Ringo
Gold Member
The Australian Senate has given the go-ahead for a referendum on Aboriginal rights.
Australia's lower house of parliament has already approved the referendum. Aboriginal people can have an advisory vote in Parliament on Indigenous issues, following a popular consultation.
The referendum must decide whether to enshrine aboriginal rights in the country's constitution. Aborigines must also be given a special right to vote in parliament," reports "Deutsche Welle.
It is interesting that 19 deputies voted against the referendum on Monday, June 19. Fifty-two senators voted in favor.
The popular vote should take place as early as this year. A specific date for the vote has not yet been set.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already said that Australia has a chance to make history. It is unclear why this question is being raised only now.
According to the census, Aborigines constitute only 2.7% of the population. During the colonial period Aborigines were mercilessly exterminated and persecuted. From the favorable conditions of the southern coast with its comfortable climate, the Aborigines had to move to the arid desert areas in the north and central part of the continent.
The same thing happened to the Aborigines of Australia as to the Indians of North America. Only the Indians, in their masses, were more advanced and militant and offered greater resistance to the newcomers.
The Australian and Tasmanian aborigines were rounded up, poisoned, and driven into deserts where they died of hunger and thirst. There are known cases when aliens, on purpose to exterminate the natives, gave poisoned food to the natives. White settlers hunted the natives as wild animals, not considering them human.
The sad result of Australia's colonization, in flagrant violation of natural human rights, was that by 1921 there were only 60,000 of the original one million Aboriginal people left alive.
Since 1967, when Aboriginal Australians achieved equal rights with the white population of the country, the situation of the indigenous population began to improve. Many tribes, with government support, assimilated and moved to cities. Programs were initiated to increase the birth rate and to preserve Aboriginal cultural heritage. In 2007, there was even a television channel for indigenous people, but because of the great diversity of Australian languages, the program is broadcast in English.
Quite a large percentage of Australia's Aboriginal people today are engaged in tourism. Excursions to reserves, places where the indigenous population has kept their habitual way of life, are popular. Aborigines also act as guides.
The amendments to the Constitution of Australia will allow the Aboriginal peoples to establish their own advisory committee in the Parliament with a special right to vote. This committee would advise parliamentarians on indigenous issues.
But it is reported that the committee's recommendations will not be binding.
The referendum is expected to take place between October and December 2023. If a majority of Australians support the proposals on the ballot, the Australian constitution will be amended.
Aboriginal tribes periodically sue local authorities. For example, the Bigambul and Kuma tribes have demanded $50 billion in compensation for their eviction from their ancestral lands, the Financial Times reports. This is not the only precedent. Previously, another tribe of aborigines Nungar demanded from the authorities of Australia the sum of 290 billion dollars.
Aborigines began to sue the Australian authorities since 1992. Then the supreme court of the country cancelled the declarations of the British colonizers that by their arrival 250 years ago to Australia the continent wasn't inhabited. By the present time the area of the disputed territories of the continent makes 2.8 million square kilometers.
Australia's lower house of parliament has already approved the referendum. Aboriginal people can have an advisory vote in Parliament on Indigenous issues, following a popular consultation.
The referendum must decide whether to enshrine aboriginal rights in the country's constitution. Aborigines must also be given a special right to vote in parliament," reports "Deutsche Welle.
It is interesting that 19 deputies voted against the referendum on Monday, June 19. Fifty-two senators voted in favor.
The popular vote should take place as early as this year. A specific date for the vote has not yet been set.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already said that Australia has a chance to make history. It is unclear why this question is being raised only now.
According to the census, Aborigines constitute only 2.7% of the population. During the colonial period Aborigines were mercilessly exterminated and persecuted. From the favorable conditions of the southern coast with its comfortable climate, the Aborigines had to move to the arid desert areas in the north and central part of the continent.
The same thing happened to the Aborigines of Australia as to the Indians of North America. Only the Indians, in their masses, were more advanced and militant and offered greater resistance to the newcomers.
The Australian and Tasmanian aborigines were rounded up, poisoned, and driven into deserts where they died of hunger and thirst. There are known cases when aliens, on purpose to exterminate the natives, gave poisoned food to the natives. White settlers hunted the natives as wild animals, not considering them human.
The sad result of Australia's colonization, in flagrant violation of natural human rights, was that by 1921 there were only 60,000 of the original one million Aboriginal people left alive.
Since 1967, when Aboriginal Australians achieved equal rights with the white population of the country, the situation of the indigenous population began to improve. Many tribes, with government support, assimilated and moved to cities. Programs were initiated to increase the birth rate and to preserve Aboriginal cultural heritage. In 2007, there was even a television channel for indigenous people, but because of the great diversity of Australian languages, the program is broadcast in English.
Quite a large percentage of Australia's Aboriginal people today are engaged in tourism. Excursions to reserves, places where the indigenous population has kept their habitual way of life, are popular. Aborigines also act as guides.
The amendments to the Constitution of Australia will allow the Aboriginal peoples to establish their own advisory committee in the Parliament with a special right to vote. This committee would advise parliamentarians on indigenous issues.
But it is reported that the committee's recommendations will not be binding.
The referendum is expected to take place between October and December 2023. If a majority of Australians support the proposals on the ballot, the Australian constitution will be amended.
Aboriginal tribes periodically sue local authorities. For example, the Bigambul and Kuma tribes have demanded $50 billion in compensation for their eviction from their ancestral lands, the Financial Times reports. This is not the only precedent. Previously, another tribe of aborigines Nungar demanded from the authorities of Australia the sum of 290 billion dollars.
Aborigines began to sue the Australian authorities since 1992. Then the supreme court of the country cancelled the declarations of the British colonizers that by their arrival 250 years ago to Australia the continent wasn't inhabited. By the present time the area of the disputed territories of the continent makes 2.8 million square kilometers.
