Recognition and closing the gap are lost in the Voice debate

I have read all 26 pages of Uluru Statement and can tell you it is NOT about taking care of our First Nation people; it is not even about their 'recognition', rather – it is about sovereignty never ceded; it is about 'non-justiciable' power.

In its 2017 final report, the government-appointed Referendum Council recommended that the Voice amendment must be non-justiciable– beyond adjudication of any court.

And perhaps what should shock all Australians is that the constitutionally guaranteed First Nations Voice – in its scope and shape – could turn out to be non-justiciable.

I shudder to think: Is Australia descending into reverse apartheid – that shuts the door of justice on non-Indigenous people?

At least, Australia's internationally acclaimed Human Rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson allows for 'equality before law for all Australians', when he argues around the legal risks of establishing the Voice in his piece he wrote for the Yes camp.

Clearly, there is potential of legal deadlocks and logjams of constitutional functionality.

His argument confirms my fears when he suggests that the Voice should not be considered "legally risky", because it will be entrusted to a robust High Court.

If there were any details on how the Voice would work to give advice, and what would be incumbent on the recipient (Parliament or Government body) of that advice, at least some of the uncertainty could be remedied.

We are being asked to vote on an imaginary framework, without coded details of its composition and functional brief, and our future may depend on the whims and fancies of the officeholder of the time.

They say the devil is in the detail…

In this case, even the devil is missing, a fact which warrants a NO vote on October 14.

The effort so far:
We cannot deny that efforts have been made, starting from as far back as 1837 when a British Select Committee examined the treatment of Indigenous people and recommended that 'Protectors of Aborigines' be appointed in Australia.