While there's no doubt at all that the ABC takes a very sympathetic approach to all indigenous issues, last night's Four Corners, which involved discussions with both pro and anti Voice referendum voices, was pleasingly balanced.
Most surprising was the time given to regional local aboriginal activists who indicated that they were either going to vote no, or were sceptical of the whole idea, out of concerns that the Canberra based Voice was going to work against local communities getting what they wanted. In other words, they were saying exactly what I've been muttering here - the entire concept seems to about creating a new attempt at a bureaucratic filter to advice to government, which the local community organisations will need to convince on needs and issues, rather than their current ability to directly deal with government.
These "no" voters were not, it seemed, on the radical Left, who are against it for being insultingly inadequate. (One such person did feature, but was not given much air time.)
If anything (and I suspect that many Lefty journalists might have been grinding their teeth about this), the program really seemed to legitimatise a "no" vote for those who don't like the conservative "no" campaign, but just have objections to whole proposal on pragmatic grounds. Like me...
The inadequacy of the Voice in comparison to the desires of Aboriginal activists did occur to me early on when I contemplated why I didn't really like the idea. The activists want nothing less than a treaty - perhaps inspired and encouraged by, on the one hand, the relative successfulness of the Waitangi Treaty in New Zealand, on the one hand, and Bob Hawke's calls for a treaty on the other hand. I fear they are both right and wrong - right in that, on any metric, the Voice will be inadequate and useless; wrong, in that a Treaty will help much. The Waitangi Treaty is remarkable, but was struck between the Maori and the British at the end of a period of war; moreover, the Maori were relatively united in voice and purpose, having a single language and themselves a memory of their own colonial period. They were able to win concessions that Aboriginal Australians simply won't succeed at winning. Quite simply, any treaty written ostensibly between Aboriginal Australians and the rest of Australia will be written by the conqueror for the conqueror. Unless, of course, there is another war, which is a horrifying proposition.
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