The "Uluru Statement in full"

has been published in our state newspaper this morning. I don't know where else it is being published but it is interesting that it should be published here - or anywhere else. 

This is the document the present government has committed to implementing "in full". It is the document which forms the basis for "the Voice to Parliament" we are being asked to vote on in a referendum on October 14th. It is the document which forms the basis for a proposed change to our Constitution.

There has been an argument over whether it was just one page or whether it is many. There was difficulty in actually obtaining it. I did actually manage to download a copy from a site which obtained it through a Freedom of Information request. I read it some time ago. 

Unless it is a very, very long page indeed then it is many pages long. It should not have taken any FoI request to obtain it. It is a document which should have been freely available and in the public arena from the start. 

We have a Prime Minister who tells us it is a single page, that it is a "simple request" and who, when asked whether he had read the entire document, said, "No, why would I?" Even the authors of the document admit it is longer and more complex than he makes out.

If people take the trouble to read it then it should send "undecided" people into the "No" camp. It may send some "Yes" voters there too. There will be "Yes" voters who will try to argue that the document means something else but they will be the rusted on Yes voters, the hardcore left wing voters who cannot afford to have doubts. They are those who believe the government can control the demands being made. 

Most people will not trouble to read it. It is a long document. It is in a Tuesday paper, not a weekend paper. They will not understand statements about "the law" being "violated" by the arrival of white settlers - and neither they should because the statement itself is nonsense. It is an attempt to suggest that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people believe the same things in the same way, that a Voice can somehow speak for groups which are as diverse in language and culture as they are across Europe or Africa or Asia. 

If you live in this country and you have a duty to attend the ballot box on October 14th then is it too much to ask you to read the entire document? Ask yourself, is this what the people which it is claimed to represent really want?