The constitution has special legal status in Australia. Parliament cannot alter it the way they can normal laws. The constitution can only be changed by a referendum - which is vote by the whole nation. What parliament is allowed to do (not Albo individually, but by majority vote in parliament), is make laws under the constitution. So yes, parliament could pass a law that creates a voice. But the next government could then pass a law that cancels the voice. And so on. The idea of putting in the constitution was so that it would have more staying power. If it was in the constitution it could still be removed, but only by another referendum, because as per point A, constitution can only be changed by a referendum.
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Didn’t like the outcome hey. Fair enough.
Democracy in action. The constitution can’t change without the vote and the country voted. If he didn’t act accordingly it would be political suicide if he even made it come next election.
If you look at the history of Indigenous policy you'll see that many versions of advisory bodies have been legislated only to eventually be removed. Plus the symbolic value of constitutional recognition can't be understated. A tokenistic gesture, sure, but Australia is still the last settler colonial nation in the global north to recognise their First Peoples. For the sake of just the basic values of a modern nation we should at the very least recognise the people who were here first in our constitution.
Aren't y'all in the southern hemisphere?
Global North/South is a socio-economic and political grouping.
Developed countries = global north
Developing = global south
It does originate in geography, as the vast majority of wealth and high-tech industry is in the geographic North, but countries like Aus and NZ also fit, despite being South of the equator.
And it’s such a ridiculous term because of how little sense it makes.
Just using developing/developed.
Ah. Thank you!
it's a silly way of saying undeveloped versus developed. in itself it is a misnomer as Australia still has a backwards, absurdly outdated, colonialist constitution. we're not a developed, or 'first world' state, democratically anyway..
- We are a developed nation.
- "First world" doesn't mean developed, it means "NATO or NATO-ally during the Cold War". So we are a first world nation. (2nd world being USSR and its allies, and 3rd world being unaligned nations.)
- We are a very democratic country. We're not the best in this regard, but top 20 isn't too bad.
- Our "backwards, absurdly outdated, colonialist constitution" has no bearing on whether or not we are a developed country. It's a completely orthogonal issue, and is also specifically the subject of this discussion.
Yep but global north is a more appropriate way of saying 'developed' nations.
is a more appropriate way
No it isn't. It's a silly less clear way. And it doesn't add anything, because any judgment that might be implied by the use of the term "developed" or "developing" is still carried by the terms "global north" and "global south", because the terms are nothing other than a euphemism for the same thing.