A Review of Voice Treaty Truth. By Barbara Miller.
This new book on the Voice needs to be read:
Barbara Miller has a long history of activism in Aboriginal affairs and has worked for decades with indigenous Australians. Indeed, she has an Aboriginal husband. So she is no racist or white supremacist – although she is white. She cares deeply about this country and is concerned that the Voice referendum will cause more harm than good.
She is also a committed Christian, so her new book looks in detail at biblical principles and how they might be brought to bear on this controversial referendum. Thus she closely examines some key biblical truths such as justice, peace, fairness, forgiveness, reconciliation and racism.
She argues that the Voice will undermine many of these key biblical values and cause even more division:
If successful, the Voice will introduce a race-based or ancestry/heritage-based body into the constitution, which is therefore discriminatory and goes against the equality of law in a democracy. It will have the power to advise not just the government but the executive or public service, etc., on anything not just Indigenous affairs. This could greatly delay government decision-making and end up in high court challenges. Very little detail is available, so we are meant to give a blank cheque.
Miller urges Christians to become familiar not just with basic biblical principles but with history as well. Too often we are given a secular left view of history which is really revisionist history. The churches need to know their history as well, and not allow radical agendas to determine how they think and proceed. She quotes the mother of No campaigner Jacinta Price, Bess Nungarrayi Price:
I am deeply disappointed by the churches who have accepted this aggressive wokeness and allowed themselves to become naive virtue-signalers rather than moral guardians and teachers. My people are crying out for moral guidance. Instead, they are being told that their culture, however the Left of politics defines it, is always right. Our culture should be critically analysed and improved like any other. We are not all just ‘victims’ who can’t help ourselves in a culture that is faultless.
And of course biblical Christians should rightly be concerned about elements of Aboriginal spirituality. She writes:
Of course, we need to respect the right of all religions to practice their culture in Australia as long as it upholds human rights or dignity and is not illegal. However, modern Australia was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation, and that should be respected. Sorcery is still an issue in Aboriginal communities, as reported by Aboriginal pastors, and we need to be aware of it. There is also syncretism called Rainbow Theology in which the rainbow serpent, commonly seen as the creator in Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, is the creator in a Christian rainbow theology and not the snake in the garden.
Miller also has chapters on things like cultural Marxism, the Frankfurt School, and identity politics. These all explain good and evil in terms of class struggle or race struggle or power struggle. Some groups are the victims while other groups are the oppressors. Christianity of course says otherwise:
We have all sinned no matter what our birth category is. And many of our categories, e.g., whiteness and blackness, we can’t change. So, white males are perpetually the sinner in identity politics without redemption or the possibility of forgiveness. It doesn’t matter how many times they say sorry or try to make amends in other ways. For example, they don’t need to be personally racist, but they are part of the white race and must eternally pay the price for the sins of their whiteness.
Christianity provides genuine reconciliation, forgiveness and unity. The Voice does the opposite. Some of the things being pushed by the Yes camp include:
-Co-sovereignty and co-government to negotiate with the Australian government
-Treaties, Agreement-Making and Makarrata
-Reparations that would likely be a percentage of GDP
Miller says the No camp on the other hand seeks for things like this:
-A united Australia where everything is not seen through the lens of race
-An Australia where there is one class of citizens, not two
-Recognition that it is disempowering to enshrine Aboriginal victimhood into the constitution in perpetuity
-That the government would listen to the voices of First Nations people that already exist
-That the most marginalized First Peoples would get the help they need, especially women and children
-Recognition that Aboriginal culture pre-colonisation, and as practiced today, is part of the problem
There is a lot of history, personal stories, and detail found in this short volume, along with a lot of references. Australians need to know what the Voice is really all about, and that the best thing we can do is say no to it.
[782 words]
Thank you for this. As you likely know, New Zealand is facing similar issues and a general election in which racial issues are a key focus is ongoing. It is good to have some of the explicitly Christian arguments against race-based (and thus anti-democratic) social structures and government operations laid out so clearly and compactly. Too much of the discussion here has been totally and often militantly secular.
It is a shame that the government is foolish and blind enough to allow this tail to wag the dog. Albanese response was that if he disagreed with them he would just say NO. What then would the public service do? Or even the public at large. Cries of racism are already being shouted so what will have to endure when the NO vote succeeds?
Just a wee clarification to my earlier comment (which I just re-read): I wrote “Too much of the discussion here has been totally and often militantly secular.” By “here” I meant here in New Zealand, not here on this blog! You probably already knew that, but sorry if I caused any confusion.
Some thoughts:
Whose voice is it?
Those Australians who identify as indigenous are less than 4% of our population. Many indigenous people do not want ‘the voice’.
Those Australians who are speaking against ‘the voice’ have been bullied, labelled as racists and some harassed to the point of suicide.
‘What we need in Canberra is ears, not a Voice.’ Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Warlpiri woman.
What are the details?
There are no details.
How will the Voice operate?
How will members be chosen?
What powers will the Voice have?
How will the High Court interpret the Voice?
How will it improve the lives of indigenous Australians?
There are already hundreds of advisory and other bodies which represent indigenous people at all levels of government.
The 1967 referendum gave indigenous people the right to be full members of the Australian population through inclusion in the census and empowered the Federal government to make laws to assist indigenous Australians to overcome inequalities.
Indigenous peoples were given the right to vote in 1962.
Australia has 11 indigenous members of parliament.
What is the real agenda?
Dividing and persecuting groups of people according to ethnicity is a typical ploy of Marxism.
The Voice is a part of the World Economic Forum’s Agenda 21/30. This is a global power and resources grab. ‘You will own nothing and you will be happy.’ Klaus Schwab, WEF
The Voice will create a framework to :
1. Return farms and regional land to Indigenous people.
2. Increase bureaucracy and taxes. ‘Pay the rent.’
2. Force farm and land owners into 15 minute cities.
3. Globalists will take control of land from indigenous people in order to control resources, land access and food production.
For example; Farm owners in WA are furious about new heritage laws which would require them to hire an aboriginal consultant $160 per hour to gain permission to do anything which would disturb more than 50 cm of soil.
‘The Voice’ is a grand theft from the Australian people!