I’m alright, Jack

In a recent address to the Press Club, Warren Mundine, a prominent First Nations man, said that The Voice was a symbolic ‘declaration of war’, and that voting ‘Yes’ for The Voice would enshrine racism in the Constitution. It would divide Australia…

The thing is, Australia has always been divided, and racism was enshrined in our Constitution from day one:

1901: Commonwealth of Australia formed. Indigenous Australians are excluded from the census and the lawmaking powers of the Commonwealth Parliament.

White Australia Policy. Indigenous people are excluded from the vote, pensions, employment in post offices, enlistment in Armed Forces, maternity allowance.’ [Highlights are mine]

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/timeline-indigenous-rights-movement/fb5nvvsdu

Immigrants my age or older will still remember the White Australia policy. For those who don’t:

‘In the 1800s the majority of the white population of the Australian colonies shared attitudes towards people of different races that by today’s standards were openly racist.

Criticisms of non-white groups were based on the idea that they were less advanced than white people in all ways, especially morally and intellectually.

In Australia, this idea focused particularly on people of Asian descent but applied to all non-whites, including Indigenous Australians, who were considered a ‘dying race’.’ [Underline is mine].

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy

If you look closely, the caption reads : ‘The Mongolian Octopus – His Grip on Australia’.

When my small family arrived in Australia in 1957 [as refugees], we were treated with respect and kindness in Wagga Wagga [a country town in NSW], but when we moved to Melbourne [capital city of Victoria], we were treated as ‘New Australians’. And the title was a perjorative.

Because I’m Hungarian by birth, and have a slight Asian appearance thanks to my Magyar ancestry, my first year in a Melbourne public school was characterised by racist bullying. I remember one incident when a large group of kids circled me in the playground and chanted ‘Chink, Chink, bloody Chink’ in chorus. This would have been around about 1958-ish.

The White Australia policy that encouraged that kind of racism was not formally dismantled until 1966, and it was not until 1975 that the Racial Discrimination Act ensured it could not return:

‘It is unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.’

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2014C00014

Unfortunately, simply decreeing that racial discrimination is illegal does not change entrenched attitudes. People of European and Asian ancestry may no longer be excluded, but First Nations people are still being treated like children who need White administrators to decide what is and is not good for them…

And Warren Mundine grew up in the shadow of that protectionist system. But he did have some advantages not enjoyed by most First Nations kids. He went to a Catholic school and he had a lot of ambition. He would probably agree with the saying that he ‘pulled himself up by his boot straps’.

So why is Warren Mundine so vehemently opposed to The Voice?

Why does he say The Voice will be divisive when he knows, better than you or me, just how deeply, horribly, divisive Australian culture always has been, especially towards First Nations people?

Why does he think that doing the same thing over and over again will achieve a different result?

I don’t have any answers to those questions, but a look at Mundine’s bio makes for interesting reading. He used to be with Labor and rose quite high in those political circles, but ‘After the selection of former Premier of New South Wales Bob Carr to replace Arbib, Mundine left the Labor Party.’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Mundine].

Then Mundine did a complete about face and joined the Liberals:

‘On 22 January 2019, at the behest of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, the New South Wales state executive of the Liberal Party installed Mundine as candidate for the seat of Gilmore in the 2019 federal election, although he had only joined the party that week. The state executive waived the usual waiting period for new party members, and withdrew the endorsement of Grant Schultz, who had been preselected as the party’s candidate eight months previously.[13][14][15][16] Mundine failed to be elected, and Gilmore was the only seat won by the Labor Party at the election.[17]‘

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Mundine

My parents always voted Liberal because they hated anything that even hinted at Communism. I’ve always voted Labor because my Catholic school upbringing instilled in me the need for a social conscience. I can sort of understand why Warren Mundine might get jack of being overlooked by the Labor power brokers, but then why didn’t he go to the Greens? Or why didn’t he try to get elected as an Independent?

Why did he throw in his lot with a political party that has done more to infantilize First Nations people than any other?

I simply don’t know, but I will vote ‘Yes’ to The Voice so we can make peace with the past.

Meeks

*”I’m alright, Jack” is a British expression used to describe people who act only in their own best interests, even if providing assistance to others would take minimal to no effort on their behalf.[1][2] It carries a negative connotation, and is rarely used to describe the person saying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack