Or have more than enough of their own grievances to take up their time. A big part of the Yes campaigns hope that they can win is based on strong support from ‘multicultural’ communities. Given one of the most vocal segments of the Yes movement is essentially middle class white guilt, I'm not sure they're going to find much allyship from non-western migrants. |
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Sept 4, 2023 20:21:03 GMT
The projected voting figures are interesting, the more First Nation citizens a state has the less likely it is to support the Voice. Very much a case of correlation is not causation. And wouldn’t stack up at all if you included the Northern Territory. In fairness, we have yet to see a recent poll of indigenous Australians for the Voice referendum, and the only polls we have had were commissioned by a pro-Voice lobby group. If the latest Newspoll were to be applied nationally, I wouldn't be surprised to see a very marginal vote against the Voice in the Northern Territory, though it is worth bearing in mind that less than a third of people in NT recognise their ancestry as indigenous Australian, and more than likely a fair majority of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders will be voting yes. |
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jamie
Top Poster
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Post by jamie on Sept 4, 2023 20:27:19 GMT
In fairness, we have yet to see a recent poll of indigenous Australians for the Voice referendum, and the only polls we have had were commissioned by a pro-Voice lobby group. If the latest Newspoll were to be applied nationally, I wouldn't be surprised to see a very marginal vote against the Voice in the Northern Territory, though it is worth bearing in mind that less than a third of people in NT recognise their ancestry as indigenous Australian. There’s been quite a bit of controversy about this. There’s only been 2 polls that have indigenous numbers and they were both in the 80s for Yes. However, there has been no new data for months (Yes has declined significantly since), there hasn’t been a large scale poll of only indigenous voters, and even if there were there would be significant problems in the sampling (remote communities who can’t be contacted by pollsters etc). Basically, Aboriginal support for the Voice is like Tasmanian support for it, we will only really find out once the results have actually been published (luckily we are getting polling place results, which seems likely to reveal some very parochial voting patterns for Aboriginal communities). |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 20:50:28 GMT
Comedy value has Yes winning while NT votes no or No winning on a Tasman veto when NT votes yes.
But No winning disappoints all the right white people.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,005
Member is Online
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Post by Khunanup on Sept 4, 2023 22:01:51 GMT
Enough of the Australian population is of post-war descent that they're not going to up for being lectured about things that other people's ancestors did. Or have more than enough of their own grievances to take up their time. A big part of the Yes campaigns hope that they can win is based on strong support from ‘multicultural’ communities. Given one of the most vocal segments of the Yes movement is essentially middle class white guilt, I'm not sure they're going to find much allyship from non-western migrants. The problem is that, as with so many of the people who look at these kinds of things as identity politics vehicles, is that the guilt aspect is astonishingly self centred, as is those who look at it as a way of 'atoning' for past crimes. Because what it is actually about is today, and the way that you make, in this case, Australian society function for everyone and when there is an aftereffect of people who were systematically disenfranchised (and indeed denied citizenship) well within living memory. Complicated of course by the fact that much of Australian society is conservative (especially once you get away from the cities and immediate suburbs). The interesting thing is the embracing of symbols of Aboriginal culture as being representative of the country as a whole, but then almost a forgetting that there's a (now tiny) proportion of the population from where it comes from. Unfortunately it does appear that the Yes campaign is being brought to you by similar people who brought you those massively well thought through and successful Yes to AV and Remain campaign in the Brexit referendum. Massive barn door to hit but completely miss the point... |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 22:41:18 GMT
Back when I thought I was a student, maybe doing some useful and interesting stuff, we had a far-right Forum member whose name now escapes me. Not Wayne from Leicester. Somebody else. He kept his ID very secret so possibly public sector
I had some PM chats with him that were interesting and he said something very interesting about reparations for Afro-Americans. He suggested that what "we" (ie not "we" at all, but some white men many centuries ago) stole from them was irreplaceable. Their name, their culture. (He was blood and soil and all that) Reparations cant replace that, only compensate for it.
What we (i.e. not "we", somebody else) gave them was wealth, opportunity, life expectancy, infant mortality, all the things they would not have if they lived in Africa. But it seems unreasonable to bill them for it not least because it is not clear who their payments would go to.
The same applies to the Indigenous Australians
But that still leaves the questions, should they be permitted to integrate and should they be required to integrate? Now it seems to me that the answers are obvious. But that still leaves awkward questions about the prison population and the extent to which people should be permitted to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs and traditions. Lots of folks are far more progressive than me (so they think) but would loudly support taking kids into care from alcoholic parents.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 4, 2023 22:52:46 GMT
Back when I thought I was a student, maybe doing some useful and interesting stuff, we had a far-right Forum member whose name now escapes me. Not Wayne from Leicester. Somebody else. He kept his ID very secret so possibly public sector I had some PM chats with him that were interesting and he said something very interesting about reparations for Afro-Americans. He suggested that what "we" (ie not "we" at all, but some white men many centuries ago) stole from them was irreplaceable. Their name, their culture. (He was blood and soil and all that) Reparations cant replace that, only compensate for it. What we (i.e. not "we", somebody else) gave them was wealth, opportunity, life expectancy, infant mortality, all the things they would not have if they lived in Africa. But it seems unreasonable to bill them for it not least because it is not clear who their payments would go to. The same applies to the Indigenous Australians But that still leaves the questions, should they be permitted to integrate and should they be required to integrate? Now it seems to me that the answers are obvious. But that still leaves awkward questions about the prison population and the extent to which people should be permitted to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs and traditions. Lots of folks are far more progressive than me (so they think) but would loudly support taking kids into care from alcoholic parents. I think, perhaps, you need to consider integration and assimilation; their differences and their consequences. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 22:55:49 GMT
Indeed. It has parallels with UK inward migration of course. And arguably also the Traveler communities. Maybe even with indigenous linguistic minorities, look you.
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,426
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Post by iain on Sept 4, 2023 23:37:40 GMT
Back when I thought I was a student, maybe doing some useful and interesting stuff, we had a far-right Forum member whose name now escapes me. Not Wayne from Leicester. Somebody else. He kept his ID very secret so possibly public sector I had some PM chats with him that were interesting and he said something very interesting about reparations for Afro-Americans. He suggested that what "we" (ie not "we" at all, but some white men many centuries ago) stole from them was irreplaceable. Their name, their culture. (He was blood and soil and all that) Reparations cant replace that, only compensate for it. What we (i.e. not "we", somebody else) gave them was wealth, opportunity, life expectancy, infant mortality, all the things they would not have if they lived in Africa. But it seems unreasonable to bill them for it not least because it is not clear who their payments would go to. The same applies to the Indigenous Australians But that still leaves the questions, should they be permitted to integrate and should they be required to integrate? Now it seems to me that the answers are obvious. But that still leaves awkward questions about the prison population and the extent to which people should be permitted to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs and traditions. Lots of folks are far more progressive than me (so they think) but would loudly support taking kids into care from alcoholic parents. I assumed you’d bring up this little anecdote again at some point. Whilst that is at least a coherent argument in terms of the ancestors of slaves, I struggle to see how you can argue that ‘we’ (however defined) brought opportunity and life expectancy to a people who ‘we’ ethnically cleansed. But then no-one in this debate is arguing for reparations so this is an irrelevance to the thread. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Sept 4, 2023 23:43:32 GMT
The ethnic cleansing bit is unarguable. It happened.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,759
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 5, 2023 0:34:40 GMT
Back when I thought I was a student, maybe doing some useful and interesting stuff, we had a far-right Forum member whose name now escapes me. Not Wayne from Leicester. Somebody else. He kept his ID very secret so possibly public sector I had some PM chats with him that were interesting and he said something very interesting about reparations for Afro-Americans. He suggested that what "we" (ie not "we" at all, but some white men many centuries ago) stole from them was irreplaceable. Their name, their culture. (He was blood and soil and all that) Reparations cant replace that, only compensate for it. What we (i.e. not "we", somebody else) gave them was wealth, opportunity, life expectancy, infant mortality, all the things they would not have if they lived in Africa. But it seems unreasonable to bill them for it not least because it is not clear who their payments would go to. When we were engaging in international piracy and seizing slave ships, we has a choice. Do we take the liberated slaves back to Africa where the African slave traders will just re-enslave them and sell them again, or do we take them far far away from home to a British possession and give them freedom, land, and citizenship? It may have been crap land, it may have been a citizenship with little value to them, but I think we chose the better option.
Did the West Africa Patrol actually ask any of their liberatees where their prefered destination was?
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