We vote every three years in Australia for a federal government, that is enough. Then we have state governments with four year terms, that gives us plenty of opportunity to vote. Some of us see compulsory voting in Australia as an imposition. For me, I am glad we have the opportunity to vote for a democratically elected government. At the morning press conference, No campaigner Warren Mundine blew up, this is unusual as Warren is pretty softly spoken – he is normally right on the money too. 

So now we headed off to vote for an indigenous voice to parliament, when I read it like this, it doesn’t seem too bad. But we need to look into the detail of any issue we are voting for, it is the role of the government to provide voters details. So far, their question is, give us the mandate, we will work out the details with your permission. I suggest I am not the only voter who is a little jaded, what is the government’s agenda?

The purpose of the vote is to give constitutional recognition to the first Australians; however, I am not really sure what this will achieve. We have a whole government department tasked with improving the lives of aboriginal people, the Department of Indigenous Affairs. There is a government Minister at the highest level of the federal government. At a state level, there are government departments that mirror the federal department, there are independent departments such as the Aboriginal Legal Service, medical services, educational services and housing.

The federal and state governments throw vast amounts of money at these services with limited impact. So what will this referendum bring us in terms of real outcomes? Very little I suspect. Aside from a feel-good moment, I suspect there will not be any real change. There are serious challenges indigenous people face, some structural, some consequential and some self-inflicted. What we need to do as a nation is improve outcomes for indigenous people. 

What we will see, this is what we already have, a bunch of highly paid lawyers and bureaucrats sit in their offices, leaving occasionally for a series of meetings with no outcomes. There needs to change, this referendum wasted $400 million of taxpayers money for what? Where we need to really make serious investments is aboriginal health and education. Aboriginal people face serious health issues that the general population does not suffer from, this money could have been spent on aboriginal health.