Thanks, ABC, for this article:
How different would the Voice to Parliament be from other advisory bodies?
It notes this:
There are currently 110 advisory committees or groups that "develop policies and provide advice on specific issues" registered on the federal government website.
Some of them you might have never heard of, or even noticed were advising the government, such as The National Blood Borne Virus and Sexually Transmissible Infections Surveillance Subcommittee or the Foods for Early Childhood Reference Group.
Each group holds a number of experts in their field, such as the 31 medical professionals who work for the aforementioned subcommittee on sexually transmitted diseases.
The Voice is expected to work in the same way in that it would be set up to give advice to the government
Question: is the expectation that "advisory committees" would in future not just be approaching Government directly with recommendations, but also (or alternatively?) having to urge the Voice to take up the issue? Is the Voice going to be a "filter" for all, or most, or none, of the current groups on recommendations to government?
The Voice group itself is said to likely be something like this:
The government hopes the Voice would be the first body designed with gender balance in mind and the members peer elected on a national scale.
According to a current proposal of the body, which is subject to consultative change, something else that differentiates the Voice from any other Indigenous advisory group is its geographical spread, of the proposed 24 members.
Two from each state and territory — 16 all up, five from remote communities, two from the Torres Strait and one representing Torres Strait Islanders on the mainland.
Individuals would serve four-year terms and would only be allowed to serve twice and two full-time co-chairs would be elected by the members themselves.
Now, for this group to be effective, and to potentially be on the receiving end of submissions from more than 100 current groups, there is no doubt at all that it is going to have to have a substantial staff. What's the likely staffing ratio, and the travel costs? I see that in 2004, an ATSIC commissioner got $136,000 or so in total remuneration. Bringing that up to date, I would guess that $200,000 would be in the ballpark? Times 24, that's less than $5 million, but does it include travel expenses, which I assume will be substantial. But how many staff does it need? The total cost might not be huge, in terms of government expenditure overall, but it's still a diversion of funds.
All of which is to achieve - what exactly? Essentially a "feel good" exercise in empowerment.
The fundamental reason for seriously considering a "no" vote is that such an organisation would be, essentially, an expensive duplication of advocacy that is already happening - and at least in some cases - already achieving results.
The reason such bodies might work fine in some countries, but the same is likely to be an ongoing source of friction in ours, is because of the size of Australia, which results in the vast number of "first nations" competing for attention for very differing issues in different parts of the country.
In short - there are a lot of racist and bad reasons for arguing against it. There are also solid practical reasons for at least considering a "No" vote...
Update: May God forgive me for what I am about to do: cite a Quadrant article with approval -
4 comments:
The fundamental reason for seriously considering a "no" vote is that such an organisation would be, essentially, an expensive duplication of advocacy that is already happening - and at least in some cases - already achieving results.
The ABC has a clear left wing bias. Even the guests on The Drum make that obvious and Ellen Fanning, now thankfully less often the host, is so biased I sometimes would not watch her.
Perhaps the ABC has been flooded with complaints about their bias in reporting on the Voice. I wish that would happen to The Guardian, their bias on that issue is way over the top.
I don't expect outlets to be without bias but I expect that bias to be constrained and kept within reasonable bounds.
For real bias though, Catallaxy and Trump can't be beat. I had a little game with them last night and they went after me time and again. That was an interesting little experiment that revealed to me, though obviously not to them, that is utterly pointless to make some people realise that the person they idolise might have a fault or two.
Yes, John, the ABC has a left wing bias, and always will have. But as my posts on the Voice have been showing, it's been oddly encouraging that the ABC reporting on the Voice has been open about grass roots opposition to it from within parts of the aboriginal community, and has really been providing evidence (sometimes inadvertently, as in today's story) that plenty of "listening" has been happening, and will continue to happen, without it.
On Trump: JC - who is more sensible on some issues than many at catallaxy - is nonetheless a complete idiot on Trump (calling him the "greatest president since Lincoln" I think he said the other day. Lulz)
You can see why psychologically Trump appeals to him (and people like Cohenite and Cassie): he gives them permission to be the worst people they can be, in terms of rudeness and name calling and culture warring. They love him because he would never call them out, being similarly immature.
Agreed, it is good to see the ABC doing as you mentioned. I have read some of those articles.
JC is OK, most of the time I respect his approach. Cohenite and Cassie like insulting people. They don't need Trump for that.
On The Drum tonight Michael Mansell canned the Voice and argued that when it obvious in April that there wasn't going to be bipartisan support the referendum should have been cancelled. So why did they continue? Why did Albanese not see the writing on the wall?
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