DEAR News Of The Area,

IN response to letters about the Voice to Parliament in the 22 September edition, I would like to provide a little objectivity into the debate, which I hope will help find the truth and correct some of the claims and comments being made.

Jacinta Price’s comments about colonialism are true.

Indigenous people have benefited greatly, and particularly in recent years, from development in Australia since the place was first colonised.

As with all Australians, regardless of their ethnic/cultural backgrounds, Indigenous people have access to good health care, education, employment opportunities, housing, and a plethora of other benefits which most groups in the country have recognised and sought out for themselves.

We have Indigenous academics, doctors and medical professionals, teachers, trades people and business-oriented people and many who simply want to search for a better way of life.

These people have made decisions to improve their lives and become directly relevant in the wider Australian community; they are respected and appreciated for what they are doing by most non-Indigenous people, and they have not been required to abandon their culture in doing this.

They have simply made the decision to take responsibility for trying to improve their lives.

Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, as Indigenous people themselves with first-hand knowledge of the poor conditions many Indigenous people live in, by choice, I might add, have been incredibly brave, but wise, in revealing the facts I am highlighting here as the truth.

Their opposition to a special voice in parliament is also unquestionably supported by the fact that Indigenous people already have several voices in parliament by the presence of a dedicated Indigenous Affairs Minister and several other members of Indigenous descent, in either the lower house or the senate, and this has been the case in successive governments.

The government already has more than sufficient knowledge to deal with any matter of concern to the Indigenous community, and enough teeth and clout to address these if they wished to.

So why not ask them why they have not done this before now?

Ask them why they need yet another layer of bureaucracy, this time in the form of elitist, no doubt very well-paid, mouth-pieces to tell them what they already know?

All the proposed voice to parliament, in truth, is going to achieve is dividing the nation along race lines.

The constitution, as it is, serves our democracy very well.

It provides for full and equal equality for all of us and must not be amended in the manner proposed.

Alan OLDROYD,
Valla.