Maybe new Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin does have what it takes to save the party from itself – and save the state from its second Labor-induced disaster in a quarter-century. Of course, the party still has to sort out its internal mess with the ongoing John Pesutto ructions, but Battin has made a bold policy announcement that hopefully indicates that the ‘moderates’ are being put back in their boxes.
A Victorian Voice to parliament faces being axed under a coalition government.
The Herald Sun revealed on Monday the Allan government was working to establish its own Voice to parliament – by making permanent the taxpayer-funded body advising on treaty, and giving it the job of offering policy advice on behalf of indigenous Victorians.
But plans to bin the policy if elected to government are being explored by the state opposition, with shadow cabinet expected to formally consider the proposal.
Until then no formal position can be announced but multiple Liberal MPs, speaking anonymously, said it was an obvious move given the party’s staunch opposition to the plan.
Making the principled decision to oppose the federal Voice referendum was the first step the federal party took to rebuilding its credibility – until it flushed all that hard work away with the most abysmal election campaign in living memory. But opposing the Voice was a welcome sign to the party’s repeatedly alienated centre-right base that the conservative adults were back in charge. If only they’d been in charge of the election campaign.
The Victorian Liberals have been even more crippled by the ‘moderate’ faction of the party than most. The so-called ‘moderates’ are in reality dripping-wet and spineless green wannabes, who think that aping every policy position of the left is a winning formula.
No matter how many times the election results have proved otherwise.
Are they finally getting the message?
But opposition leader Brad Battin said the coalition would vehemently oppose the introduction of legislation to enshrine the Voice to parliament.
“The Liberals’ and Nationals’ position is clear – we do not support a state-based treaty or a Victorian Voice to parliament,” he said.
“Victorians delivered a clear verdict in the referendum, and we are listening.
“Jacinta Allan is now trying to push ahead with her own version, without transparency and without a mandate.” […]
Crossbench MP David Limbrick said he would not support race-based laws.
“After Victorians rejected the federal version of this less than two years ago, they are fully justified in feeling that the government is ignoring their wishes,” the Libertarian MP said.
At this stage, though, Labor will still be able to pass it, with support from the Greens and Legalise Cannabis.
Even if the proposal is constitutionally absurd. Where, firstly, does a mere state government get off presuming to negotiate a ‘treaty’? Treaties are between sovereign nations, not sub-national bodies. In any case, how on earth does a nation make a treaty with its own citizens? It can’t: therefore the tacit assumption of the ‘treaty’ activists is that Aboriginal Australians are a separate nation to the rest of us.
An apartheid ethnostate, in other words.
Which is precisely why Australians so emphatically rejected the referendum.
We have already gotten a taste of how disastrous race-based politics can be with climbing bans in the Grampians. All the Indigenous bureaucracies have done so far is created division and resentment.
Bureaucracy is not the answer, it is a massive part of the problem. Many millions of dollars are spent on Indigenous services every year, and yet people rarely see any benefit, and the gap on several indicators never closes.
Victorians would be far better off to have bureaucracies like these shut down, and the money put back in their pockets.
But tax-leeching bureaucracy is just what the activist class lives for. It beats getting a real job, after all.
Gunditjmara respected person Aunty Jill Gallagher […] argued the referendum was politicised and awash with “misinformation”, adding: “If Victorians fully understood what we were asking for, I think they would have supported it.”
This is the arrogant mindset we’re dealing with: people who think that they only reason anyone disagrees with their racist policies is because they’re stupid. In fact, the reason Australians so emphatically rejected a race-based law was because they did understand it fully.
The Gimmegimme tribe are already making a motza off the taxpayer.
The First Peoples’ Assembly was established in 2018 under former premier Daniel Andrews as a representative body for indigenous Victorians in treaty negotiations.
It operates like a parliament with 33 members who are directly elected by indigenous Victorians and paid at least $96,946.
It has already received hundreds of millions of dollars from the state government, including for a Self-Determination Fund to help traditional owners engage in Treaty negotiations and to fund activities to help Indigenous Victorians build wealth.
Imagine the howls of fury if a government established a fund to help white people ‘build wealth’. Oh, wait, these are ‘indigenous Victorians’ we’re talking about: they’re already white.
