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Yesterday, I mentioned the compounding effect of a young median age (23) on the capacity of ATSI people to be “heard” in electoral politics. I want to come back to that here (another thread, #sorrynotsorry)
There is a specific problem at the heart of majoritarian/aggregative based (ie counting/election) decision-making for Indigenous Australians. One that having a First Nations party, or more candidates standing for election, or increased voter participation just cannot help.
In late 2016, more than 16 million Australians are enrolled to vote, about 95% of all eligible voters: tinyurl.com/y3olejp7
In June last year, a little over ½ million of ATSI people were eligible to vote & only 76% of those eligible were enrolled (383,078): tinyurl.com/y3sd7huf
But even if all living ATSI people could vote (ie. if there was no voting age) and did vote we’re still <1 million people of 16 million non-Indigenous voters. Aggregative/majoritarian democratic representative systems are imperfect for minority populations like ours.
Australian democracy in its current form is not designed to “hear” us in this system. If we are to have any chance organising collectively to hold gvt accountable for the impact laws and policies have on our communities the system needs to change
& we cannot change this system without changing the constitution. this is the particular lens - the politics of representation - through which I read & support the recommendations for structural reform in the Referendum Council’s final report
The Uluru Statement was rightly issued to the Australian public. We need a lot of those 16 million voters’ support. But you should read the Council’s full final report too. Take the time to understand it. tinyurl.com/ycm8koxp
This is not a thread that is going to unpack structural reform. It's be done by those more expert than I. There is much written about it. Lots of resources to learn from. But one thing I've found interesting is the relative inattention it's received from Aus politics academics.
Just as I don’t think we should exclude people from voting on the grounds of age or reason, I don’t think that being 3.3% of the population means that the parliament gets to legislate about us in ways that aren’t accountable to us.
Structural reform cannot fix everything but it can fix this- the incapacity of the existing political system to be representative of & responsible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in political decisions that affect us. That is not a small thing.
