About that indigenous Voice referendum

This is how I currently see it:

1.   It is correct to believe that the publicity given to the high crime rate in the Northern Territory, and elsewhere (including the recent high profile murder in Brisbane), from indigenous offenders is not going to help with the referendum to give a constitutional voice to aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.  Voting "yes" will be seen by some as akin to rewarding anti-social behaviour and a political grouping that has no control over its lawless members. 

2.  I understand the irony in this - the indigenous advocacy world will insist that because they haven't had the type of input needed to government, the social situation has deteriorated, and the Voice is what is needed, in the long run, to help address entrenched disadvantage, etc.  

3.   But the problem is - let's be honest here - what really is the basis for believing that this means of giving input into government decisions has any prospect of achieving better results on the ground than that of past and current input?   I mean, the final report of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process makes it 100% clear that there is already a lot of effort to gain local input, even after ATSIC was wound up, and the Voice seems to be just more of the same.   This example of the (awful) bureaucratic writing style of the report explains:

I can't help but feel that the whole Voice idea is just an attempt at creating some sort of supercharged resurrected version of ATSIC - have a look at this article about it worked while it existed - which is very much about bureaucratic empire building that doesn't address the fundamental problem of internal conflict within the world of indigenous advocacy, which is my next point.       

 4.   Isn't the problem that indigenous politics is fraught with internal dissent, particularly over the extent to which government (or local communities) can be "paternalistic" in trying to address issues such as alcohol and drug use, domestic violence, and how people can spend their money?    There are always elements within indigenous advocacy - often within the same community - which will welcome strict controls as the only way to make a dysfunctional community safer, and other elements which will decry such steps as being against freedom, self control and self determination.     

How is the Voice going to help with that fundamental problem?   

 5.   Unfortunately, I think there is some truth to the conservative criticism that aboriginal advocacy has become dominated by urban academia (with, for whatever reason, a very heavy slant towards women) for whom university jobs and consultation to government are a solid way to earn a living, without having to experience the worst of lived realities.  There is also an increasing radicalism to a lot of  indigenous advocacy (especially from the young) - and it's as wildly impractical as the communists of the 50's and 60's thinking that if only capitalism could be overthrown and we all start again, every problem could be fixed.    Even someone like Noel Pearson, who still will sometimes sound conservative-ish on matters such as the importance of education to enable young people to grow up and engage in the "real" economy, is now prone to hyperbole if he doesn't get his way, with this unhelpful contribution:

Pearson reduced the issue to the simple question: “Are we going to vote ‘yes’ for reconciliation through constitutional recognition?”

“This year is the most important year in the past 235 […] and this referendum is the most important question concerning Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians since the first fleet.

"What is at stake is the chance for reconciliation. And if this referendum is kiboshed through game playing and a spoiling game by the opposition, we will lose the opportunity I think forever,” Pearson told the ABC.

If the referendum were lost, “then I can’t see how the future will be anything other than protest. The Indigenous presence in this country will forever be associated with protest”, rather than reconciliation being achieved.

6.  The increased radicalism in rhetoric is not going to help - continually encouraging economically disadvantaged people to believe that their problems are always someone else's fault is not a winning strategy, at least when you are numerically a small percentage of the entire population.   At a time when there is genuine (and justified) concern over increased lawlessness amongst indigenous youth, it is positively counter-productive.  

7.   Here is how I saw the swings in political views on indigenous matters in a post in 2014:

Look at aboriginal issues - Labor was embarrassed by being gullible on Hindmarsh Island, and Bob Hawke weeping over claimed aboriginal sites; by the end of the Howard government, they were supporting the intervention in the Northern Territory and had a tougher approach to limiting alcohol than the current Liberal government.  (In truth, both parties have moved somewhat to the centre.  The Coalition's panic about native title is now seen as greatly exaggerated, and most in the party were fairly gracious about the Rudd apology.)

Now, if we really were still "centrist", the Liberals would not be playing political games on the Voice as Dutton clearly is.   But in a way, the Labor approach to this referendum was pretty much an open invitation to the Coalition parties to play politics.   If it fails, I think (contra Pearson) it will be the chosen tactics of the pro-Voice camp which will have caused it - almost a case of snatching defect from the jaws of victory.

8.   I therefore am feeling uncomfortable about the whole process - I don't have a problem with constitutional recognition, but in the bigger picture, the exercise feels like its an expensive and pretty pointless reinvention of ATSIC. 

This is going to make me sound uncomfortably close to Andrew Bolt and the Sky News set - but the trajectory of indigenous advocacy and rhetoric here seems now to be largely leading in the wrong direction, and I don't see any hopeful signs of a correction.   There's Jacinta Price, whose rare conservative voice is blunt and seems to align with my concerns, but she also seems very isolated within the world of indigenous advocacy.   Noel Pearson used to be somewhere in the ballpark of a straight talking advocate for indigenous self improvement, but as I say, he seems to have a mixed record and is now more Lefty mainstream.  I think Warren Mundine is just a bit of a goose, and I don't see him helping one way or another.  

I think there is a risk of the referendum failing, and increased protest from the advocates leading to worse outcomes - a hardening of mainstream sentiment against indigenous politics.   

We'll see.  

Update:    Further to my point about increased radicalism, often coming from women (when it used to be young men with the reputation for calling for revolution), and who we are supposed to listen to: