Friday 29th of March 2024

only fifty years ago...

referendum

"This is a long process we've set up now … with people putting up their hands up today and were chosen, we've got a very large working group that will continue to work on this process for the next while," she said.

"When the referendum council finishes its work on June 30, we've got another team — a whole range of people who will go forward and bring this whole matter forward."

Cape York leader Noel Pearson said there was no enthusiasm for a statement of acknowledgment of Indigenous people in the constitution.

He said the delegates agreed that a parliamentary "voice" would be more "substantive".

"It will have a more practical impact Aboriginal people's place in the democracy," he said.

"That's what they've chosen rather than some sort of nice words of acknowledgement."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-26/constitutional-recognition-rejecte...

 

 

the torment of powerlessness...

 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have rejected the idea of constitutional recognition and will instead push for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice in parliament and a commission that will lead to a treaty.

After a meeting of more than 250 community leaders at Uluru, referendum council member Professor Megan Davis delivered a powerful statement from the group asserting that sovereignty had never been ceded or extinguished.

The statement said that the high rates of incarceration, youth detention and child removal showed the need for a significant practical change, not a symbolic reform.

“These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem,” it said. “This is the torment of our powerlessness.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/26/uluru-talks-opt-f...

It's time... it has been time since 1788...