I have been thinking a lot about the legislated path of "reconciliation" to be travelled between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) and non-ATSI peoples in Australia.
Although this has tragically become a political issue, I believe it is relevant to a BLOG focusing on God's extravagant grace.
As the Great Grandpa of a wonderful and growing family, I am increasingly concerned for the future that my grandchildren and great grandchildren will face in their lives in Australia after I've gone home.
There are so many looming challenges that will impact them and all those who will be living here with them. These include energy shortages, the taxes needed to repay huge government debts, responses to climate change, gender dysphoria, increasing crime rates and hostility towards Christianity.
Their faith in God's love and sovereignty will enable them to be personally victorious and at peace in the world they are inheriting, even though they can have little input into changing the actual circumstances themselves.
However there is one looming challenge into which they can make a difference - the proposed VOICE to Parliament and Executive Government referendum which many of them will be voting on before the end of the year.
The proposed VOICE is a genuine worry if it gets passed, and people who appreciate living in a free, liberal democracy should emphatically speak and vote against it.
Although there are many practical reasons why this VOICE should be opposed, my main reason is one of principle - the inequality of citizenship that the VOICE would embed into our Constitution.
It provides for one group of people, an un-elected group from just 3% of our population to have a far greater influence on our law-making and our quality of life than the remaining 97%.
As a citizen of Australia, a liberal democracy, I believe all citizens should be treated equally before the law and have equal representation to our law-making institutions.
As a Christian, I believe that God loves all groups and nations equally, and the VOICE repudiates that belief by giving one group preference over all others in Australia.
And to have that preferential treatment of one group over all others embedded as a new Chapter in our Constitution - our founding document and the final authority defining how our nation functions - is profoundly wrong.
For me, without even discussing the practical consequences, that is enough to force me to vote NO.
However, I am currently researching some of those potential outcomes just to show where we are heading if this present proposal for the VOICE is passed.
I have asked my family to prayerfully consider the inequality created by this proposed referendum and not be persuaded to vote "Yes" just because of "the vibe" being promoted by many politicians and other influential groups, and to take advantage of the rare opportunity they have to directly influence a part of the future they will inherit.
Blessings, Barry
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Published BLOG at https://barrysgracespace.blogspot.com
Other published Writings at https://www.ibtechservices.com.au
Nicholas Hasluck KC, who retired from the West Australian Supreme Court in 2010, describes the proposal to entrench the Indigenous voice in the constitution as contrary to democratic ideals.
ReplyDeleteMr Hasluck says the proposal to make "a profound and essentially irreversible change to the structure of government by vesting an influential advisory privilege in a section of the community defined by race is contrary to democratic ideals reflected in the Constitution, a document underpinned by conventions referable to the rule of law and the notion that all citizens, high and low, are to be treated equally".
"As a matter of principle, the voice should be rejected on the grounds that our democracy is built on the foundation of all Australian citizens having equal civic rights, all being able to vote for, stand for and serve in either of the two chambers of our national parliament," Mr Hasluck writes.
"A constitutionally enshrined body defined by race, as to which only Indigenous Australians can vote for or serve in, is inconsistent with this fundamental principle."