Constitution

[Yenn]

There is a growing move to get Aboriginal acknowledgment into the constitution and it seems to be pushed by the media, especially the ABC.

 

The minister for Aboriginal affairs wants a referendum within 3 years. What we don't know is what is wanted. Our constitution is not the same as the USA constitution, which has a lot of information in it. Ours is basically a description of how government is to work.

 

It would be nice to know what the final aim of those pushing for change is. Is it just to acknowledge that the Aboriginals were here before the white man came and took over the country, or is it so that they can have a greater say in the running of the country?

 

After seeing the gay marriage event, which has ended up being a means of promoting LGBTQ or whatever it is and denying anyone the rights to disagree, I can see this a

 

 

[facthunter]

No one was ever forced to become Bi or Homo. Yenn.. Just HOW does someone else getting married affect your's, really.. The Australian CHRISTIAN LOBBY is not representing ALL Christians and what about OTHER types of religion to freely express their view also often to conflict with/ disadvantage of others views.? Since they all differ they can't ALL be right.. In fact there's a big possibility NONE of them are right. IF you are just giving ONE a say what a tin of worms you are opening up. Which Christian faith is pre-eminent? are WE going to emulate IRELAND? Let's stick to Australia being secular and keep religion OUT of politics . for the sake of sanity. Nev

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Let’s keep race out of politics too.

 

 

[old man emu]

Facthunter,

 

Don't jump on Yenn for one sentence in his post that is an aside to his main point.

 

As Yenn says, our Constitution is an operations manual for the governing of a indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established: (Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act )

 

The only reference to race specific laws is this:

 

51 Legislative powers of the Parliament

 

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:

 

(xxvi) the people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws;

 

There is nothing written in the Constitution that implies that it applies to any particular race. Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race is not an inherent physical or biological quality.

 

Because the Aborigines did not occupy the continent as one nation, but established many small countries with fixed borders and cultures, much the same as the people of Europe and Asia did on those continents, it is not possible to make treaties with "the Aboriginal People". Rather, the government would have to negotiate treaties with each tribal group.

 

The best way to recognise the prior occupation of the continent would be through a separate statement by the Federal Parliament. This could be done by amending the Australian Bill of Rights Bill (2017), which Bill I think is still under consideration.

 

 

[facthunter]

Can't see WHERE I mentioned RACE.. Ireland was quoted as an example in respect of a conflict between different Christians. RC and Protestant... Nev

 

 

[spacesailor]

"conflict between different Christians. RC and Protestant... Nev "

 

They tried to appease all, as in their flag. Green for the Catholics, Orange for the Protedants, & white for peace between them. (William of Orange)

 

"If you take a look at the Irish flag, you'll see that there are three colors. The orange color in the flag represents Irish Protestants, the green represents Irish Catholics as well as the Republican cause, and the white in the flag represents the hope for peace between Catholics and Protestants "

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

After seeing the gay marriage event, which has ended up being a means of promoting LGBTQ or whatever it is and denying anyone the rights to disagree, I can see this a

Facthunter,

 

That's the sentence I was referring to with my comment to you. Too bad he didn't finish it to make his point.

 

And I can't see where Yenn raised the spectre of religion. He was talking about amendments to one Act of the British Parliament which sets out how the British Parliament wanted a group of its colonies to function as a single nation.

 

 

[spacesailor]

"British Parliament wanted a group of its colonies to function as a single nation "

 

At the time NewZealand was to be included. they decided to go alone.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[facthunter]

Where is allowing a group a previously denied ceremony have any real effect on the others. ? No one is denied rights to marriage who hitherto had it. I guess the argument is it's somehow denigrated by allowing Gays to have it. I don't wear that argument. The Football thing was "this is NOT a workplace where gays will be vilified or discriminated against " and you sign up to that provision when you go there.. That's a bit of an improve from the times when poofter bashing after practice on the way home was common.. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

My comment about gays was to highlight the part that the media play nowadays in getting legislation passed. I have no problem with Gay marriage, I voted against it as I considered it ridiculous, but it was passed and I can live with it, no problems.

 

What I am trying to do is find out what is really being sought in this push for a referendum. I am afraid that it will become a media marathon, where anyone who does not toe their line will be howled down and accused of hypocrisy or worse.

 

 

[old man emu]

Yenn's right. Someone has yelled "Referendum" but no one has said a word about the Referendum question.

 

 

[spacesailor]

", I voted against it as I considered it ridiculous, but it was passed and I can live with it, no problems. "

 

I have yet to meet a Hetro who voted for it, seems strange All those Hetros were out-voted by such a small minority.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Marty_d]

", I voted against it as I considered it ridiculous, but it was passed and I can live with it, no problems. "I have yet to meet a Hetro who voted for it, seems strange All those Hetros were out-voted by such a small minority.

 

spacesailor

Really? I voted for it and so did most of the hetero people I know.

 

 

[octave]

", I voted against it as I considered it ridiculous, but it was passed and I can live with it, no problems. "I have yet to meet a Hetro who voted for it, seems strange All those Hetros were out-voted by such a small minority.

 

spacesailor

Clearly, the majority of heteros did vote for it. I am heterosexual but I voted for it. My philosophy is if I can extend a right that will make another person's life happier and not detract from my life then why would I not?

 

I am not on an aged pension but this does not mean I don't vote for governments who will increase the pension.

 

Homosexuality has always existed and always will. In the past, we debated whether a woman should be able to vote or whether mixed-race marriage was ok or not but those arguments now seem ridiculous as will same-sex marriage.

 

If my sister chooses to get married to her same-sex partner of 40 years I won't consider her or marriage as being ridiculous.

 

As someone who generally leans towards libertarianism, I am for people making their own decisions and for the government to only step in where there is a danger to others, such a danger has not been identified to me.

 

 

[Bruce]

I voted for it too. The story about Alan Turing on the new banknote shows that we have come a long way.

 

As far as Aboriginals are concerned, I reckon they ( along with many other categories of welfare recipients ) need more paternal care than they are getting. For example, their welfare money should be paid with a credit card which would not be valid for illegal drugs. This should be done in a non-racist way, unlike Howard's intervention attempt.

 

They need this far more than the ability to wreck tourism at Uluru.

 

 

[old man emu]

What is it that makes people hate homosexuality?

 

My thought is that those who hate homosexuality narrow-mindedly concentrate on the physical side of a relationship. They paint homosexuals as drooling sex-crazed fiends.

 

There's no doubt that, say from 16 to 30 years of age, people on both sides of the sexuality divide are sex mad. But how many still suffer from the same madness after maturing at about 30 years of age? It's pretty certain that a woman's libido comes away with the first placenta.

 

So, as people mature into adulthood, they settle into the social norms of home-making and career development. How do those mature adult activities differ if your partner is of the same or the opposite genetically determined phenotype?

 

So how about we ditch discussion of homosexuality in this particular thread and get back to discussing the pros and cons of recognising the various Aboriginal societies that were present at the time of European arrival and from whom wise immigrants can learn to use this land sustainably, and could be helped by studying the things Aborigines have themselves learned from it.

 

 

[Yenn]

If the aboriginals need paternal care why should they be given a voice in government as is suggested by the pro constitution change people.

 

Surely if they are so much in need of someone to speak for them, they cannot be suited to speaking for us.

 

I am not trying to denigrate aboriginals, but just pointing out that they cannot need paternal care and be able to patronise others.

 

It would seem that nobody here knows what the constitution change proposed is.

 

 

[Yenn]

OME your post arrived as I was writing my last one.

 

We have heard a lot about aboriginal culture during NAIDOC week.

 

It seems apparent to me that the original aboriginal population was constrained by the food supply. There was just enough for them to get by before the white man came and then suddenly there were 1400 extra mouths to feed in the Sydney cove area. That would not have done them any good at all, but it would not have affected tribes from 50 miles away or so until the white man moved out.

 

I have heard that the Aboriginals had gardens, but this is only recently been aired and I just wonder how true it is,I cannot recall reading anything from the early settlers or explorers about gardens being found.

 

There is a push recently to use bush tucker and it is promoted for good eating, but I have grown bush tucker and also foraged for it in the bush, believe me it doesn't produce large volumes of food and in a lot of cases it is not very palatable. If it produced more I am sure the original population would have been larger.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...I have heard that the Aboriginals had gardens, but this is only recently been aired and I just wonder how true it is,I cannot recall reading anything from the early settlers or explorers about gardens being found.

Early settlers (including my ancestors) had good reason not to publicise evidence of agriculture and farming by the people they were dispossessing. The popular myth that Aboriginals were hunter-gatherers was necessary for them to claim ownership of this continent; in the British legal system land ownership required a person to till the land.

 

Bruce Pascoe has found numerous reports by early white explorers of grain crops "to the horizon" as well as fish farming and permanent settlements built by First Australians.

 

 

Bruce Pascoe - Wikipedia

 

 

[Litespeed]

It is now widely known that the first proven agriculture was done here in Australia by the Aborigines.

 

To claim otherwise is more whitewashed history.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Includes extensive yam farming in NW western Australia.

 

 

[old man emu]

Notice where Aboriginals relied on agriculture - west of the eastern coastal ranges. The Aborigines who were encountered between 1788 and 1813 were living in a land of plenty where hunter/gathering was sufficient to supply sufficient food to allow those clans to allocate time to various philosophies.

 

Go west of the mountains and the Aborigines had to work harder to produce their food needs, but it seems that what was seen by Whites after 1813 was the cumulative result of many hundreds of years of work. That work allowed the production of sufficient food, so the western Aborigines could also allocate time to their philosophical studies.

 

Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. Nor were the extensive pre-Roman defensible hill-top settlements of Ancient Britain.

 

We are fools to ourselves if we don't apply modern agricultural techniques to indigenous food sources.

 

 

[Bruce]

Yes, we sure could live like Aboriginals and support about the same population of very thin and hungry people.

 

We may well be on the way to doing just that, what with climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation.

 

Getting back to the pre-european Aborigines..

 

With no idea about germs etc, they died very young. ( well it was not till the 1950's that antibiotics, in the form of penicillin, were available at all to civilians in Australia ) . They also could not support the elderly, who died when they could no longer keep up with the tribe. They also died frequently from combat, the adjacent tribes were hated far more than the arriving whites. If you came across a male from another tribe, it was kill or be killed.

 

Females were treated so badly that they were much better off with the white men who kidnapped them. They stayed with the rough white men instead of escaping back to their tribe.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Bruce what you say may be true of some situations, but it sure sounds like something the white invaders would say to justify their barbaric behaviour.

 

 

[Bruce]

They sure were bad , Old K.

 

There is a picture of about 6 young aboriginal men in chains " about to be marched to the nearest court at Port Augusta" for cattle stealing.

 

I have seen the picture, it was taken at heavitree gap at Alice Springs. The cop was on a horse. I can't find any more details. It haunts me.