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Sydney Morning Herald
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
The hot-take flying monkeys are circling again. It's time they got out of the way
When the time finally came to decide, expanding marriage to include same-sex couples was the easiest big thing Australia has ever done. There was a lot of angst and soul-searching and politicking to reach that point and of course, not everyone agreed, but for many, it came down to a simple consideration. Nearly all of us have gay people in our lives, whether they are family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues. We want them to be happy. If enabling them to marry the person they love would do this, who were we to block the aisle? It was a transaction that cost us nothing and offered something to people we care about. Five years after the Marriage Law Postal Survey was carried in all states and territories we voted again, this time at a referendum. The question put to us was whether 'to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice'. As with gay marriage, we weren't being asked to give something up. Rather, we were being asked to recognise something incontrovertible – that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were here long before whitefellas arrived – and to go give them something at no cost to us; the right to have their say when the government is making decisions that affect them. Nearly two years on from that vote, there are plenty of reasons proffered for why the referendum failed. I suspect part of the story is the lesson of the gay marriage survey. Most of us don't have Aboriginal people as our friends or neighbours. We don't work with them. There was an absence of empathy from us towards the people we were asked to help. Given what we know about differences in life expectancy, rates of preventable disease and suicide, education levels, lifetime earnings, homelessness and exposure to child protection, family violence, and criminal justice systems between white and black Australia, this speaks to a shameful indifference. There is a harder view of this, put to me by Aboriginal people who have thought about and lived this stuff in a way whitefellas can't. Their explanation, both for the result of the 2023 referendum and decisions taken over the two and a half centuries that preceded it, is that at some level, we hate them.
The Age
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Age
The hot-take flying monkeys are circling again. It's time they got out of the way
When the time finally came to decide, expanding marriage to include same-sex couples was the easiest big thing Australia has ever done. There was a lot of angst and soul-searching and politicking to reach that point and of course, not everyone agreed, but for many, it came down to a simple consideration. Nearly all of us have gay people in our lives, whether they are family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues. We want them to be happy. If enabling them to marry the person they love would do this, who were we to block the aisle? It was a transaction that cost us nothing and offered something to people we care about. Five years after the Marriage Law Postal Survey was carried in all states and territories we voted again, this time at a referendum. The question put to us was whether 'to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice'. As with gay marriage, we weren't being asked to give something up. Rather, we were being asked to recognise something incontrovertible – that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were here long before whitefellas arrived – and to go give them something at no cost to us; the right to have their say when the government is making decisions that affect them. Nearly two years on from that vote, there are plenty of reasons proffered for why the referendum failed. I suspect part of the story is the lesson of the gay marriage survey. Most of us don't have Aboriginal people as our friends or neighbours. We don't work with them. There was an absence of empathy from us towards the people we were asked to help. Given what we know about differences in life expectancy, rates of preventable disease and suicide, education levels, lifetime earnings, homelessness and exposure to child protection, family violence, and criminal justice systems between white and black Australia, this speaks to a shameful indifference. There is a harder view of this, put to me by Aboriginal people who have thought about and lived this stuff in a way whitefellas can't. Their explanation, both for the result of the 2023 referendum and decisions taken over the two and a half centuries that preceded it, is that at some level, we hate them.
