Australia

3620 readers

252 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
Politics, post it to Australian Politics
World News/Events, post it to World News
A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @[email protected] who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @[email protected] and @[email protected]

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Why did there need to be a vote? (self.australia)

submitted 1 year ago by PlogLod to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If Anthony Albanese, current prime minister, is in support of and vowed to install the Indigenous Voice advisory board, why can't he just do it? He also made a comment beforehand that he would respect people's decision if they vote no, implying that he might be able to override it if he wanted to.

"the PM on Sunday said Labor would “respect the response of Australians next Saturday”.

“If Australians vote no, I don’t believe that it would be appropriate to then go and say, ‘Oh, well, you’ve had your say, but we’re going to legislate anyway’.”

I personally believe that what white Australians want is irrelevant to the fundamental rights that the original owners of this land deserve, and he should have just done it if he was able to.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

The constitution has special legal status in Australia. Parliament cannot alter it the way they can normal laws. The constitution can only be changed by a referendum - which is vote by the whole nation. What parliament is allowed to do (not Albo individually, but by majority vote in parliament), is make laws under the constitution. So yes, parliament could pass a law that creates a voice. But the next government could then pass a law that cancels the voice. And so on. The idea of putting in the constitution was so that it would have more staying power. If it was in the constitution it could still be removed, but only by another referendum, because as per point A, constitution can only be changed by a referendum.