Opinion by Max Lane

Support for reducing the oppression of, and discrimination against, First Nations people has been growing for some time, especially among young people. It is probable that most non-indigenous people who do want to see this discrimination banished, cannot yet imagine what full equality and liberation would look like. That is a battle of the emotions, imagination and understanding still to come.

Though not yet a strong majority in society, this growing sector of the Australian community is of sufficient importance electorally for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to try to maintain support from them. The ALP’s key tactic is to propose to amend the Constitution to recognise First Nations people and for there to be a constitutionally sanctioned mechanism for indigenous people to provide advice to the parliament and government on any policies that are seen to impact them.

It should be noted that this proposal from the ALP government appears alongside other policies clearly detrimental to indigenous communities, such as the support for income management in the Northern Territory, ongoing prioritisation of maximising mining profits often infringing on the rights of traditional owners and the lack of any campaign against deaths in custody.

There are two particularly crucial aspects to this referendum.

First, there is the nature of the proposal itself. As First Nations progressive critics of the proposal point out, in realpolitik terms, the proposal does not amount to much at all. While for First Nations people to be recognised in the Constitution is a legal strengthening of their position as the first peoples of this continent, its real consequences as questionable. No matter how sanctified the piece of paper is – Constitution or legislation – its actual meaning is determined by the balance of forces – class forces – in society.

Everything about the composition and mechanics of The Voice will be determined by the parliament for the foreseeable future. Unless there is a big upsurge and transformation of Australian electoral politics, the parliament will continue to have a majority composed of ALP and LNP members. They cannot be trusted. Both parties have a record of oppressive and discriminatory policies against First Nations people (and refugees, asylum seekers, and poor people generally).

This Constitutional amendment is not a setback, perhaps, but it is no guarantee of anything – let alone negotiations on a Treaty or any other form of acknowledgement of sovereignty or win for liberation. This lack of substance, and all its implications and flow-ons, is also what both indigenous and non-indigenous critics of the referendum highlight.

Second, there is the ideological struggles that the Referendum has unleashed. The main NO campaign is being run on an outright racist basis. It is based on the proposition that any genuine recognition of past oppressions – in this case attempted genocide – and any proposal for political, social or economic compensation for that oppression allows racially based privileges for First Nations people and divides society into those with privileges and the rest (white people mainly) whosupposedly have no such privileges. The language used by this campaign repeats many demeaning racist stereotypes.

Whether this perspective can win a majority in October may depend a great deal on the campaign activity, both in day-to-day life as well as mobilisations of all those ordinary people who want to defeat it and who wish to go in a different direction.  The ALP, the organisation that has proposed this referendum and which has the resources to truly mobilise and campaign for YES is doing so very anaemically. The activity of ordinary people will be crucial for a YES majority.

Of course, a proposal with so little substance as this one may also not win the votes of people who justifiably do indeed want more change – real change. Some may vote NO, some may abstain. Often ALP supporters of a YES campaign reinforce the scepticisms of radical critics when they argue the line, “don’t be scared, this doesn’t really give away anything”. So, there is no guarantee of a majority for YES, even given the steadily growing democratic humanist sentiment.

And there is an additional ideological challenge – a challenge relating to the way many people view this issue.

Inevitably, given the way history is (mis)understood in a society like Australia, many view policies improving the position of First Nations peoples as being proposed because of the ethnicity (race) issue. Of course, this is not the case. Rather, it is because the original inhabitants had their land stolen, were treated as slaves and not even human, and were the targets for genocide. 

Any people – whatever their ethnicity or race – that have suffered such things and who continue to live under the oppressive, unjust and racist legacies of such original oppressions can justifiably demand full and real justice, equality and liberation. As long as this mis-understanding of history frames contemporary consciousness, the racist idealogues will continue to find fertile ground.

A strong majority voting for YES will be a rejection of the racist direction of the NO campaign. The racists, however, will not give up. They will surely continue to work to defeat any real steps forward, despite a YES majority. There can be no let up in progressive people and democrats campaigning against racism and for the next concrete steps forward, however the movement decides what they need to be.

A NO campaign majority will be a confirmation of the strength of the misunderstanding of history as well as racist sentiments generally in Australia.  It will underline the urgency for the re-emergence, organisation and mobilisation of democratic and progressive peoples – whatever their ethnicity – to fight racism and for the ideas of equality and liberation for all.