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- Senator Roberts' Talks: Engagement and Relevance Survey
Pushing back against racial divisions
This Article is by Senator Pauline Hanson
I don’t believe Anthony Albanese and his activist mates considered all the implications of the decision to hold last year’s divisive referendum on an indigenous voice in Parliament.
Of course, at the time, most polls were showing firm support for the proposal, and I suspect this fact made the Prime Minister and voice activists believe they could get away with hiding the details, demonising, and insulting anyone who expressed opposition and still expect a positive result.
How terribly wrong they were.
I think a lot of Australians who voted no did so because they correctly sensed they weren’t being told the whole story.
However, I suspect others voted no out of a sense of frustration about yet another go-nowhere debate about indigenous relations and reconciliation. The so-called voice to Parliament would have become a symbol of the racial divisions promoted in our society by Labor, Greens, and progressive activists, and it would have been the vehicle for yet more of them.
Other representations of the racial division that Australians rejected in the referendum are still present, and left-wing parties like Labour and the Greens continue to promote this division.
Case in point: Great Keppel Island. The state government's draft "master plan" for the well-known—but now somewhat dilapidated—national tourist destination revealed an intention to rename it to "Woppa," the local indigenous name.
SIGN THE GREAT KEPPEL ISLAND PETITION
No one has ever satisfactorily explained how these indigenous name changes help close the gaps or address Aboriginal disadvantage in remote communities, which should be the priority for any Australian government with respect to indignous policy. No one has satisfactorily explained the need for more indigenous place names when there are already thousands of them in Australia, such as Noosa, Wagga Wagga, Woomera, Wangaratta, and even Canberra.
However Australians are pushing back against these other symbols of racial division. Already, our petition against changing the name of Great Keppel Island has gained 6300 signatures in just five days.
In other parts of the country, the pushback has taken another form: ending formal acknowledgements of country at council meetings. In western Sydney, candidates for the coming local government elections are even campaigning on the issue.
It was inevitable the referendum would stir resentment against these other symbols of racial division promoted by Labor, the Greens and progressive activists but I’m sure they never anticipated it. There is only one country to acknowledge in this space: Australia.
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