THE NAKED CITY: DEMOCRACY SUCKS!

It was just a coincidence but on the same night that votes in The Voice referendum were being counted, the Australian Commercial Radio Awards were taking place. No doubt many of the shock jocks and so called ‘current affairs presenters’ who attended, would have had a double cause for celebration as victory for the No vote became inevitable during the early count. Many of the personalities present, especially the talk back titans, provided a forum of paranoia and misinformation during the campaign and constantly avoided a balanced debate.

Whilst there will be much soul searching and postmortem analysis on the part of the Yes movement, the simple facts of the matter are that a majority of First Nations people wanted The Voice and voted accordingly. An overwhelming majority of Australians ignored their wishes and returned an emphatic ‘No’. Nothing has really changed since the early days of colonial settlement. In the crudest of terms, the black fellas asked for something they truly deserved and whitey said no!

Much has been said by both sides of politics that Australia is not a racist country, constantly echoed by people such as Liberal front bencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and many others on the No side. Nobody likes to be called a racist, unless you belong to some neo-Nazi group, but the reality is deep rooted racism is part of our national psyche. It’s a nice PR exercise, as we embrace our high profile indigenous athletes and footy players, to say we are not racist but history, both past and present says otherwise.

Racism takes many forms, from straight out shameful name calling, through ignorance, exploitation and economic deprivation. How much current racial attitudes played in the referendum result is hard to ascertain but a breakdown of voting figures is enlightening. In National Party leader David Littleproud’s Queensland seat of Maranoa, the No vote returned around 84 percent, the highest in Australia. Remember when we once referred to certain parts of Queensland as ‘the Alabama Of The North’. Draw your own conclusions here!

Meanwhile Greens leader Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne, returned a similar percentage for the Yes vote. Are the good folks of Melbourne more sympathetic to the plight of Aboriginal Australia, are they much better informed and are they ready to call out bigotry and discrimination wherever it exists?

Referendums are seen as a definitive part of the democratic process but a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote reduces them to a highly simplistic decision. It will never happen but perhaps if voters were asked to tick off a set of reasons why they voted one way or the other, we would have a better idea of what the electorate really thought.

In the 1999 referendum as to whether Australia should become a republic, voters were also asked to decide on a preamble to the Constitution that acknowledged  indigenous ownership prior to European arrival. It included the wording:

“We the Australian people commit ourselves to this Constitution: proud that our national unity has been forged by Australians from many ancestries; never forgetting the sacrifices of all who defended our country and our liberty in time of war; upholding freedom, tolerance, individual dignity and the rule of law; honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation’s first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country”

Both the republic and indigenous recognition were rejected at the time and you have to wonder whether there would be a similar result today. It would be a brave government, Labor or Liberal, that revived the republic referendum. Whilst the doddery adulterers Charles and Camilla are nowhere as popular as the late Queen and we now enjoy a diverse multi cultural population with declining Anglo allegiances, there’s no guarantee we would opt for a republic.

If it was a Labor government that put forward a republic referendum, it’s unlikely there would be bipartisan support from the Coalition. Like The Voice, the debate would soon become highly politicized. With a vested interest in gabbing about the monarchy and eagerly awaiting the succession of the more likeable William and Kate, you would have to think that the commercial talk back jocks and conservative print media would rally against a presidential system.

The current referendum, for all its good intentions failed for First Nations people and perhaps we will never know what the public were really thinking. Afraid of losing your house in a land grab, pondering a possible constitutional crisis, or just plain ignorant or apathetic. Yes, they could all be reasons, but ‘racist – hell no. Nobody is going to admit to that.