I Write to rebut Mr Loiterton’s assessment (Why I’m voting ‘No’, June 14) of the Voice to Parliament.
Someone must certainly have a bee in their bonnet to take the effort to write to a local newspaper in a town very far from New Lambton, NSW.
The assertion that “it will divide Australians along racial lines” and that the 1967 referendum was the great equalising moment are blatant mistruths.
At the very least, I would encourage anyone who is speaking on such matters to pick up the constitution and give it a once over first before they decide to lecture others about its contents.
Under section 51(XXVI) of the constitution, it gives the Australian Parliament the power to makes laws “with respect to: The people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”.
What do you think these laws have been used for in the past?
One example is in the Northern Territory Intervention.
This legislation contained specific provisions to allow the Government to discriminate against Aboriginal people and impose harsh conditions.
For Aboriginal people it suspended many rights that other everyday Australians share, most notably those contained in the Racial Discrimination Act.
This scheme was introduced in 2007 and it/later iterations of it didn’t end until 2022.
How did that go? Not well.
Still think we’ve been equal since 1967?
The Voice to Parliament is no silver bullet but giving a voice to the voiceless, to those who are still unjustly discriminated against under the law, will go a long way to make amends.
If equality is the real goal, fight for it, don’t use it as a counter argument against people who actually strive to find solutions to these problems.
Perhaps the greatest injustice of all is pretending that we are all equal, when in fact we never have been, not even under the law.
This is why I will be voting Yes.
Isaac Solomon Gawler East
