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Okay, dear listener, this is a continuation of the podcast from last

week, part two, the discussion I had with Paul and Joe, uh, to do with Indigenous

matters largely, and here we go.

Just getting back to the building analogy, and people might think this

is a crazy analogy, but it's um, um, let's, let's, let's work with it.

Um, so I say the solution was to consult with disabled persons and experts

and come up with a plan to transition buildings to enable disabled access.

Now, imagine, here's one of the problems.

Imagine if they set up an advisory body made up of disabled people that

define disabled people as anyone who's a descendant of a disabled person.

Whether or not they've lived, they have lived experienced as a disabled person.

That's to sort of highlight One of the issues of choosing people as

representatives of Indigenous people.

I don't think that analogy holds.

Well, let me, you know, when we're looking at Indigenous issues, and, and

overcoming Indigenous problems, our mind typically turns to remote communities

as one of the first areas that we think about, and just the images that we

see coming out of those communities.

And if we have on these special bodies, people who are not from that background

and not from that experience, they...

You know, if, if, uh, if they don't have that lived experience themselves, they're

no different to you or me, potentially.

So just having an identity as Indigenous does not necessarily make

you somebody who's appropriate to advocate on behalf of people who,

whose experience might be completely foreign to an inner city lawyer.

Indigenous person whose parents are both doctors and who went to private school and

who is then purporting to, um, to speak on behalf of remote Indigenous communities.

But I don't think that's, I, I feel like that's conflating very different

contexts and to let, to sort of draw a parallel to the building, right, if

If someone said, um, well, as a blind person, um, I'm the sole person that

gets to decide how this building is constructed, then we'd say no, actually we

should consult a wide variety of people.

I don't think, Joe's gone, um, I don't think that anyone in the Uluru

Statement is saying that a person from Redfern is the only person that's

qualified to talk to from, you know, to talk about the problems in Yuendumu.

That's why you have a council.

That's why you have a wide variety of people, because the person that

has come from Redfern may be well placed to talk about the problems.

In Redfern might be, so you get the person, person from Redfern to talk

about the problems from Redfern.

You get the person from Uen to talk about the problems from Uen

and the overall result of that.

Maybe they have different problems.

They may well be, and this is, this is obviously, and so maybe they're not,

maybe they're not a homogenous group.

Sure.

But neither are Australians, so, so maybe it's not appropriate to have.

An Indigenous commission purporting to speak on behalf of what is

an incredibly disparate group.

Maybe their aspirations and thoughts and feelings.

Just going back to the analogy, just to point out how it works.

Back to our Disabled People 1 body.

So, imagine if the new body was tasked not only with advising about

physical access needs of the disabled.

but also tasked with promoting the commonly held ideological aspirations

of the disabled community as if they have a common ideology on the basis that

all dis I'm not sure how On the basis that all disabled people think the same.

The point is, um, if you have disabled representatives speaking about the

discrete topic of how do we fix disabled access to a building, Then, it's easy

to imagine a common, a common response.

by disabled people as to the best ways of fixing things.

It's, it's easy to imagine they would have agreement on, on, on,

on, but Joe's saying not even on that level, but, but I'm just...

Not even on that level, because a blind person is going to have different access

requirements to a person in a wheelchair.

access, for example.

If we're just talking about, we've got a set of stairs, we've

got a way of getting through.

To a lift or a ramp or whatever, it's easy to imagine people coming to a common

view of, of how this is best solved.

But when we're talking about Indigenous affairs, we're talking about, uh, it's not

about, uh, such a physical, discreet, uh, topic that is, that is so common to all.

We're talking about things where people have vastly, potentially different

opinions on how things should be done.

And for a, a body to purport to represent Indigenous people, smacks of, of.

Well, they all think the same, so of course they're all going

to think along these lines.

But isn't that fundamentally what our government already asserts?

In what sense?

Like, representative democracy essentially asserts that the Prime Minister, as the

elected person who's been elected by his party, or his or her party, to be

the leader of that the party that wins the most seats in federal government,

they get To represent Australia, um, that's what representatives...

But they don't pretend to speak on behalf.

They don't pretend to speak...

They do all the time.

Scott Morrison did this all the time.

A good leader, a good leader often...

Quiet Australians.

A good leader after a victory has often said, Look, I thank the people who

voted for me, but I recognise there were people who didn't vote for me.

And I'm going to try and win your vote next time.

Sure.

Right?

I mean, and that's the reality of how we think about, uh, our elected politicians.

Is that we know that they don't speak on behalf of everybody.

We know it.

You know it.

It's, it's, it's insulting to Indigenous people to suggest a body

could, could speak on behalf of what are such different communities.

The, the Indigenous community in a city.

Compared to a remote community that the, there, there are the thought that

they think the same, uh, is insulting.

I don't think anyone is asserting that.

They have to think that just by having a body that therefore everyone

thinks the same in the same way.

That's, that's my government analogy.

The point, the point is that we would be foolish to assume that the Prime

Minister speaks for all Australians.

Mm-hmm.

Or that.

Yeah, your local member absolutely, absolutely represents the views of

every single person in that electorate.

So the idea that what, what you seem to be, what I'm saying is that I, I reject

the premise of your argument that the, The, there is a, an invalidity in having

a First Nations voice because there cannot be one voice, and I don't, I don't think,

firstly, I don't think it's purporting to be the, the true voice that speaks

absolute truth for every single Aboriginal person, but also, What I would still say

is it's much more likely to represent the actual views of Aboriginal people

than Tony Abbott or, you know, whoever Scott Morrison might, um, um, appoint

as his minister for Aboriginal people.

Um, that, that is, you know, when...

John Howard worked diligently to abolish ATSIC.

He did it on exactly that basis, that we're all one Australia, and therefore we

shouldn't have a separate voice telling us different things, which is a falsehood.

What is the Uluru Statement?

Is it not a purported statement on behalf of Indigenous people?

it, it's it.

There are people that walked outta that conference.

There people that haven't there, there are aboriginal people

that haven't signed up to it.

That is, but does, does it, does it acknowledge in there that people.

That is the form that the majority of those people came to after what I

understand to be months of deliberation, of going to every community that

they could, getting representatives from all across Australia, from

the, from the, you know, from Redfern to the Pilbara, whatever.

Um, it's, you know, so, so, so to me the reductionist argument that says,

well, so this must be one true thing.

So, so, so the body is a bad way.

So the body is in representing indigenous people is going to say, uh, on this

particular issue of, um, religious.

Past as entering, uh, remote communities.

45 percent of our members think this and the other half think that.

And, uh, dear Parliament of Australia, please take that into account.

Um, is that the value of it?

Why not?

That would be perfectly good if it was like that, because it would at least tell

those members of parliament more than they get at the moment, which is only the

representation of their own electorate.

So do we need a body to do that?

If that's, if it's really just, if it's really just a body that says,

uh, we've surveyed our members and this is what they think.

Because ultimately, they can't purport to speak on behalf of their

members because they're unelected.

For exactly the same reasons that we cannot trust builders to, um, to

voluntarily build a building that is disabled friendly without having...

laws and without having a consultative committee and without having a whole

process built into the art, the whole engineering and architecture

design of a building that says we need to think about these things.

Where do we find that information from?

From disabled advocates and from disabled support groups.

Where do we find out?

Yes, and let's have an ATSIC or let's have a group whose job is to find

out what Indigenous people want.

Yes.

But, but what is this empower, this special power to be

granted to Indigenous people?

Because that's beyond, that's beyond a survey taking role.

It is, it is an empowerment of some sort.

And it's, and it's a power that's going to be wielded by some people.

And it's going to be a...

From the, from the, from the statement itself.

It says, um, so it's the one, two, three, four, five, six, last paragraph.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take

rightful place in our own country.

Okay.

When we have power over our own destiny, our children will flourish.

They will walk in two worlds, and their culture will be a gift to their country.

I mean, I talked about the vision, so it's all...

I feel like that's a misreading of power here.

I don't think that that is saying we want power over anyone.

I think that is simply saying we are disempowered at the moment.

And we would like...

our own self determination back.

Well, well, we would like equal power with white people.

Is that what you're saying, the meaning?

That's not how I read it.

That, um, I don't think it's particularly talking about the power of white people,

but I think ultimately I would say yes.

Right.

Sorry.

Sorry, Joe.

Is this separate but equal?

So, so we have our own effectively, uh, parliament the indigenous

that is separate from...

I mean, there's the, the, the Sámi people have a Sámi parliament in, um, Sweden,

Finland, and that reports to the Swedish parliament and the Finnish parliament.

on Sámi matters, and it helps them form laws that govern the Sámi people.

Even though neither Sweden nor Finland recognise the Sámi as

having sort of land that is like, here's the border kind of thing.

Um, so I feel like that's a kind of separate but equal model, is that

what you're talking about, Joe?

If they're just reporting about the Sámi people...

Then, that's not about power then.

No, it's more, you know, um, if you take somewhere like Malaysia, if you

are Muslim, there are Sharia courts, there are Sharia laws that apply only

to Muslim people, and therefore would there be Aboriginal laws that only

apply to Aboriginal people, or white people laws that only apply to white

people, because that's the concern.

I have no idea, but I can't imagine that getting very far, even with Aboriginal

people, because nothing in that, to me, in the way that I read it, based

on the discussion that I've heard about it, says we want our own laws, we want

our, we want to be separate to you.

It's in, it's in fact saying we want to walk with you, we want us

together as Australian people, um.

And, you know, on a practical sense, I don't think that they would, you know, any

law that said, um, this law only applies to Aboriginal people, would actually

get anywhere in Australian Parliament.

Or...

It applies only to, I'd hope not, you know, um, Swedish people or,

you know, um, people who are left handed, you know, I don't know.

See, it says here, these dimensions of our crisis tell plainly of the structural

nature of our problem, which implies a structural solution is required.

And it goes on, this is the torment of our powerlessness.

Yeah, disempowered.

Yeah.

But it's different, that's a different process, sorry, that's a different quality

of thing to having, to taking power.

So look, if it's just a matter of reporting what, uh, other

thoughts and wishes and needs and problems of Indigenous communities.

Then, no problem.

Sure.

And that's what happened to ATSIC.

Bob Hawke brought about ATSIC because...

Um, Gough Whitlam had formed one body to have, um, to be an Aboriginal voice

to parliament and Fraser abolished it.

So Bob Hawke brought back ATSIC, um, and John Howard abolished it.

So what the, what the Aboriginal people are saying is we cannot trust anything

that a parliament can then dissolve.

We have to have this enshrined in our constitution.

And now I will admit that.

I don't think this is a great solution, because I don't really want these

things written into our constitution.

I think it would be great if there was an end date, but I absolutely cannot,

I could not say, okay, by 20, you know, by At 2300, racism will be abolished,

so I think no end date, and the point at which this becomes irrelevant, we

will already have voted to abolish it.

But until then...

So it's the enshrining in the Constitution of a reporting function.

I think that's a very, it's a simplistic way of looking at it, but yes.

Interesting to see what he's proposed, um, I think the fear is, uh, that it's,

it's more contemplative of special rights, uh, rather than just a reporting of,

and a recommendation of, of assistance.

But this is exactly the same argument that, um, you know, it was run against,

um, uh, you know, pick a bunch of things like marriage equality or, um, the,

the ability of making it easier to be divorced, um, you know, giving, I mean,

even, you know, given giving women suffrage, the, the argument was, well,

you know, Um, think of the consequences, what, what, what terrible things could

happen if we allow women to vote.

Uh, you know, it's turned out actually just to be representative of our society.

Um, so I didn't, no one's saying that Aboriginal

people can't vote, sorry Joe, but Aboriginal people can vote.

Sure.

This isn't an equivalent to suffrage.

They already.

I'm purely, sorry, I'm purely focusing on that issue from the point of view of, um,

the, the, one of the anti You know, the arguments against women's suffrage was,

My wife is a total ditherhead and she'll never make a good decision in her life, so

she shouldn't be given the right to vote.

Um, and that's, I feel, what any argument about You know, I'm, I'm afraid of what

laws the, uh, Macarata Commission, um, comes up with that we need to pass because

they could be terrible things that, you know, blight Australia for all eternity.

That's, that's my, you know, that's where I hear that echo.

I don't know.

I'm just reading it.

Have you made sense there or is the beer really kicking in now?

I'm just, I'm just reading it as, as a request for power for a separate group.

This is, I read it.

And I don't think it'll fly with the people who are not in that group.

The good news is, Trevor, you're in the minority there.

Here's the other way of looking at it is, um, you know, if, if it needs to be

enshrined in the Constitution, a reporting function about the plight of Indigenous

communities, caring function has to be enshrined in the Constitution because

the risk is that future generations...

will want to ignore that responsibility unless they're forced to by the

constitution, then the problem is not solved by the constitution.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, if your society has degenerated to such a point that inherently it doesn't

care about Indigenous people and it's only doing something because it's in

the constitution and that they can't get rid of it because it's too difficult?

Then, then you've got a bigger problem.

That's kind of a false equivalence to me.

Um, the, you know, the, the point of the, the, this being in the constitution

is because any other lesser, um, any other commission with a lesser,

existence, something that just exists by virtue of the law, can be taken away.

And therefore, um, you know, the, part of, part of this to me is kind of what

I said before about trust, that the problem The problem in part here is that

since the 67 referendum, there have been, the Aboriginal people have seen that

there are governments that are perfectly prepared to take their rights away and

ignore them and make them the problem.

You know, the, and so the, in order, I guess the, the, the other way of

looking at the commit, the, the, um, constitution part of this is to say, okay,

we can see that we have done you wrong.

by a bunch of bad decisions of previous governments and we would like to make

sure you understand our commitment to you as an Aboriginal people by, by putting

this in the constitution where we can't touch it until all of the people or enough

of the people agree to touch it again.

That's good.

That's a good argument.

Okay.

I like that one.

Um, that's, that's got some merit to it.

Um, what, what would this, what would happen differently than what's

happening now in terms of reporting and assisting and, I mean, it's, is

there not enough consultation at the moment with Indigenous communities?

Is, is it only an Indigenous body?

What can an Indigenous body do?

Look at what happened when Malcolm Turnbull, like Malcolm Turnbull

went to the aboriginal, you know, communities and said, we'd like you to

come up with something that as an an Australian people, we, you know, the,

that all of us can agree will help the Aboriginal people going forward.

And the Aboriginal people went away for months and months, did this, came back

with the Uluru State Front in their heart, and literally the same day,

without Even reading it, Turnbull said, no, no way, not even looking at it.

That, that is how, that is how much respect some of those people

have for that sort of process.

And what was his reason?

He didn't give one.

He's later said that he made a mistake, as Barnaby Joyce did by when

Barnaby Joyce said it was a third, you know, third House of Parliament.

So that was Turnbull's reasons as well?

Um, In that it seemed to set up a separate class of people with special

rights, wasn't it along those lines?

I don't remember a, I don't remember Turnbull even giving it a specific reason.

I just, I think he just said the Australian people would not accept this.

Yeah.

And this was after him going to them and saying, please tell us.

You want to then say, actually, no, the Australian people, me as the

representative of the Australian people have unilaterally decided

that, no, I'm not going to accept that, that that's the problem.

Yes.

But my recollection though, was he gave reasons along the lines

of this sets up special rights.

for certain people, certain group, as in a special rights problem.

So, um.

Yeah, and he later said that was a mistake, but.

See, I.

That.

Alright, well, you know what we'll do?

We need to, at another episode or another time, come back with what

Malcolm Turnbull's reasons were.

Because after all, it's entirely possible to say to a group, Hey guys, what's

your view on what we should do here?

And for the victim group to come up with a response where you just

go, I think you've gone too far.

Like, like, like, I can't wait to say, but I think you've gone too far.

So, so, um, so, um, you need to take a break.

You come back.

Joe and I, will talk about other things.

You come back and then we'll, um, Back in a sec.

Yeah, you did that.

We'll keep going.

So, Paul's just having, uh, he'll be back in a moment, and, uh, oh look,

why don't I, oh, I'm scared now, Joe.

Do I dare look, do I dare look at the chat room?

Start from the bottom.

From the bottom comment, Anne says, his right wing party was Turnbull's problem.

Uh, Bronwyn said, well said Paul.

I think that was in the bit that I said was a good argument.

At least it was.

By enshrining it in the Constitution, you are indicating to Indigenous people

how seriously you take the issue, which I think is a good argument.

Um, uh, somebody's got a Mac that's giving him problems.

Um, Chris.

Um, let me see.

He's been pouring beer on the keyboard, I believe.

Has he?

Okay.

Uh, uh, Roman says, Surely it's obvious that such a commission should

have diverse representation and it would be a governance requirement.

for this to be assured.

Yeah.

Such a diverse representation because there is such a diverse, potentially,

series of opinions, um, which is why, if it's purporting to take action or,

or use power on behalf of a group, it seems dangerous to me because

they can't purport to Um, I feel it's unlikely the group would be unanimous

or not even, you know, on many issues would have very different opinions.

Uh, what else is in the, I was just going, um, Paul, I was just going

through the chat and, um, and I'm sure you've got plenty of support in

there, uh, especially from Bronwyn.

Um, and, uh, I, I just seeing Chris's comment there, I guess.

Like I...

My first reaction to that is...

I'll just read it, so that for the people who are listening.

Yeah, go ahead.

Can I ask a truly blonde slash ignorant question?

Should Aboriginals get special consideration slash rights

over anyone else in Australia?

Being that no one, like Trev said, from that generation is still alive.

I'm not being racist, just curious what the answer is.

So, this is, you know, What are we talking about with the issues

here with Indigenous people?

Is it their current plight of certain Indigenous communities and people

who are doing it tough, or is it inherited grievance from what was

done to their ancestors, or both?

I...

I think the, I'm absolutely not going to pretend to actually speak for these

people, but the conversations that I've heard on this tend to just say

the, we have a bunch of issues which are caused by structural problems

in Australian society at the moment.

And that's the issue that we want.

Those are the issues that we want to deal with.

Now, there have been other things like, um, the, uh, withholding or

underpaying of pensions and salaries for Aboriginal workers in Western Australia

and things like that, where, yeah, there's kind of been complicated...

Um, this person was owed this, this much and they never got paid it

and then, you know, and then their granddaughter, you know, tries to

get the money, things like that.

And that's kind of another separate question there.

But I guess coming at it from the, the structural problem point of view here,

um, I don't think that we need to.

Um, well, the implication, the, the, the problem here is that we

have a system which is, which is racist, but is pretending not to

be because it doesn't mention race.

And the way to solve that as the, as they discovered in the U.

S.

is not by making sure that the rules.

The laws don't mention race.

Sometimes it's by enacting positive discrimination that says these

people are treated, um, okay, let's say are treated better.

And I, as a white male, don't actually have a problem with that.

There are so, the proportions of populations we're talking about here,

if all of those people got, you know, a tenth of my salary for free, then,

uh, we could probably hide that in the defence budget and no one would notice.

You know, we probably spent more on, um, submarines than we did on, you know, That

we then we would if we just gave people kind of a positive discrimination, just

positive discrimination amount of money.

And that's not really what we're talking about.

Those people are wanting either.

Is it about money?

Because quite often it's about jobs.

It's yeah.

And you're saying.

We are hiring people who are not necessarily the best person for the

role but because they fit a certain demographic and therefore we are

getting suboptimal, if that makes sense.

Sure.

Let me sort of touch on a thing that my work in particular has

done over the last couple of years.

Um, we had, in 2020, we hired four, basically, university graduates.

And...

We said, basically the deal was, if you're keen to work for the company

that I work for, we will throw training at you for a year, and as long as you

meet objectives along the way, then, um, you, you have a career path here.

And the thing that really interested me about that, those four junior

consultants that started it.

was they were actually all, all four of them for different minorities.

We didn't hire them for that, but we said, you know, actually fitness for job is.

is irrelevant because we can throw job training at you.

What we care about is, are you keen to work?

And that was it.

We didn't ask, are you from some special category or not?

But, um, we, and we've done the same program this year.

We have about, uh, you know, like a kind of a similar variety of people,

not all from minorities anymore.

But, you know, the.

Um, I feel like the fallacy, there's a fallacy inherent in the argument

that, um, we have to hire the best person for the job, just by virtue of

the fact that actually, no, you don't have to hire the best person, the

most qualified person, sometimes what you need to hire is the person who

wants to work there the most, who's going to be the keenest to work there.

But I'd also say that.

argument suffers from, um, the, the implicit bias problem.

That we, there's countless studies showing that as soon as you, you know,

introduce information about gender into, um, resumes, there is, those, resumes that

the ones with male names get chosen for specific jobs and the ones with female

names get chosen for other specific jobs.

And there's just this inherent bias, even though they've tested, you know, like

they literally give the same, um, the same resume formatted differently with two

different people's names and the male one gets chosen and the female one doesn't.

For an IT job, say.

Similar things with an Indian name as well.

Sure, for sure.

I would argue that the way to counter that is to blind your resumes

rather than to say we're going to weight our outputs in a certain...

I mean...

Isn't that a kind of weighting?

No, it's just blinding it.

The...

there's another bias in that.

Um, so I...

Yeah, I agree.

I'm prepared to agree that by blinding the resumes, you've,

you've eliminate one source of bias.

There's also, uh, a study that was done where if, um, jobs in

IT companies focused on technical skills, then more males, um, applied.

And if even it was, if it was the same actual job, like a managing position,

say, but if they focused on the people skills side of the job, then more women

applied, even though it was the same job, and even though you might be looking at

the same qualifications of candidate.

Um, and then there's the third problem that Um, and yeah, there's

another program that they're working on in the company that I work for,

which is called Return to Work.

And the basic idea is that people, if you've been away, uh, out of the

IT industry, because I work in the IT industry, um, if you've been away

from that industry for a while and you want to come back in, Then you apply

through this Return to Work program, and again, we throw training at you,

because we know that if those people are keen to work for us, then that gap

in their resume doesn't really count.

The, a lot of, there are a lot of professions where if you have that gap

in your resume, because you've been a stay at home dad or a stay at home mum

for a couple of years, you, because you needed to take care of an aged parent,

then there are a lot of jobs which will just implicitly frown on that.

Then you have the question, um, you know, I heard a fantastic interview

from a lady, um, who was from, like, Liverpool and Sydney, and

she's a high flying businesswoman.

One guy literally stopped talking to her and walked away when he found

out where she was from, because, oh, you're from the poor suburbs.

You know, the problem is that for, you know, and he didn't look at her resume.

He didn't look at her, you know, any of her qualifications.

Um, a lot of companies are still going to do basically a you know, a

video link or face to face interview, so you're going to, they're going

to see your gender and their skin, your skin color sooner or later.

There are still all these opportunities for implicit bias.

There's the, do you go to Ipswich grammar or did you go to Ipswich high school

or did you go to Brisbane grammar?

Because, you know, their bus was, like, you know, close by.

Um, you know, a friend of mine in the same suburb went to Twitch Grammar.

Um, other people in the same suburb probably went to Kenmore High.

You know, those...

That, just that fact can bias a resume.

Oh, um, a pretty face is going to get hired, a taller person

is going to get promoted.

Yeah, there are lots of biases in there.

And a lot of this bias affects, you know, different identities.

Not just Indigenous, and different social classes.

So, working class.

And, you know, one of the points in critical race theory is that the

intersection of those, you know, an Aboriginal woman is going to face a bunch

more problems than an Aboriginal person or a woman sort of combined, you know.

But the concern is, yeah, where you get in the US.

the College Admissions Board, who've now defined Asians as being white because

too many Asians were coming to Harvard.

And there was a special sort of Asian entrance kind of allowance.

Is that, was that the point?

Well, it was a reduced allowance.

They were saying basically too many Asians were turning up because they

weren't a good enough minority, uh, and therefore they reduced the number of

Asians coming through because they were scoring consistently high SAD scores.

So there was a discrimination against Asians in Harvard.

Certainly a lot of, um, there has been a thing in the last few years in the US of

the Ivy League schools have been pushing back on the number of Asians because

it wasn't suiting the demographics.

And it was almost engineering demographics.

I mean, there is an argument, if you have large organisations,

that you would want them to...

Be representative of the community that you are serving, and that it would

be good business practice to do that.

So, um, Yes, and it would also be nice to live in a not racist society.

Yes.

So how does our current parliament fare in terms of Indigenous representation?

I don't know, probably fairly, um, poorly, if you actually

want representation, maybe.

Um, it's actually, there were two.

Uh, both the, uh, representatives from the Northern Territory

were Indigenous, weren't they?

Um, so we might actually be kind of close to the three percent, um, average, but

you know, the, again, just because there is three percent, you know, say three

percent representation in the, the federal parliament doesn't mean we've dealt with

any of the other structural problems.

No, no, but it is kind of relevant when we're talking about a voice to parliament.

in that we are implicitly saying Parliament is not hearing what

Indigenous people, uh, from Indigenous communities enough.

And, you know, when we look at other identity groups, we would say...

They're not required to.

Yeah, we would look at other, uh, minority groups and we would say, you

know, obviously there's a disabled community, a component in the community.

There should be some disabled people in our Parliament if

things are working out right.

Um...

Uh, so...

So, let's look at Senators, because, let's face it, the House of

Representatives is unrepresentative swill.

Just flipping over the um, competing statement, because, you know, I mean,

you've only got to look at the number of votes that the Greens get in the

House of Reps, and the number of seats, compared to the number of votes that the

Nationals get, and the number of seats.

It's an unrepresentative chamber, in that sense.

Whereas the Senate, uh, we're getting closer to representing the actual votes

in terms of the number of representatives.

So, 76 Senators, uh, four of them who identify as Indigenous, so 5.

3%.

And the, um, latest census figures were that, uh, in the Australian

population, it was, um, 3.

2%.

So yeah, kind of over representative in the Senate.

So so one counter argument to a special voice to Parliament would be well The

Parliament is meant to represent our community and on the face of it Uh, the

Senate does, um, except the, I don't know who those indigenous senators are,

but I would wager that the Senate is not obliged to, you know, listen to them.

I mean, I, I I think it's very interesting that the independents, um, are in

the house of reps and Federal house of reps are, are, um, calling for.

I can't remember where this got up to, but they're calling for more time to be

given to independent bills, um, yeah, and for essentially for the government to give

in, you know, give up the Dorothy Dixers and the Labor said no to that, but, um.

Yeah.

Again, the problem is just because they have a representative there does

not mean, and to kind of borrow your argument from before, doesn't mean that

that one person can truly represent, say, you know, any particular issue.

I'm sure that Linda Burney, Ken Wyatt, Senator Pat Dodson, Jackie Lambie,

uh, Maland, Mulundiri McCarthy and Senator Lydia Thorpe would be advocating

pretty strongly for Indigenous rights and consideration as they

deal with bills from time to time.

Sure.

Would they not?

But the Senate doesn't have the ability to create new legislation,

only the House of Reps has the ability to start that process.

I mean, they're in the Parliament.

Yeah, sure.

You know, they get, they get some voice, but it's, it's all of them.

And the voice to Parliament is not going to have any power to initiate

any legislation either, is it?

Because it's not going to have any power, apparently.

Well, we don't know what that, what that looks like.

I'm interested just to quickly pick something that Chris has said.

Right.

Does the Aboriginal community consider themselves our community?

End.

I guess I would just, my reaction to that is just to say, some of them do,

but I can understand, um, the structural racism problem makes them feel like

they are not part of our community, you know, in the same way that, you

know, I don't know, I can go, you know, go down to the mall and, yeah.

ask someone for a, you know, to borrow their phone to make a phone call.

Um, they may not feel like they can do that kind of thing.

Um, so, but I don't think that's, like, the thing I really wanted to kind of

address on that is, was just that I don't think that's, Um, worth focusing

on the question is whether they, whether some people might feel alienated or not.

The question is, do we want them to feel alienated?

And I don't think we do.

If people were feeling alienated, do you think they'd be trying to

hide their Indigenous identity?

I mean, if you're a persecuted group and being an Indigenous was a disadvantage.

So if you could pass as a white person, would you claim to be an Aboriginal?

Yes.

If you were being systematically discriminated against.

So I heard an interesting version of that from a Dalit woman from India

and the Dalit are the untouchable caste, the people that you're not

supposed to ever deal with and, and.

And the real problem with the cast system is that there is

nothing you can do to escape it.

You cannot be born out of that cast.

You cannot learn or promote yourself out of that cast.

The only way you can escape is by pretending that you

are not from that cast.

But of course, as soon as you...

encounter any other Indian person, especially the, um,

the, uh, the higher caste people, they will ask, oh, where are you from?

Oh, what's your surname?

Oh, that's an interesting one.

I have, you know, where's that from?

You know, and they will track you down.

They don't have to ask, are you Dalit?

They can just work it out by your background and You know, your,

your surname and your, uh, and so these people have to actually

pretend that they are people they're not, they've changed their names.

So because of their persecution, because of the hard time they get.

They, they will take steps to downplay or, or hide that, that cast.

Because that's, for those people, they, that is the only way they can escape that.

And so I would agree that there are going to be some people that, you

know, again, we're talking about a, we can't make a homogenous.

judgment about a heterogeneous group.

You know, there are some people that are going to say, no, absolutely,

I will stand up and claim my race.

There are some people that will quietly hide it.

And there are probably situations in which some people would do both, you

know, in one circumstance and the other.

So, you know, I don't, but again, I don't think that Should be seen as a

kind of unifying problem or unifying principle, like it's, it's not that,

um, You know, if someone denies being Aboriginal in one circumstance,

therefore they're no good, you know?

I'm not saying they're no good.

I'm just, I'm just, um, I'm just...

Sure, but other people would make that judgement, so...

You know, I'm not disputing that there is, um, you know, racism in

Australia, different circumstances, but it's always going to be a

question of, of how much, and there's always a spectrum, and if you, um...

Look at the statistics on people identifying as Indigenous.

Um, I've got this article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Uh, when Jaclyn Troy saw the latest census results showing a significant

rise in the number of people identifying as Aboriginal or Torres

Strait Islander, she felt delighted.

The census released showed 812, 728 people identifying as Indigenous, which was a

25 percent rise on five years earlier.

And, uh, she said, it's encouraging to see people are no longer feeling suppressed

or afraid to identify as Aboriginal.

Um, I think it's reflecting the real demographics of the

nation, it's a wonderful thing.

But, not everyone was so delighted by the increase.

Nathan Moran, Chief Executive of Metropolitan Local Aboriginal

Land Council, said the Census increase demonstrated the need

for an official review into Aboriginal self identification.

Rather than the current question, which asks respondents whether they are of

Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin, he wants the statistic, or

the ABS, to ask, are you a verified or authenticated Aboriginal person?

I think the ABS question is misleading, not productive and ineffective, he said.

This has caused a skewing in the number of Aboriginal people it creates, for

some the illusion that we have a much larger population than practical reality.

Moran was echoing the concerns of Aboriginal Land Council of

Tasmania Chair Michael Mansell.

He said he found it unbelievable.

that 5 percent of Tasmanians now identify as Aboriginal, or Torres Strait Islander.

And he wrote that, um, the increase in Tasmania was largely due to identity

seekers who are poor and white and believe they will have more cultural

cachet if they identify as Aboriginal.

Many poor whites.

Sorry?

Uh, it, that, that feels like a, a, a, a judgment rather than something

he has actual statistics on.

Well, what he's saying is that, uh, a 25% increase.

from five years ago could not be due to birth rate.

So it's, it's people who are undeclared five years ago.

It's so difficult to believe that a bunch of people that were, were, were

hiding their identity, um, because they actually felt ashamed of it.

And now maybe they don't.

Why is that difficult to believe?

Well, uh, I'm, the point I'm getting to is that if inherent racism is, is,

is, If racism is chronic, then people would not be putting themselves forward

as indigenous if, if there was an extreme level of systematic racism.

So, uh, so I'm just pushing back on the level of racism in urban Australia.

And this is where the increase, where the increases are.

Particularly in Canberra, I think, was a hot spot of increased...

Indigenous identification.

I've been told that's a complicated situation.

Right.

So, um, so just, uh, uh, so yeah, just sort of where you painted a picture

earlier of, of the discrimination in, um, sort of job applications and things.

And I don't disagree that there's discrimination, but also, um, there's

lots of areas of life now where being Indigenous is not a problem at all.

And...

Quite a nice life, thank you very much, in modern Australian urban environments.

I feel that this is something that you can say, you know, when it's

a hat you can take off and put on and no one notices the difference.

It's much more difficult if it's Something that, you know, where the

colour of your skin is very different, um, or, you know, um, the accent

that you speak with, um, you know.

I'm always wary of the They're getting the best of both worlds, some of these

people, in that, in that they're not getting the walk down the street racism

when they enter the pub of people looking at them twice or thinking they're about

to shoplift when they're just Browsing in an electronic store, so they're

not getting that racism, but they're, uh, But they may benefit from ticking

the ATSIC box, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island box, because, you

know, in some form, because There's a requirement for those people to be seen

by the doctor's surgery more urgently or something like that, you know, or,

you know, in a culturally sensitive way.

Um, yeah, I like where the, the bit that I really want to push back on is the

way this whole argument reminds me of, um, Ronald Reagan's, um, welfare queens.

Um, They never existed.

They were a complete made up thing in a speech.

What was that story again?

So he claimed that there were sort of welfare queens living off, you

know, multiple forged identities.

that were living the lush lifestyle and getting all of the hundreds of thousands

of dollars in welfare money because they claimed to be, you know, like getting

five or six, you know, separate benefits.

Yep.

And, and that was his justification for cracking down on The benefits that

were paid, who, you know, the identify identification needed, um, you know,

all of that, that sort of stuff.

And it suited the Republican agenda very well because it also meant that they could

cut the services to a lot of those people, but those people never actually existed.

There was no statistical, uh, group, you know, identifiable

group that I, I definitely know someone who is white passing.

But has a grandparent, I think, who is Aboriginal, and they

have said, yeah, absolutely.

If I, um, go and get a home loan, I can get a better rate

if I identify as Aboriginal.

Um, there are certain advantages.

And yet, to speak to them, you wouldn't know that they were Aboriginal.

So, I don't know that it's that uncommon, that there are a lot of

people who, I'm not saying that they have a very good life, um, they are

relatively, they're one of the battlers.

Sure, sure.

Um, what I'm, so every, every bit of help that you can get from the

government, why wouldn't you accept it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, my partner and I have this, had this joke for a long time,

but sooner or later we will find some benefit that we can claim.

We never, ever have never found it.

But, and, and so part of what I really want to kind of get.

to there is that the, the, the fear Reagan put out was that there

are people making millions of dollars off your hard earned taxes.

And the fear in this kind of agenda is that by Having a special, you know,

even if you call it a special voice to Parliament, let's say it actually

gets to make laws, the fear is that somehow that will be turned against us.

White Australians or whatever, and firstly I think that there's no evidence for

that, but secondly, to me, it is, uh, you know, it is a distraction from then

saying, well, could we do good by this?

Because yeah, okay, sure, there will always be some people that steal, there

will always be some people that cheat, and there are, you know, stores just build

in a certain amount of shoplifting, you know, that's just, we, you know, if, if

I found out that someone Was, you know, ticking the box on the ATSIC, or sorry,

the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander form and getting a better bank rate.

And I'm like, okay, well, great.

It's not, it's not actually costing me basically anything,

you know, if you can do it.

Personally, I don't have a fear of people rorting the system

and getting extra money, even though I suspect it could happen.

It's more, it's more the.

Human rights, uh, distinction of deciding to have separate

rights for separate people.

Now you're saying the Uluru Statement is not about rights and power, it's just

about recognising past wrongs and saying it's important, but without actually

providing any special rights or powers.

And if that's all it is...

Well and good, but the other part of it is my concern is that the people who will end

up in these bodies purporting to represent indigenous people are going to be people

with a very different lived experience To the Indigenous people who actually

really need the help and I will see them as, uh, as an, as being unqualified,

uh, to give meaningful assistance, um, because, uh, their connection

with remote Indigenous people needing help is, is, it just doesn't exist.

So that's my concern.

The problem we've seen with, um, advisory groups, I would say,

certainly in terms of religion.

Is that you get the ma the the minority and the minority.

So there's been a problem in the UK with uh, what they call Asians,

which we would call Indians.

So people from the Indian subcontinent.

Yeah.

Um, where.

The community speaks, and that there is a minority within that community who

don't have the same values, you know, the gay people, who are effectively

ostracized, because they don't fit in with the official voices representation.

And so you get a very narrow view, and my concern would be that a...

advisory body would be swamped by certain groups, for instance, the

Christians, who would be very keen to engineer that, no, no, no, the

Aboriginals are against abortion, uh, which I think we did see, didn't we?

Yes, yeah, I think we did.

Yeah, some purported to say that, yeah.

Oh no, it was voluntary assisted dying.

And, and another, uh, complication there was the slow uptake of, um, the COVID

vaccines amongst Aboriginal people, in part because we've had a bunch of bad

history of giving questionable medicine to Aboriginal people in the past.

And I don't kind of blame them for not trusting us this time.

But you know, that, that is also, was also fertile territory for

the anti vaxxers and, you know, difficult territory to tread.

And the same in America with Tuskegee, which is, yeah, a classic.

What's, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Tuskegee Massacre, where they, um, basically before antibiotics were, no, no,

no, it was, um, so before antibiotics were really, um, around, they started measuring

syphilis in a group of black people in Tuskegee in the Southern United States.

When in the forties antibiotics became available and were a cure for syphilis,

they didn't give them, um, uh, Penicillin, because they wanted to see what was

the long term effects of syphilis.

Ah, God, right, yeah.

So they left syphilis untreated and continued through to the 70s, I think.

Leaving these people untreated for syphilis just to see

medically what happened to them.

Coincidentally, all of them were black.

Yes, um, and they were followed up, they saw nurses at the very least, I

think doctors as well, on a regular basis, under the guise of being treated.

They were never given treatments.

They were just monitored.

Yeah.

So I'm not particularly surprised that, um, you know, you might

get someone from one of those Aboriginal communities saying, no,

we don't want your vaccines here.

But again, that's just a minority and that may, they may not speak for everyone.

Uh, the other example of that is there's been a bunch of mining companies,

I think, especially over in Western Australia, who find one group within

the Aboriginal community in a place, promise them a bunch of things and say,

Can you be the Aboriginal Land Council here so we can tick off, that we've

got the okay from the Aboriginal Land Council in this area to do our mining?

Um, And then, um, the rest of the people go, Hey, wait, what?

You didn't, we didn't vote for you.

One final, um, aspect to this extremely long podcast episode.

Joe, is anybody still with us or they just abandoned us?

Uh, I can't see.

There are six people still watching.

Good on you.

You're champions if you're still there.

Chris is going strong there.

Is, um, I look at, uh, things from a class issue.

And for me, uh, the imperative in terms of Indigenous people is to

assist those who are suffering in poverty and in bad circumstance,

the lower class, if you like.

And so I would be in favour of anybody that, that seeks to improve

the needs of, of the lower class Indigenous community who are suffering.

But I really don't really care about the middle and upper class Indigenous

persons particular needs any more than I do the middle class, upper

class, white persons particular.

They're no different to me.

They're the same.

So I, I, uh, I just, um, I'm concerned about where we,

where we are wanting to be.

Cognizant of the Indigenous populations opinions and thoughts and needs

and desires on whatever issue Which includes the middle and upper class

segments of the Indigenous community and Um, I don't really care.

I want to know about the lower class the suffering class That's what I want to know

about so for me Yeah Indigenous Identity.

I don't care.

It's yeah, it's suffering poverty Class that I care.

And my concern with, uh, and you know, is the left is, is the, and Kieran O'Reilly

in the interview I did a few weeks ago had a sort of a, a passing reference

to how the left has, uh, basically decided to pursue identity issues.

Ignore class.

Now, I'm sure Kieran is all in favour of, uh, Uluru's statement and everything

else, but, um, I see an inconsistency there, so, I, um, I'm concerned about

class and not the identity of Indigenous people, and I don't believe in inherited

grievance of forefathers, I care about present circumstance, so, anyway.

That's where I feel, again, the hijacking by inner city elites of the issue is

what I could see easily happening.

I kind of agree.

Um, I certainly think that I would much rather trust any, any, uh, Aboriginal...

university trained, um, inner city elite to speak, to be more in touch

with, um, the issues of the Aboriginal people, um, of any, than, than, than a

white person of the same qualifications?

Sure.

And by virtue of?

Um, by virtue of mixing with those people, one of the things that.

has really struck me in thinking about this is that I'm, I'm trying to diversify

my friend group, but it is still very, you know, based around white and usually men.

Um, I know only a handful of people from non European backgrounds, um, you know,

people have, you know, friendships with those people, so, you know, I don't

trust myself to say, yeah, I know what.

Indian people.

I don't even really want to, you know, say, I know what Aboriginal

people want in this because I'm not.

But you're insulting them to suggest they all think the same.

Like that assumes that they would have a common view on something.

I don't think I'm...

Um, claiming anything about whether they all think the same.

All I'm saying is that I would trust a person who identifies in that

grouping more to represent them than a person not in that grouping.

In the same way that I do not trust Tony Abbott to be the minister

for women, even though he might know many women, you Um, and.

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, we've argued, we'll finish this up.

But we've argued previously about Prisipasko and, and the criticism

in the, in the subsequent book.

I can't remember the name of it, which was written by some white academics.

And my reading of it.

You're not going to, you're not going to, you're not going to dig this up

at a quarter to ten, are you Trevor?

Just because it's relevant.

But you could well argue that the white people in that case had a

better understanding of Indigenous culture than Bruce Pascoe.

So...

Yeah.

I...

It's a...

Yeah, that's a view.

Yeah.

I will...

I'll concede.

Um, I can see points of validity in it.

I'm not sure I agree with it.

Yeah, and you better not start an argument at five to ten.

I'm not going to do that.

All right, well if you hung around in the chat room all this time, congratulations.

If you've listened to the podcast all this time, congratulations,

you've made it to the end.

Don't forget what I said at the very beginning, which was, if

you're in Queensland, write to us, trevor at ironfistvelvetglove.

com.

au, tell me what state electorate you're in, tell me you're willing

to meet your local member, and talk about religious instruction

lessons, because we need some names.

So, um, So, John Simmons is there, good on you.

And good on you, Paul, for, um, uh, good on you, Paul, for your contribution.

Thank you very much.

So I've survived the Shark Tank?

Yes, uh, that's, yeah, Landon Hardbottom will be very happy.

Actually, he's disappeared.

He was here earlier, but he's, looks like he's disappeared.

Um, so, yeah, we've gone, oh my goodness me, that's a long episode.

I'm tempted to split it into two.

I don't know.

Not a bad idea.

I might split it into two.

Okay.

All right.

This might be divided into two in the actual podcast.

We'll see how we go.

All right, everybody, if you're in the chat room, thanks very much.

We're going to end the live stream now.

Talk to you later.

Have a good one.

And it's a good night from him.

Fist, Glove, 12th Man, Hardbottom here.

Your last episode was only one hour long and not the one hour and 30

minutes I've become accustomed to.

You owe me 33 cents.

And if I don't get it, I'll be sending some rather large chaps

around there to perform their own kind of knee surgery on you.