Frank wrote on Jul 1
st, 2023 at 12:05pm:
The voice need only send a letter on the first day of its existence to every government department, agency or body saying it wishes to make representations on all “matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. asking for advance notice of all such matters and for the time and resources to consider such matters properly, and thereafter each such government entity will have a constitutional duty to comply.
Once those entities of executive government have complied with that request, the voice will have all the rights conferred by administrative law to ensure their representations are allowed due process and that decisions about them comply with the rigorous standards of administrative law. Failure to do so means any decision that is the subject of a representation may be stopped until litigation about compliance with constitutional and administrative law is completed. In short, the voice can, if it wishes, work to bring the processes of government to a grinding halt.
The activists who dictated the maximalist drafting of the proposed amendment – especially its reference to “executive government” – know this. Those few words will leave the government at the mercy of the voice when it comes to negotiating a treaty.
The lesson is this. A Yes vote in the referendum is not the end of the process but rather the starting gun to a long and divisive treaty negotiation where the voice has the whip hand. This will likely lead to separatism and bitterness, not reconciliation.
So if you are worried about the voice, wait until you see the treaty.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/worried-about-the-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-wait-until-you-see-the-treaty/news-story/780cacd9532701d4652c35b937fea21c
The Uluru statement is the starting point. It calls for a “First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution” but acknowledges this is not the culmination of their ambition. As the statement says, “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda … we seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between government and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.
Given Albanese said in his election victory speech “on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full”, Australians need to understand clearly what this treaty – the end point of the Uluru statement – means.
The definitive description of what the treaty means can be found in the 2020 edition of the book Treaty by George Williams and Harry Hobbs. Williams is a prominent legal academic from the University of NSW and was a member of the constitutional expert group that advised the government on the drafting of the proposed constitutional amendment. Hobbs is also a Sydney legal academic.
Sovereignty, the first aim of a treaty, raises fundamental questions about how the country will be governed in the future. As the Uluru statement shows, those pushing for treaty, including Williams, Hobbs and other members of the academic legal movement, do not accept the traditional view that we have in Australia a single sovereign entity in whom exclusive legal and political power is vested.
...
Williams and Hobbs call for a treaty which meets three conditions: “First, it must recognise Indigenous peoples as a polity, distinct from other citizens of the state on the basis of their status as prior self-governing communities. Second, the agreement must be reached by a fair negotiating process conducted in good faith and in a manner respectful of each participant’s standing as a polity. Third, the agreement must settle each party’s claims … (t)his must include the state recognising or establishing some form of decision making and control for the Indigenous people that amounts to a form of self-government.”
The first element requires us to accept that Australia is not one indivisible nation. It has two polities. The first and third elements call for some form of self-government by Aboriginal people.
Ibid.
There was simply NO single Aboriginal sovereignty pre-1788 and there isn't one now. There is NOT a single Aboriginal Voice. No tribe can speak for another tribe. They NEVER had a united Aboriginal sovereignty, ever.
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