Photo Above: Thousands march in Sydney to protest against the racist oppression of Aboriginal people on Invasion Day, 26 January 2023. The main banner of the demonstration and all the Aboriginal speakers who addressed the issue condemned the government’s “Voice” to parliament proposal as a powerless sham. They called for a NO vote (from a progressive, black liberation direction) in the referendum.
Photo credit: Robert Wallace/ AFP

Stand with the Staunch Aboriginal
Rights Warriors – For a Progressive NO!

Australia’s Subjugated First Peoples Need Real Political Power!

Expose the Racist Lies of the
Official NO to the Voice Camp!

No to Albanese’s Powerless,
Window-Dressing, “Voice” Con-Job!

For United Action of Anti-Racist Workers,
First Nations People and Other People of Colour to:
Stop the State Murder of Black People in Custody, Stop the
Forced Removals of Aboriginal Children, Win Aboriginal
Land Rights and Win Decent Housing and Services for All!

1 October 2023: The lead-up to the constitutional referendum over an Aboriginal “Voice” to parliament has brought to the fore the deep racism of all wings of Australia’s ruling class – and the virulent racism of the society that they have created. On the one side is the official No to the Voice campaign. It is headed by the conservative Coalition led by hard-right-wing Liberal leader Peter Dutton. This movement is supported by all manner of openly racist, far-right forces from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party to violent white supremacists. They deny that Aboriginal people suffer any oppression. This is even though racist policing, prejudiced courts and economic disadvantage combine to result in Australia’s “justice” system imprisoning First Nations peoples at a rate 17 times higher than they jail others. The conservative No campaign spread their ridiculous claims despite the truth that more than 500 Aboriginal people have died in custody since 1991 – many of whom were killed by racist police or prison guards. The official No camp claim that Aboriginal people no longer face any ongoing effects of colonisation despite the reality that the Australian regime is creating new Aboriginal Stolen Generations. Aboriginal children are being stolen this time not under an officially declared forced Assimilation policy but through the regime’s agencies forcibly ripping huge numbers of indigenous children from their families under the pretext of “child welfare” and fostering them out to non-indigenous families.

Even though the proposed Voice will be a toothless advisory body, the establishment No campaign claims that the Voice would “unfairly” grant Aboriginal people a great deal of power. They spread this myth to promote their lying narrative that the Voice is yet another example of Aboriginal people supposedly receiving “favoured treatment”. This is despite the reality that black people face extreme racist discrimination when trying to get jobs or secure tenancies and despite the truth that areas with high concentrations of First Nations people are often not provided with the basic public services (including medical, ambulance and postal services) granted to others, let alone decent housing – thus forcing many Aboriginal people into living arrangements where ten to twenty people squeeze into modest-sized homes.

Inevitably, it is the lies of the conservative No campaign that have incited an explosion of vile, anti-Aboriginal racism from both avowed white supremacists and everyday rednecks. Yet, although the Yes camp has not been ostentatiously feeding racist sentiment, leading the Yes camp are major current and former administrators of the very system that subjugates First Nations peoples, from Anthony Albanese’s Labor government to Liberal Party Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff to former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Among these forces are many of the main beneficiaries of Australia’s racist current order – that is the bigwigs of Australia’s biggest corporations. For these sections of ruling class behind the Yes camp the point of the “Voice” proposal is to maintain the current status quo that sees Aboriginal people suffer all-sided racist oppression.  Albanese and Co. have convinced many decent people who truly want to see Aboriginal people win justice that the Voice will deliver “historic change”. However, herein lies the huge con job that Labor, the Greens and the pro-Voice conservatives in the Yes camp are engaged in. For the Voice will be a purely advisory body. The parliament and the ministry do not have to listen at all to the advice of any such Voice. Indeed, Albanese himself has stressed this many times. In other words, the Voice will not grant Aboriginal people any political power whatsoever – absolutely nothing at all!

The reality is that Australian governments have had many Aboriginal advisory bodies over the years. These bodies have been either hand-selected by governments to ensure that they do not provide advice that seriously challenges the interests of the wealthy capitalist class that the governments serve; or have had their process for selection determined by the government to ensure that their composition is disproportionately stacked with pro-establishment elements. The Voice will be no different. As the referendum question itself makes clear, it is the parliament – and thus not Aboriginal people but the party in government with a majority in parliament – that will have the power to make laws with respect to the “composition, functions, powers and procedures” of the Voice. And to the extent that any Voice advocates for measures that would truly benefit First Nations peoples, as even the government’s hand-picked advisory bodies have sometimes done in the past, they will be ignored. We were recently given a preview of how this will play out. Six weeks ago, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Queensland Labor government rammed through measures that will allow police to lock up children in both police watch houses and adult prisons. The move will expose children to harmful behaviour from adults and prevent the children from getting rehabilitative support. The measures are so extreme that the Labor government had to override the state’s own Human Rights Act to implement them. Given that nearly two out of every three children in detention in Queensland are either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, it will be indigenous children who will be the biggest victims of the Queensland government’s newly amended laws. In deciding to implement these measures, the Palaszczuk government has completely ignored the voices of Aboriginal people’s representatives and social scientists who have all spoken out against harsh imprisonment of children in adult jails and called instead for community-run rehabilitation, diversionary programs and anti-poverty measures to rehabilitate children. Yet this very same Queensland Labor government that has so blatantly disregarded Aboriginal voices on this central issue is a strong supporter of the proposed Voice. There is no contradiction in this. For the proposed constitutional amendment will not in the least prevent federal governments from ignoring any such Voice, just like Australian governments of all stripes have been ignoring Aboriginal voices over the last two centuries!  As Aboriginal activists have eloquently put it: “We have a voice already and have been using it. It’s just that governments have not been listening!”

The Third Side in This Referendum Battle –
the Progressive NO Side

Fortunately, there are not two sides in this referendum contest but three. Opposing both the establishment No and the Yes camps is the Progressive No side. This camp consists of staunch Aboriginal rights activists and their supporters. Whereas the official No side opposes the Voice because they oppose granting Aboriginal people anything that could even appear to be a political means to resist their oppression – even if it is a completely token one like the Voice – the Progressive No side rejects the Voice precisely because it will give Aboriginal people no actual power. Among the leading voices in the Progressive No side is federal senator Lidia Thorpe – who to her great credit had quit the Greens earlier this year in order to unleash her struggle for Aboriginal rights. A July 18 press release on the website of this courageous Djab Wurrung, Gunnai, and Gunditjmara woman included many powerful points:

“The case produced by the Yes campaign reveals just how little substance there is in what they are proposing….

“It is utterly shameful that they could write 2,000 words about ‘fixing the Aboriginal problem’ and not once mention deaths in custody, child removals or destruction of Country. The war on our people continues and this whole Voice business is nothing but a smoke screen to cover up the continued process of the violent colonisation of this country….”

Lidia Thorpe is part of the Blak Sovereign Movement, a group that includes some of Australia’s most respected fighters for Aboriginal people’s liberation. They have produced a pamphlet explaining why they have “been consistent in our opposition to constitutional recognition and the Voice to Parliament.” Summing up their stance, the Blak Sovereign Movement makes the following points:

• “It is not an invitation from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.
• “It is not a step in the right direction: just another powerless advisory body.
• “It is a destructive distraction, absolving the government of its continued crimes.
• “Recognition of Sovereignty and Truth-telling are the key to real change.”

As the one side in this referendum that does not represent the interests of any faction of Australia’s big end of town ruling class, the Progressive No side does not have access to the huge financial resources of the other two camps. And the media have tried to ignore their voices. However, these Aboriginal liberation warriors have been speaking out so strongly that their voices are now being heard. The mainstream media is finally having to admit that the Progressive No camp includes not only Lidia Thorpe but many other Aboriginal activists, elders, academics and community workers. Both the hard right Murdoch media and the “centrist” ABC had to report on a sizable event held last Saturday by one of the Aboriginal grassroots groups on the Progressive No side, the Black People’s Union (BPU). The BPU insists that:

“The national liberation of the First Nations people in Australia against Colonial-Capitalist rule and remaining colonial practices is intrinsically tied with the common call of the working class internationally, that is the call for land, peace and bread.”

Analysing the Voice proposal, the BPU concludes:

“The Voice is an attempt by the Australian government to maintain its control over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, our territories and our future, and to silence any voices in opposition to the never-ending colonial violence wrought upon us. It is a form of co-option that seeks to undermine our resistance and activism by offering us token representation in the illegitimate colonial government, to be hand-picked by that illegitimate colonial government.

“We reject the proposal!”

The arguments made against the Voice constitutional amendment by the Progressive No side are substantially correct. We should stand with these staunch Aboriginal activists! Trotskyist Platform members will all be voting No at the referendum from a progressive point of view. We urge all our sympathisers and readers of our press to do the same. To show the election scrutineers going over the ballot papers from what direction our No is coming from, we also encourage people to write slogans on the ballot paper indicating our antiracist stance. Slogans such as: “Down with the State Murder of Aboriginal People in Custody! We Will Not Let the Racist Regime Divert the Struggles for This Through Their Powerless `Voice’ Scheme.” Most importantly, regardless of the referendum result, we call on our supporters and readers to mobilise in support of on-the-streets actions to oppose racist state violence against Aboriginal people, to stop the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families, to win genuine Aboriginal land rights and to win decent housing, medical care and other basic social services for all. The meaningless clash between the two official camps in the Voice referendum has distracted from and diverted the energy from these important struggles – let’s reinvigorate them!

Both the Rival Ruling-Class Camps
Falsely Claim to Represent Grassroots Aboriginal People

Despite the white supremacist essence of the official No to the Voice campaign, they claim to have the support of grassroots Aboriginal people. To sell this narrative, they have made two Aboriginal people their key spokespeople – corporate bigwig Warren Mundine and shadow Indigenous affairs minister Jacinta Price. Mundine and Price have gained wealth and a privileged social standing by providing a black cover to the white racist agenda of the right-wing of the capitalist ruling class. Yet they have almost no support amongst Aboriginal people and most people know this.

With more success, the Yes camp also claims the support of most Aboriginal people. They point to the Voice proposal coming out of the 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention in the NT’s Uluru. Yet the delegates to that convention were drawn out of a very limited number of meetings run by a Referendum Council hand-picked by then Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and ALP opposition leader Bill Shorten. That Referendum Council consisted of former Liberal, ALP and Democrats politicians, corporate bigwigs, a former High Court chief justice, a prominent supporter of the Israeli regime (which subjugates Palestinian people in a way that has similarities to how the Australian regime oppresses Aboriginal people) and several pro-establishment indigenous figures. This council could hardly claim to be a representative of grassroots Aboriginal people! Not surprisingly, the Uluru convention that it organised was stacked in favour of conservative blacks and high-ranking Aboriginal public servants. Only a small number of staunch black activists were selected to be delegates. However, their attempts to express their views were disrespectfully silenced by the convention organisers causing dozens of attendees to walk out. Among those who walked out were some of the most respected, long-time Aboriginal activists. They included founder of the former Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Jenny Munro, one of the founders of Redfern’s Block, Lyall Munro, Lidia Thorpe and her uncle and mentor, Robbie Thorpe. Meanwhile, inside the convention, the Referendum Council organisers ensured that all calls for more than a purely advisory voice were diluted into meaningless abstract rhetoric.

The main operator pulling the strings at the convention was conservative Referendum Council member, Noel Pearson. Today, it is Noel Pearson and Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton who are main faces of the Yes Campaign. It is therefore crucial to note that Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton had been the Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price of five to twenty years ago. They did what Mundine and Price do most rabidly now: blame their fellow Aboriginal people for the hardships that Aboriginal communities endure. Pearson and Langton were the most avid supporters of the despicable NT Intervention. They cheered its destruction of the limited Aboriginal control of community affairs that once existed and its imposition of compulsory income management on Aboriginal welfare recipients. As a result, they were the darlings of conservatives and the Murdoch media. If that has somewhat changed in the last few years, it is mostly not because Pearson and Langton have shifted but because the Murdochs and the rest of the right-wing of the ruling class have become even more extreme – and thus required still more right-wing Aboriginal frontpeople. Indeed, Pearson is still an ardent supporter of compulsory income management and recently joined Jacinta Price in opposing the ending of the hated Cashless Debit Card scheme.

Not surprisingly, Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton were once as despised by most black people as Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price are today. And a great deal of suspicion towards Pearson and Langton remains. Therefore, the claim that the Voice campaign that they are fronting has widespread support amongst Aboriginal people is highly dubious. That being said, the question of what percentage of Aboriginal people support the Voice should not be over-emphasised. Since, just like everyone else, Aboriginal people are bombarded by the propaganda of the capitalist-owned media and influenced by political campaigning dominated by those with the financial resources to print glossy brochures and hire canvassers, there are different levels of political understanding amongst Aboriginal people. This is the same as with all oppressed groups in society. What is most important to note about Aboriginal people’s attitude to the Voice is that the overwhelming majority of those Aboriginal groups and individuals who have been, and are today, active in the grassroots struggles against racist oppression are either resolutely in the Progressive No camp or are – in the case of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and highly-respected long-time militants Lyall Munro and Gary Foley – planning to abstain on the vote. A 20 June statement by the Blak Sovereign Movement “saying NO to the referendum and NO to the Voice” was signed by sixteen of the most well-known First Nations activists including Lidia Thorpe, Jenny Munro and long-time Tasmanian Aboriginal rights militant, Michael Mansell. Notably too, at January’s Invasion Day rally in Sydney, every single Aboriginal activist that addressed the issue – including leading activists Gwenda Stanley and Lizzy Jarrett – condemned the “Voice” and “Constitutional Recognition”. Indeed, the main banner that the thousands-strong demonstration marched behind read: “VOTE NO TO REFERENDUM. WE DESERVE MORE THAN A VOICE.”

The Progressive NO Side is
Diametrically Opposed to the Official NO Camp

The Yes campaign has deviously tried to portray the Progressive No advocates as de facto allies of the conservative No camp. This is despite all the Progressive No activists making it clear that they come from a diametrically opposite stance to the official No side. Lidia Thorpe, for example, has rightly denounced the establishment No campaign as racist. In a sense, it is indeed true that there are just two basic camps in this political contest. But not at all in the way that the Yes camp presents it! For the two basic camps are on the one hand those who refuse to accept the racist political order, which is the Progressive No side, and on the other, those who want to preserve the current racist order – with or without some cosmetic changes – which is the agenda of the official Yes and official No groups. Indeed, if the referendum was hypothetically voting on measures that would actually grant some real political power to Aboriginal people – like a decent number of reserved seats for Aboriginal people in parliament – then we can be sure that Albanese and Dutton would be united as one against the proposal.

Even in the bedrock of their positions on the current Voice, there is large common ground between the two official camps. For although many who will be voting Yes do acknowledge the deep racism that Aboriginal people face, the basis of the Albanese government’s promotion of a powerless Voice is the notion that racial oppression is not the main cause of Aboriginal people’s difficulties, which is precisely the main claim of the conservative No side. Rather, the entire basis of the Yes camp’s advisory Voice proposal is that problems have been caused by a lack of a mechanism to hear Aboriginal people’s voices. By thus reducing problems to a technical/organisational issue, the ruling class factions behind the Yes camp engage in a disgusting whitewash of the intense racist discrimination that Aboriginal people face from state institutions, bosses, landlords and everyday rednecks and the ongoing trauma caused by genocidal colonisation. It is little wonder then that Albanese’s ALP have refused to condemn the inherent racism of the mainstream of the official No movement – only occasionally calling out the bigotry of the most extreme, fringe elements allied with the camp.

Why Do They Want a Voice Enshrined in the Constitution?

Given that there have been so many Aboriginal advisory bodies in the past, why does the Labor government, the Greens, the pro-Voice conservatives and the bosses of Australia’s big banks, largest mining companies and other corporate giants want to, for the first time, enshrine such a body into the constitution? The reason is that they want to look like the racist Australian political order is doing something to improve the lot of Aboriginal people. Or as veteran Aboriginal activist Gary Foley so aptly put it, they want to “put lipstick on a pig.” One reason that they are so obsessed right now with glossing up the image of the regime is because there has emerged a new and highly capable layer of young Aboriginal activists fighting for their people’s liberation along with growing support for the Aboriginal rights struggle from wider sections of society. Over the last few years, Invasion Day protest rallies in Sydney have been tens of thousands strong – several times larger than the same actions just a decade ago. By trying to appear that they are concerned about the well-being of Aboriginal people, a big chunk of the ruling class hopes to dissipate the energy of these movements. That is why the very corporate bosses who have been most callously trampling over the rights of Aboriginal people are amongst the biggest supporters of the Voice. Take for instance the bigwigs of Rio Tinto, the company that three years ago disgustingly blew up two ancient rock shelters at a mine site in WA’s Juukan Gorge – despite traditional owners warning the company of the site’s great significance – and which nine days ago again damaged Aboriginal people’s ancient rock shelters. The bosses of this same Rio Tinto are backing the Yes camp with a massive $2 million donation!

Australia’s capitalist ruling class have another reason for wanting to “put lipstick on the pig”. They know that prettifying their image is essential to furthering their ambitions to intervene more aggressively in the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, they understand that it is key to advancing their goal to destroy socialistic rule in China with the help of their U.S. senior partners. Much of the Australian ruling class understands that progressive sections of society are reluctant to support the Australian regime’s aggressive interventions abroad let alone volunteer to fight in a potential future war against China because they feel hesitant to actively support a regime that has so cruelly subjugated its First Nations people. Ruling class strategists hope that the improved image provided by measures like the Voice will make these sections of society more loyal to the Australian regime. Moreover, Australia’s imperialist ruling class understand the particular need to improve their image in the Pacific where they are worried that Red China’s mutually beneficial cooperation with Pacific countries is undercutting their ability to ride roughshod over these countries the way that they have been doing for decades. With people in the Pacific only too aware of the racism of Australia’s political order, Australian officials and certain Canberra-loyal Pacific leaders have in recent days openly expressed their hopes for a Yes win in the referendum. More generally, Australia’s ruling class know that improving their image is necessary for them to be able to better wield the club of alleged “human rights” abuses against those that they are targeting abroad. Of course, when they and their media denigrate socialistic China over “human rights” they do so with as much as validity as their attacks denigrating Aboriginal people at home. However, Australia’s rulers are not even able to get away with such bogus attacks when China and other targeted countries can – and indeed have – very accurately pointed to the Australian ruling class’ brutal oppression of Aboriginal people. Therefore, the ruling class tries to put as much lipstick on the pig as possible!

We say: Wipe the lipstick off the pig! Let all decent people in Australia, the people of the Pacific and the masses of the world fully see the true racist nature of the Australian regime! Australia’s capitalist rulers have no right to make their lying attacks on socialistic China over “human rights”. Instead, when Albanese has his expected meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping later this year, we appeal to Xi to aggressively call out and condemn the Australian regime’s continued brutal oppression of Aboriginal people and its failure to meet the housing needs of this country’s growing number of homeless people.

The Obstacles to Aboriginal People Winning Justice –
Lessons from the Saga over WA’s Aboriginal Heritage Laws

Much can be understood about the Voice by looking at what happened in WA in the wake of Rio Tinto destroying Aboriginal cultural sites at Juukan Gorge. The atrocity sparked angry protests by Aboriginal people and other anti-racists. Under this pressure, the WA government enacted an Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act which came into force on July 1. The measures were weak and fell far short of any land rights. But they were a minor step forward in that they required some landowners to check for the presence of cultural heritage before conducting any activities that may compromise Aboriginal cultural sites. However, even these minimal measures provoked a powerful outcry from pastoralists, mining companies and big property interests. Within five weeks of the laws coming into force, the WA Labor government capitulated and announced that it would be scrapping the laws! It is not that Aboriginal voices on the issue were not being heard – they were. It is just that those voices were ultimately rebuffed in order to satisfy more powerful interests. And here we come to the key obstacle facing the advancement of Aboriginal people – it is not the lack of Aboriginal voices but the fact that very powerful interests, the interests of the wealthy capitalist class, are counterposed to the interests of most Aboriginal people. In particular, the mining company owners, pastoralists, property developers and big property owners know that their enormous wealth is extracted from stolen Aboriginal land and that any meaningful Aboriginal land rights can only come at their own economic expense. Therefore, these sections of the capitalist class are the most fervent opponents of Aboriginal people. The father of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, and the source of her enormous inherited wealth, mining magnate Lang Hancock, infamously called for the chemical sterilisation of Aboriginal people.

It is not only Aboriginal land rights that the mining company owners, pastoralists and property developers are hostile to. They fear that any semblance of self-determination being won by Aboriginal people or any advancement in First Nations Peoples’ wellbeing could make Aboriginal people better able to challenge their stolen land holdings. Given the structure of the Australian economy, these capitalists make up the dominant section of the ruling class and are closely tied up with finance capital too. Thus, four of Australia’s five richest billionaires – including the top two on the list – come from this portion of the capitalist class. With their enormous ability to make big donations to political parties and establish “independent” political think tanks, this dominant section of the capitalist class can impose its racist, anti-Aboriginal outlook on the rest of society. One way they do this is by spreading the lie that Aboriginal land rights threatens the homes of ordinary people. The truth is that, especially given Australia’s huge land area, there is more than enough living space here for all. Yet while mining company owners, pastoralists, property developers and big property holders face a very real threat to their own profits and excessive property holdings from the Aboriginal land rights struggle they divert and distract the masses by peddling the lie that it is ordinary people’s modest property that’s at stake.

The Liberation of Aboriginal People Can Only Come in
Struggle Against the Entire Capitalist Class

It is not only the mining magnates, pastoralists and big property holders – and other capitalists that they are associated with through finance capital – whose interests are counterposed to the advancement of Aboriginal people. So are the interests of the remainder of the capitalist class. First Nations Peoples have been so brutally subjugated and impoverished by Australia’s ruling class that it will take large amounts of economic resources to lift Aboriginal people out of poverty and provide quality jobs, housing and medical services for all Aboriginal people. However, the greedy capitalists are not willing to pay for this through taxes and other means – especially when their economy is lurching from one crisis to the next. Secondly, Australia’s ruling class do not want a serious and complete truth telling about the ongoing history of their brutal oppression of Aboriginal people. They fear that if the masses know the full history of the genocide, theft, sexual violence, discrimination and abuse that Aboriginal people have been subjected to, the masses will be reluctant to accept falling living standards in the name of the so-called “national interest”; and will be unwilling to support the capitalist regime in its imperialist agenda abroad. Thirdly, especially with the masses seething over unaffordable living costs and inadequate infrastructure, Australia’s capitalist rulers need to scapegoat Aboriginal people in order to divert mass hostility away from themselves.

Therefore, the struggle for Aboriginal people’s liberation is very much linked to the struggle to break the power of the capitalist ruling class. As a step towards this, there needs to be a struggle for the confiscation of the mines, the pastoral holdings and big private property holdings and their transfer into public hands. But where will the force to win such measures come from? Aboriginal people make up just around 3% of the population. Thankfully, it turns out that the working class masses also have an overwhelming interest in challenging the same capitalist class that subjugates First Nations Peoples. Thus, confiscation from the capitalists of the oil and gas sector – and the wind and solar farms too – is needed not only to facilitate Aboriginal land rights and protect Aboriginal cultural sites, it is needed to also drive down the unaffordable cost of fuel and electricity for the masses and, thus, of transport, food and groceries too. Similarly, the confiscation of the pastoral holdings is needed not only to facilitate Aboriginal land rights but to ensure decent wages and conditions for workers at the sites. Moreover, the measures needed to end the high-levels of homelessness faced by Aboriginal people – including a massive increase in public housing and the confiscation of the vacant homes of the ultra-rich and their transfer into the public housing stock – is precisely what is also necessary to end homelessness in the broader population and alleviate the extreme shortage in low-rent accommodation.

Furthermore, the same capitalist system that brutally oppresses Aboriginal people brings the entire working-class falling real wages, unaffordable rents, lack of secure jobs and ultimately the threat of being dragged into another major war. These are all crucial truths. For if the long-term interests of Australia’s working class masses were counterposed to the struggle for Aboriginal people’s liberation then it would be impossible to achieve this liberation. History has proven that it is only ever a minority of people who out of a sense of justice will support a cause that is not in their economic interests; and even less who will support a cause that is positively against their economic interests. However, the working class’ interests definitely are aligned with standing shoulder to shoulder with Aboriginal people in the struggle against the exploiting class.

Coming to understand the need to support the struggles of Australia’s downtrodden First Nations Peoples is a crucial part of the working class gaining the political clarity needed to fight for its own liberation. In capitalist Australia, most white workers have a relatively privileged position compared with most Aboriginal people (though not compared with the Warren Mundines, Jacinta Prices, Linda Burneys, Noel Pearsons and Marcia Langtons!). The ideology that the ruling class poisons the white working class with – and to a lesser extent the non-white, non-Aboriginal masses too – is that this privilege is deserved and should be protected. However, this relative privilege is like a crown of thorns for white workers. For, to the extent that it is happily accepted, it blinds white workers to the reality that all the working class masses are exploited and trampled on by the super-rich capitalist class.

There is another crucial reason why the workers movement must support Aboriginal people’s struggle for justice. As the most downtrodden section of society, working class Aboriginal people are destined to be the bravest, most determined opponents of the current social order. Already, today, grassroots Aboriginal people are on average far more politically engaged than the rest of the population. Once politically advanced workers link up with Aboriginal people’s struggles, this will enable Aboriginal liberation struggles to energise the entire fight against the racist, exploitative capitalist order. This was seen most clearly in one of the most audacious mass struggles in Australian history. On 19 August 1996, tens of thousands of trade unionists and Aboriginal people converged in Canberra to protest against the then Howard Liberal government’s anti-union legislation, cuts to Aboriginal services and racist attacks on Aboriginal communities. After determined Aboriginal contingents at the front of one of the marches refused to kowtow to police provocatively attempting to block their path, construction workers and other trade unionists came to the defence of the Aboriginal contingent and together they ended up spearheading the storming of the entrance to the Australian parliament building by thousands of protesters. Frightened, John Howard complained of being under “duress”, while tourists looked on, amazed at the bold action. That incredible day 27 years ago gave an indication of the real social forces and their interconnections that will make Australia’s future anti-capitalist revolution – the revolution that will liberate the working class, Aboriginal people and all the other downtrodden in society.

However, while the interests of the working class very much lie with standing with Aboriginal people in a joint struggle against the capitalist big end of town, the working class as a whole is currently far from conscious of this truth. Racist attitudes, while most prevalent amongst the self-employed middle class, are present amongst many politically backward workers too. The blame for this lies not only with the racist propaganda of the ruling class but also with the current pro-ALP leaders of the workers movement. By actively campaigning for a Yes vote in the referendum, the ACTU leaders of our unions have been teaching workers to accept the current, racist status quo. At the same time, these ACTU tops have been directing workers to largely kowtow to the Labor government that oversees their own exploitation – only seeking to mobilise workers behind tame efforts to press the Albanese government for minor concessions. Therefore, the struggle to build a workers’ leadership that will truly support Aboriginal people’s struggle for liberation is one and the same as the struggle to build a union leadership that will unleash workers power against the capitalist exploiters and the regime serving it. Aboriginal workers will surely play a disproportionately large role in building such a militant union leadership and in building the revolutionary workers party that it would be linked to.

For a New Aboriginal Chamber of Parliament
with Full Veto Powers of the Senate!

The lead up to the Voice referendum has illuminated the truth that, aside from the notable exception of Lidia Thorpe, all the factions in parliament are hostile to the struggle for Aboriginal people’s liberation. This has in turn highlighted the need for Aboriginal representation in the political process. Therefore, in counterposition to the powerless proposed Voice, we call for what Albanese has been at pains to make clear that the Voice will not be: a new Aboriginal chamber of parliament with the full veto power of the current Senate. Of course, upholders of the status quo will scream that this demand is an outrageous attack on Australia’s “democracy”. But what is “democratic” about a political order that so brutally oppresses its First Nations Peoples! The notion that Australia’s current political system is truly “democratic” is a complete myth. For it is the super-rich capitalists who own the media and disproportionately have the financial resources to control political discourse through funding political parties, hiring lobbyists and establishing campaign groups. As a result, in terms of political sway, the system runs not on “one person, one vote” but on “one dollar, many votes.” Being economically marginalised and suffering racist oppression, Australia’s First Peoples have the least means to directly exert political power. A new Aboriginal chamber of parliament is a step towards giving some power back to this country’s subjugated First Nations Peoples.

However, the establishment of such an indigenous chamber of parliament would be far from a panacea. It would only be a modest step forward. For the election of its members would be shaped by the same realities that distort the elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate – the domination of society by a small, super-wealthy class. Therefore, it would inevitably be wealthy Aboriginal people or those serving their interests and the interests of the broader capitalist class that would ultimately dominate an Aboriginal chamber of parliament. Moreover, the state institutions that the entire parliament administers would still be the racist institutions first created to enforce the genocidal dispossession of Aboriginal people and built up ever since to serve the exclusive interests of the capitalist class. Therefore, the main value of an Aboriginal parliamentary chamber is not so much the modest reforms that it may institute but the fact that the experience of it would convince Aboriginal activists and other supporters of Aboriginal rights that the liberation of First Nations people will not be possible within the bounds of the current political order – that it would require the sweeping away of the existing state institutions and the seizure of the key sectors of the economy from the capitalists. Following such a revolution, power would be held by elected councils of workers and Aboriginal people who would run an economy based on collective ownership of the land and other means of production. When such socialist revolutions occur around the globe, it will lay the basis for societies free from exploitation, racism, colonialism and the oppression of women. Australia would be returned to having the largely collectivist, compassionate and classless societies that existed in most parts of this land before 1788 – but now underpinned by all the comforts, medical care and material abundance that modern technology can provide.

We Cannot Approach This Referendum
from the Standpoint of Fear of the Right-Wing
Gaining From its Defeat

The Yes camp have been arm-twisting progressive opponents of the Voice into voting Yes on the grounds that a defeat of the proposal would embolden the right-wing opponents of it.  However, if the Voice gets up, right-wing racists will be on the warpath. They will turn the Voice into a scapegoat for all the hardships of the masses. Aboriginal people will end up with an institution that would be the worst of both worlds – a powerless body but one that provokes racist attacks. Let us be aware too that the root cause of the growth of the Far Right is not the Voice referendum per se. Rather it is the reality that sections of the upper class have been able to mobilise the middle class and some politically backward workers, enraged at the high cost of living and insecure about their economic position, into a jealous rage against any group below them on the social scale – whether it be Aboriginal people, low-income single mothers, refugees or the unemployed – that strives to improve its social standing. This will not change regardless of the referendum outcome. The Far Right will not be deterred by a victorious referendum vote. What will undercut them is the working class mobilising with such strength against the big end of town that the enraged middle class sees the possibility of joining the workers in kicking upwards at the real cause of their difficulties – rather than cowardly kicking down at those below them in a selfish struggle to keep most of the crumbs doled out by the upper class for themselves. 

Especially with the Progressive NO side cutting through into the political discourse more and more prominently, the right-wing opponents of the Voice will not be able to legitimately claim that a defeat of the Voice proposal is their exclusive victory.  This will be even truer if in the last few days before the referendum vote, we in the Progressive No camp speak out more and more loudly.

More fundamentally, we must address issues in terms of where we stand on them rather than where the right-wing stands. As an analogy, consider the issue of the war in Ukraine. This has become a proxy war that the Western imperialists are waging against Russia in order to bring to heel a country that is independent of them and reinforce their tyranny over the world. The correct position to take is to oppose this proxy war and to oppose the Australian government’s transfer of arms to Western imperialism’s Ukraine proxies. However, the Far Right for very different reasons also oppose this proxy war on Russia. One of their key motivations is based on a hope that improving relations with Moscow can entice Russia into a grand-capitalist alliance with the West against socialistic China. Currently, this Far Right opposition to the proxy war on Russia is much stronger than the left-wing opposition. It would of course be very wrong for us to join any actions called by the Far Right against the proxy war or to seek common ground with them. But it would also be wrong to abandon our stance on the war just because the Far Right come to similar conclusions about the war based on what are, in substance, opposite reasons. Similarly, it would be very harmful for the Progressive No side to join events of the racist opponents of the Voice or to seek common ground with them. And no one in the Progressive No camp has done this. However, it would also be wrong for us to abandon our position out of (understandable) revulsion at the thought of casting the same vote as the hard-right conservatives.

If we understand that the struggle for Aboriginal people’s liberation will come through mass struggle rather than through any vote then what matters most is not the mood of right wingers but the political understanding of those sympathetic to Aboriginal people’s struggles for justice. To the extent that such people have illusions in the Voice, they will be diverted from joining anti-racist struggles on the streets should a Voice be instituted. On the other hand, every supporter of First Nations Peoples’ rights who is won to rejecting the Voice because they have come to understand that the Aboriginal people’s cause will not in the least be advanced by a powerless body operating within the racist, capitalist political order, has been won to a higher level of political clarity. They will thus become far more likely to support Aboriginal rights struggles on the ground no matter who wins the referendum. So let us promote this clarity! Let us vote down this Voice con-job so that anti-racists will not be diverted from joining the mass struggles on the streets needed to advance the liberation of Australia’s subjugated First Nations. Let us build united action of anti-racist workers, First Nations People and other people of colour to: Win justice for Kumanjayi Walker, David Dungay, TJ Hickey, Rebecca Maher and the many other Aboriginal people killed in custody by Australia’s racist, rich people’s regime! Stop the forced removals of Aboriginal children from their families! Win Aboriginal land rights! Win decent services in remote black communities paid for by confiscating the assets of the greedy mining and pastoral bosses! Stop the rising homelessness of Aboriginal people – massively increase public housing so that every Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal person who wants it has access to quality, low rent accommodation! Boost the stock of public housing by seizing the vacant unused homes of the ultra-rich!

The explosion of racist abuse in the lead-up to this referendum not only indicates the deep-going racism within Australia’s capitalist society but shows what fraught times we are living in. With large parts of society hurting from falling real incomes, unaffordable housing and increasing economic insecurity, far-right forces have been able to whip up parts of the self-employed population and other sections of the middle-class and beyond into a racist rage against Aboriginal people and also against people of Chinese, other Asian, African and Middle Eastern backgrounds. However, the difficult conditions that the Far Right are seizing on are one and the same conditions that could be used to mobilise the working class, Aboriginal people and all the oppressed in a struggle against the capitalist order that is the fundamental cause of both the masses’ economic hardships and the brutal subjugation of Aboriginal people. Let us urgently build such a struggle!