Ben's Blog

October ’23

it is very difficult to engage with the No campaign because they are so disingenuous. Their main claim is that giving a voice to the blackfellas is not fair, it gives them an unfair advantage. That is like shooting your opponent in the foot then holding a foot race without handicaps. 
it is absurd and ridiculous, but you are wasting your time arguing about fairness. The right are firmly opposed to the voice simply because it gives a voice to some very angry, rather left-wing, intelligent, educated people, who are also blackfellas. The No campaign is a political campaign through and through. It is not necessarily founded in racism, but it is deploying racism simply because racism drives fear and fear drives racism. That is to say, it is an easy and effective tool to get what you want, and the right does not want any disadvantaged, powerless group getting the ear of national cabinet, especially a group that would dearly love to take away their land rights, especially mining rights.

By default rural Queensland has become the LNP heartland now that the leafy inner suburbs have turned on them. Even in Queensland they prefer “Communist sympathizers” (The Greens) over true blue Liberals.

There is no city in Australia that votes conservative. The right has retreated to the bush! Rural Queensland in particular, and in rural Queensland racism sits just below the surface. Scratch it and you will get an allergic reaction, complete with inflammation and frothing at the mouth.

This is only natural. In the outback landholders compete directly with blackfellas for control of land and resources. Deep down inside they all know they don’t deserve the land they are holding by force. They know they don’t deserve it by ‘Right of Conquest’, so they argue vehemently that the blackfellas are undeserving for one reason or another. It is very difficult to have a discussion with someone who will not tell you what is really motivating their views, and they will never reveal that what is really driving them is a deep seated impostor syndrome.
Most of us interlopers know that we are impostors, reaping the benefits from stolen land. For folks in the big cities, that is just an academic argument, but a lot of country folk see it as a very real threat to generations of privilege.
Then of course, we have the miners, who are also competing directly for control of land and resources with the blackfellas. Warren Mundine stated unequivocally on national television (7.30 Report, a couple of months ago) that, as a director of a mining company, he had enough hassle dealing with the Traditional Owners, the last thing he wanted was another group of people to deal with. (he did not say out loud, “a group of very savvy blackfellas who know how the system operates,” but we can assume that’s what he was alluding to)

 A rare glimpse of the thinking behind the NO vote.