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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I want to know where the Liberal Party, and conservative politicians more generally, are in all this. This stuff has completely infected government, in addition to all the usual suspects like education and academia.

I have a certain level of non-public information which I can't really source for you since it's stuff I overheard. Apparently Dutton is doing his best to wreck the Voice without looking like he dislikes Indigenous people and split the Liberals (who have their own moderate touchy-feely pro-Voice wing). He is the guy who walked out on Rudd's Apology to the indigenous after all, plus has police experience. It's hard to think of anyone who would be more anti-voice in mainstream Australian politics than Dutton. But he doesn't have much control over the party considering how badly the Liberals have been doing electorally, he can't do much overtly.

The inner workings of the Indigenous groups behind the Voice are incredibly incompetent/dysfunctional and simultaneously grasping for more power. They're using the lack of clarity you mention as the thin end of the wedge to gain actual power. They're trying to phrase terms in ambiguous ways such that future courts will interpret more power to them, once they get the Voice through. (Though given how much they gained from Mabo, which found Indigenous agriculture and sedentary lifestyles on one island off the coast of Australia and extended a certain level of land rights across the whole country, waiting for courts to interpret in their favor is not a bad strategy).

Anyway, this tactic is pretty obvious to the much smarter legal advisers who've called for a more moderate, compromise position. But the advisers are largely ignored. Internal divisions within the Indigenous group are opening up and the whole Voice is headed to failure, according to what I've heard. But this may not happen, I don't have a crystal ball to see the future.

(Though given how much they gained from Mabo, which found Indigenous agriculture and sedentary lifestyles on one island off the coast of Australia and extended a certain level of land rights across the whole country, waiting for courts to interpret in their favor is not a bad strategy

The courts just noted that Terra Nullius was bullshit, and that there was pre-existing land-law just like in any other conquered territory. The courts also made clear that Australian governments could override that land law and extinguish Native Title with little more than a wave of the pen.

But Parliament, under Paul Keating decided pass Native Title Act which went and bolstered native title claims around the country.

I'm not a lawyer and can't confidently discuss this stuff, I can only relay what I heard from people who do have expert knowledge of this specific case. The native title that they granted was only really meaningful and effective in places where no Europeans had done anything with the land, basically just wilderness. But the principle of finding settlements on one island in the Torres Strait and then extending it across the whole country is bizarre and goes against a broad principle of law aiming to be specific as opposed to generalizing out from one edge-case.

If I ran the Liberal party, I would try and split the referendum into 2 questions. One that offers "constitutional respect" and one for the voice. Then people could vote yes:no and not be seen as not caring/being racist