2850

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Submission Number
2850
Participant
Brenda Tronson
Submission date

I am a barrister in Sydney with an interest and occasional practice in constitutional law.
As the latest in a series of invitations from First Nations Peoples to engage, the Uluru Statement from the Heart is an important message. We, the Australian people, and particularly those of us who are not First Nations, have an obligation to listen. And the central messages are simple, straightforward and inherently just: Voice, Treaty, Truth.
Without a constitutionally entrenched Voice, it is almost certain that the patterns we have seen over the past 200+ years will continue: matters concerning First Nations Peoples will be determined by the majority, potentially drowning out the views of First Natios People. That is not fair, just, nor truly democratic, particularly in relation to issues that affect First Nations Peoples and nobody, or virtually nobody, else.
Constitutional entrenchment of a Voice (even if the model is left to Parliament) will ensure that there must at all times BE a Voice. It will not be able to be dis-established by Parliament's will alone. It will give First Nations Peoples certainty about the ongoing representation of their views, rather than having to go through continuous cycles of fighting for such representation in the first place.

 

 

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