DEAR News Of The Area,

I’D like to respond to the letter in your publication (29/9/2023) from Ann Thompson.

I feel I must do that to counter the misinformation and muddled thinking that she expresses, with the arguments typical of the No camp that have long been debunked.

1. Racism. It was not the YES camp that first brought up the spectre of racism, but the NO camp, by declaring it was about Aboriginality.

The YES camp has always maintained that the referendum is about indigeneity; a point made by Noel Pearson is that there are numerous similar or far more progressive situations undertaken by various governments concerning their own indigenous, who happen to be blond-haired and blue-eyed.

2. Two questions? There is only one question and that is the one put by the Constitutional Commission that delivered the Statement from the Heart, and that is as stated in the referendum information (Referendum question and constitutional amendment ) and proposal for a First Nations’ Voice.

The reason they put in the request for it to be in the constitution was because after 230-odd years of top-down not listening, and proven many times destruction of socially fair legislation by conservative governments, they don’t want the same to happen to what is only an advisory body.

That is the elephant in the room that conservatives refuse to acknowledge.
3. Margaret doesn’t need a crystal ball – every credible legal mind, every respected academic in the country backs her assertion.

The number that back the naysayers can be counted on not even one hand.

I prefer the assessments of experts to those of mischievous and/or misinformed lay people.

4. There is no “power” in this amendment. It explicitly says so in the information. Parliament as a whole has the power. Have you even read it?

5. The PM introduced the Statement from the Heart, and the subsequent referendum question as fulfilling an election promise.

Or do you believe, as we have seen too often from previous governments, that election promises can be ditched like ‘core and non-core’ promises ?

Thomas Mayo can say what he likes – apart from the fact that those matters are not part of the referendum, do you seriously think that such matters, which are totally under the control of the parliament, would ever come about ?

6. Adelaide NO march – about whom are you talking – perhaps the white supremacists and the Nazis who have attached themselves to the NO camp from the beginning?

Price has no credibility with the Indigenous – 96 aboriginal councils have denounced her as such.

Mundine – even his own family reject his attitudes.

I hope that Ann takes this in the spirit she extended to Margaret – it’s not personal as should be evident, but opinions based on wrong information and lack of knowledge must be challenged.

Regards,
Bill ROBINSON,
Coffs Coast.