I've been working my way through the upcoming Voice referendum that white Australians will be voting Yea or Nay for come October 14 (the day before Nietzsche's birthday: 'Ray, Amor Fati!). The Voice is an initiative that would "recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders" by offering select members of the Black community an opportunity to be invited by parliamentarians to offer their nonbinding advice on Aboriginal affairs. Apparently, no such Voice yet exists for "the oldest continuous culture on Earth (75,000 years and still going). I note to myself ponderously that dinosaurs have a Voice today through Big Oil and, my, aren't they having their revenge. Montezuma roll over. Everyone over 18 has to vote, or face a $10 fine that can be paid online, if you feel like paying.
It's the first major initiative regarding Aboriginal affairs since PM Kevin Rudd pulled a William Hurt Broadcast News onion-weepy maneuver on the public back on February 13, 2008, telling a TV audience he was, on behalf of all white Australians, "sorry" for the mix-up and confusions of historical materialism that resulted in their meaningless and unnecessary suffering, including a reference to the Stolen Generations, which saw Black children with white blood forcibly removed from their families and put into foster care 'to give them half a chance in life.' Or something like that. Maybe some of these come-of-age stolen genos will be placed on Voice commissions.
Well, that speech was the end of Rudd's career. The Right hated him anyway, and they didn't want him crying in their beer. The ever-diminishing Thinking Left knew his efforts to be, at best, platitudinous. The Aboriginal community largely made gestures that suggested, Never mind all that; pony up with the repos. He was eventually chased away from Animal Farm and given a posting he'd never forget in Mexico, like some far flung Trotsky Snowball. What's That? Oh, Rudd's the current Aussie ambassador to the US. Never mind, as Roseanne Roseannadanna would say.
Aboriginals don't really figure into much here, from what I can see. When there are conferences of one kind or another in a major city, the whiteys bring in an elder to bless the conference and tacitly okay the proceeding after the conference moderator opens by acknowledging the facility is on Aboriginal land and that they thank the "custodians" for allowing them to carry on with palaver here. The elder is given a respectful round applause, seated at a special table for some high end tucker and decent merlot, and handed a packet with cash and an offer of a ride home, as he'd probably find the conference on mental health boring. After counting the money, the elder accepts the offer of a ride back to one of the reservation neighborhoods. Oldest continuous culture.
All of this was havocking through my head, like Dylan's Rolling Thunder Tour, when I read that a contingent of Aussies was heading to America to meet with Rudd, and company there, and to mix with the social circuit of Congressional power players for drinks and bluster musters. They came to town to plead among the clinking glasses for the release of Julian Assange. The contingent includes Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, Labor MP Tony Zappia, Greens Senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, Liberal Senator Alex Antic and the independent member for Kooyong, Dr. Monique Ryan. Joyce, the elder statesman, is a former deputy prime minister under Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. Joyce seems an unlikely Assange cheerleader, as he is a conservative who opposes the Voice, hates abortion, wasn't thrilled about the passage of the referendum on same-sex marriage, and carries all the baggage of any Catholic directed by the dictates of Rome. On the other hand, he doesn't want to ban burkas, says he doesn't favor the death penalty (that's what the mafia's for), and he's cool with medicinal marijuana, although he doesn't appear to be bongulating as much as he should be to pass for hip. I've never heard him say he supports Julian Assange. Him being on the trip makes it seem like the contingent is in America on a junket -- or worse. It's a fairly toothless group, as the Greens no longer have much sway in parliament (once upon a time they held the balance of power, but didn't do much with it), and the independent MP isn't much. One wonders indeed how the contingent became the Voice for Julian Assange. Probably they will be as effective with Congresspeople, with respect to the disposition of Julian's case, as the Aboriginal Voice group will be in parliament. One wonders who put them up to it? John Shipton? Stella Assange? John Pliger?
Meantime, while President Joe Biden, decides whether it would be politically expedient to press the Assange extradition during the re-election campaign ahead or to release him from his fetters, no plans have been announced by the Aussie contingent to make a 5-hour flight to London to visit their now-beloved Julian on their way back to the land of moral chunder. See, there's been very little uproar in Australia over the fate of Assange, other than from the disappearing wits of the academic Left. Now, we hear, Liberal MP Alex Antic utter, "I think we're seeing an incredible groundswell, and we want to see Julian at home as soon as possible." No, we're not, and there's something off about the 'spontaneous' enthusiasm. Or maybe the US has secretly signaled that they will release Assange as a gesture of consolidation in the lead up to the likely coming confrontation with the Red Menace over "Taiwan" and assorted "intellectual property" unexcitements. In this scenario, Australia is likely to lose the ASIO-CIA spy base at Pine Gap and Alice Springs. Boom. Oppenheimer. Barbie. Maybe the Aboriginal Voice group should be brought in to consult on that plausibility. Whitey here doesn't seem to give a sh*t.
As for the sentiment of how glad the tidings would be if dear old ethical hacker and publisher extraordinaire Julian Assange would be allowed to return to his farflung home in Oz to be among the mates again, all ratbagging on about the Americans and their arrogance, half that bar filled with American IC assets and operatives, of which the country is inundated, it's a real question of whether he'd be better off back home. (Australia has the number 2 supply of lithium in the world, albeit most of it is owned by US investors. Hell, pinch me, even the Chileans own some of the lithium stock. But there won't be any nationalization here. Unless, maybe, if Oz were to get nuked over a failed bid to protect Taiwan and Aussies felt betrayed by false promises.) Assange would be looking at laws here that are every bit as Draconian as the US Espionage Act of 1917. Take the 2018 Espionage Act, which has been seen as interfering in "the legitimate conduct of journalists and sources is at real risk of criminalisation under the laws." Imagine the offices of PBS being raided, a report stopped, computers removed, Judy Woodruff manhandled. That kind of thing has already happened here.
With Australia quickly and quietly reposturing its military forces to project an offensive capability in major way for the first time, and reconfiguring its soft socialist safety net (tax dollars have to come from somewhere to pay for the bang-bang), and becoming a base of operations in the Asian Pivot designed to thwart the influence of China in the region, there is less and less of a reason why a still-activist Assange would want to return home to its deepening conservatism and subjugation by the very Empire he fought most of his life to expose for its hypocrisy and bloodletting ways.
Well, drink up, shall we?
