Aboriginal leader Nyungay Warren Mundine says Aboriginal voice in Parliament ‘is not our voice’ and ‘academic elites’ have dreamed of it
- The Voice is the invention of academic elites, says Nyunggai Warren Mundine
- The former Labor Party chairman said The Voice is the dream of urban activists
- He claims Indigenous groups say all of their funding will now go to The Voice
- Mundine has previously argued strongly against The Voice, calling it race-based
Prominent Aboriginal leader Nyungay Warren Mundine says the Aboriginal voice before parliament is the brainchild of academic elites in big cities and is causing resentment among other Aboriginal people.
Mondine, a former leader of the Labor Party but now working for a right-leaning think tank, has been a vocal critic of The Voice which he previously described as “race-based right”.
He told Sky News on Wednesday that “The Voice is Not Our Voice” and will make a practical difference to the daily lives of the majority of Indigenous people.
Nyungay Warren Mundine says the Aboriginal voice in Parliament is an invention of inner-city academics
“It was dreamed up by a lot of people, indigenous people, in Sydney and Melbourne,” he said.
Elites in academia.
Mr Mundine said Indigenous people are being denied funding for the activists’ dream.
He said, “Indigenous organizations are now complaining to me that they are not getting funding because this voice has sucked the money in.”
The Voice was first formally proposed in the Indigenous Reconciliation Scheme Uluru Statement from the Heart that came out of a 2017 meeting of 250 delegates claiming to represent Indigenous sentiments nationwide.
Mr Mundine criticized the process in an article published on December 9, where he said the Motitgolo community in the lands around Uluru rejected and did not approve of the name.
Mr Mundine says The Voice will do nothing to improve the daily lives of Indigenous people in Australia (Pictured still from an ad promoting a yes vote for the upcoming referendum)
He noted that 250 delegates was fewer than the number of indigenous languages spoken in pre-colonial Australia.
“Meetings are limited to 100 people with 60 per cent of the venues reserved for Aboriginal people, 20 per cent for community organizations and 20 per cent for key individuals,” Mr Mundine wrote.
Although carefully chosen, many delegates rejected the statement and withdrew from the convention.
“Don’t tell me the Uluru Heart Statement reflects an Aboriginal consensus view.”
Mr Munden criticized Melbourne academic Marcia Langton (pictured left hugging Elder Galaroy Yunupingo)
In defending his colleague, Senator Jacinta Nambiginpa Price, an opponent of The Voice, Mr Mundine took aim at Professor Marcia Langton, a Melbourne academic of anthropology.
Professor Langton attacked Senator Price’s opposition to The Voice as an example of a “vicious, eugenicist, nineteenth-century-style debate about superior vs. inferior race”.
Mr. Mundine said it was a “shame” and tried to turn the tables by saying The Voice is a race-based idea.
“Langton’s claim that Senator Price promotes racial supremacy is also bizarre because it is Langton who is campaigning for an amendment to the Constitution that would entrench certain rights for people of a certain race,” Mundine said.
A staunch original opponent of The Voice was LDP Senator Jacinta Price
Mr. Mundine said he had not “find anyone who could explain to me what a voice is and how it would solve so many real issues in Aboriginal communities”.
“The Voice will fundamentally change the character of Australia’s democratic system and the attitudes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within it,” he wrote.
‘Not in a good way.’
