Is the Voice to Parliament a Trojan Horse?
'Reparations, land back, paid rent' - prominent Yes campaigner says the quiet part out loud
Newly unearthed tweets reveal prominent 'Yes' campaigner Thomas Mayo’s vision for Australia if the Voice to Parliament is introduced.
The Daily Mail reports,
“A series of tweets dating back to 2018 that were published by Thomas Mayo, an architect of the Voice referendum question and signatory of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, show his push for an eventual treaty that would see land handed back to First Nations people.
“He listed 'all the things we imagine when we demand' a Voice, including 'reparations, land back, abolishing harmful colonial institutions'.
“Additionally, Mr Mayo said his sights were set on 'getting ALL our kids out of prisons & in to care... integration of our laws & lore, speaking language, wages back'.
Mr Mayo said a 'guaranteed representative body' was 'needed [to]... properly pursue the rent that is owed and an abolishment of systems that harm us'.”
(emphasis mine)
In a recent video, Mayo, who co-authored the Yes campaign handbook, says that he sees the Voice as a way to achieve goals of movements such as Pay the Rent. Pay the Rent is a movement that wants homeowners and anyone who profits off Australia’s resources to voluntarily pay a percentage of their income to Aboriginal elders. Currently, the body is run by Indigenous people, without government oversight or intervention.
In another video from 2021, Mayo said that politicians would be 'punished' if they ignored advice from the advisory body, a statement that raised a furore in Australian media when it came to light this week.
In a 2020 Twitter debate with Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, who has announced that she will ‘boycott’ the Voice referendum in favour of a Treaty agreement instead, Mayo suggested that the Voice was a more attractive first base for voters, from which Indigenous people could then negotiate a treaty.
From the Daily Mail,
“Mr Mayo told [Lidia Thorpe] a constitutional Voice will give Indigenous people a platform to 'negotiate' with the Commonwealth on their 'obligations'.
“'Australians already will support a referendum to recognise our Voice,' Mr Mayo said. 'They are much less likely to support what we may claim in a treaty (reparations, land back, etc).”
Other tweets from as far back as 2016 reveal Mayo’s intent in creating a political structure with which to “unapologetically punish bad decision makers” and “protect treaty interests".
Right wing activist group and No campaigners Advance Australia have made a 1:30 min compilation which sums up Mayo’s stated position:
Australians asked to decide in upcoming referendum
In the Voice to Parliament referendum, to be held later this year, Australians will be asked to vote Yes or No to the following question:
"A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?"
If the Yes vote wins, the Australian constitution will be altered to formally recognise the First Nations Peoples, and an Indigenous advisory body will be established to speak to the Parliament (like Congress) on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Currently, Australia is divided on the question. Broadly, the sitting Labor government is campaigning for the Yes vote, and the Opposition is campaigning for No.
Yes proponents argue that the Voice is essential to formally recognise Indigenous peoples in the constitution and to achieve better representation. No proponents argue that not enough detail has been provided, and that voting Yes would be like signing a blank cheque.
Division over the referendum is also rife in the Indigenous community, evidenced by this video from commentator Rukshan Fernando. In the video, Indigenous politicians Malarndirri McCarthy (Yes), aformentioned Lidia Thorpe (Boycott for Treaty), and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (No) argue for a gamut of positions on the referendum. (As Twitter no longer in beds, you will have to click through to watch)
Is the Voice to Parliament a Trojan Horse?
The Daily Mail points out, correctly, that Mayo’s stated vision for Australia’s future under a Voice to Parliament flies in direct contradiction to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s characterisation of the Voice as a ‘modest’ concession to assist the nation’s most vulnerable.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister said Australians will be afforded a 'once in a lifetime opportunity' to improve the lives of First Nations people between October and December.
'Where's the downside here?' he asked. 'What are people risking here?
'From my perspective this is all upside.'
Mr Albanese said 'the truth is for most people watching this it will have no impact of their lives', but that it 'might make things better for the most disadvantaged people in Australia'.
(emphasis mine)
Whatever Albanese’s intentions, this is an intellectually dishonest position to take. No political decision is all upside. The Latin root of the word ‘decide’ means to ‘cut off’. In other words, every decision has tradeoffs.
The ‘all benefits, no risks’ posture of Yes campaigners on the Voice is remarkably similar to the official line on 15 and 20 minute cities.
In Western Australia, new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws give insight into some of the tradeoffs that could be required. Under the laws, landowners are required to pay for a permit before carrying out certain activities, such as digging fences or clearing tracks. Some activities will require the landowner to pay an Aboriginal consultant (fees vary from $80 per hour to $1200 per day, depending on the seniority and expertise of the consultant, with an additional loading for remote areas) to determine whether the activity is likely to cause harm to Aboriginal cultural heritage.
The laws have sparked controversy amongst farmers, who fear that the added layer of bureaucracy will grind projects to a halt. Farmers have also expressed concerns about the administrative costs, the subjective nature of the laws opening farmers up to large fines (up to $1 million), and the potential for the system to turn into a racket.
“What are people risking here?”
Prime Minister Albanese asks, “What are people risking here?”
A brief and incomplete list of potential concerns includes:
Backdoor treaty;
Undemocratically decided reparations scheme;
Land grab;
Creep of Marxist ideology under the banner of inclusion and equity, and;
Any other number of unforeseen risks, due to the open-ended wording of the referendum and the ideological bent of those driving it.
If Australians want these outcomes, they should be able to vote for them. But only if they know what they are voting for.
Is the Voice a Trojan Horse? The Yes campaign needs to sincerely respond to this question. Crying 'racist bigot!' won't allay concerns.
Related Reading
Commentator and former MP George Christensen is putting his chips on the Voice being a Trojan Horse. He goes into depth, encompassing globalist ties and and Australia’s Communist Party history. Well worth a read, and he has included lots of extra reading material if this is a topic you want to get stuck into.
The Voice is purely an advisory board and will not have powers to veto laws, though they are supposedly able to influence legislation. Supposedly.
The Voice would be an elected group charged with advocating Indigenous interests to Parliament, but would not have a vote on laws. In other words, a snow job, a charade, a sham that purports to be democratic and dissimulates endorsement of the will of the Aboriginal people, but does no such thing. One and the same as the rest of Parliament, and the Australian "Democracy" with respect to the will of the Australian: it's a total betrayal. The will of the Australian people is irrelevant to the Australian government and has absolutely no bearing on policy.
Long-term activist and elder Gary Foley, who co-founded Canberra’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972, has said, “I want you to think; think before you vote. Make sure that you’re not being manoeuvred into a position of being complicit in the latest of a long line of cosmetic bullshit measures that will achieve nothing in the way of justice [for Aboriginal people].”
Victorian Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe told the crowd [at Melbourne’s Invasion Day rally] Australia had been at war with Aboriginal people since 1788.
“What do we have to celebrate in this country? Do we want to become advisors now? Do we want to become an advisory body to the colonial system?”
In Sydney, Gomeroi man Ian Brown said he had no trust in a Voice to parliament because it would be “another formal process of government not listening to mob”.
Activist co-organiser of Melbourne’s Invasion Day rally and Victorian Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe's sister, Meriki Onus says. "If people don’t trust Voice, it’s because they don’t trust governments."
And neither should anyone ever again.
First nations are being used as proxies by global oiler banker corporation oligarchs, for whom the Australian government truly works and whose interests government only ever serves.
This Voice malarkey simply creates another government department needing more government officers and administration and bureaucracy. It co-opts some Aboriginals into the government to give the government a veneer of legitimacy in its rulings on indigenous Australians, however phoney and thin. It is a far simpler job to deceive the few government-captured Aborigines from the city with an urban middle class background, and then make their underhanded agreements the official word, than it is to convince all First Nationals.
Gary Foley has also said, “Beware of Blak bourgeoisie trying to sell you a referendum, trying to sell you a shonky proposition called the Voice.”
Here is a super simple rule of thumb to live by:
Your automatic/instinctive response to ANYTHING the government of the day (regardless of political persuasion) puts forward should be a firm and vocal NO.
If the government tries to intimidate you or call you names, you should know that your decision to say no was DEFINITELY the correct one.
At that time, you should move from passively opposing to actively working your backside off to ENSURE that proposal by the government FAILS (and ideally fails spectacularly!)
We are there now when it comes to the voice...