An alliance of philanthropic foundations has declared their support for the Voice: a combined $17-million pledge from the philanthropic sector to the Yes campaign.
Right now in Alice Springs and around the north of Australia charities are working with Aboriginal service providers to solve problems. But the $17-million pledge is a political act. It is not an act of charity.
The Yes case advertisement mentions recognition, and reconciliation. And moral threats that if voters don’t toe the line, then reconciliation will fail. The substance of the proposal has been hidden. The charity foundations have signed on to a campaign that is too afraid to mention its program – Voice, Uluru, Makarrata, Treaty, Truth telling.
Contrast this political exercise with the Yipirinya school in Alice Springs where the principal wants to build a boarding school on site to keep his students safe from their own families. Not from some long-gone invaders from 235 years ago.
I could understand that charities would want to become involved in debate about grog permits, or the Basics Card, or boarding schools, but a political voice that will replicate a thousand other voices that have canvassed these issues for decades is pure vanity.
In March, I submitted a formal complaint to the Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission about the Paul Ramsay Foundation donation of $5 million to Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition.
The Paul Ramsay Foundation has stated that it ‘aims to make a lasting contribution to positive social change … supporting an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice… ensuring First Nations self-determination’.
The late Paul Ramsay would be turning in his grave at this political action taken in his name. There is nothing positive or charitable about funding one side of a political debate. Australians will judge what is positive. I think that Australians should also judge what is charitable and boycott those charities that enter the political arena and supplant the voice of voters.
Neither ‘positive social change’ nor ‘First Nations self-determination’ are charitable purposes in Australia. What part of ensuring ‘self-determination’ is not a political campaign?
There is a real question as to whether these foundations have strayed from their respective charitable purposes and engaged in activities that are so substantial as to demonstrate that a non-charitable independent purpose has arisen. If this were so it would disqualify these entities from registration as charities.
There is also a question as to whether the activities engaged in by the charities in supporting the Voice to parliament are so remote to the achievement of outcomes for indigenous Australians as to amount to a non-charitable purpose.
Millions of taxpayer-supported dollars will line the pockets of people who need it least, the advertising agencies, marketing firms, social media giants, printing companies, and political strategy professionals, who will make a fortune from this campaign. They will accrue wealth on the back of Australian generosity, while nothing changes for Aboriginal Australians.
Do philanthropists seriously suggest that treaties between the Australian government on behalf of all Australians and a sub-group of Australians are a good idea?
Are Aboriginal people really that different that we need a treaty to talk to each other? Do people who are neighbours and workmates, people who are married to each other need a treaty to get on? The very thought of heading down such a road would divide Australians and destroy reconciliation. People will stop talking to each other. Australia would be stuck with never-ending conversations between a dependent people, pretending not to be dependent.
What becomes lost in treaty talk is the individual and their humanity, and the common humanity shared by all Australians. This should be the focus of charity. Instead, treaty focuses on people through one prism – identity. So much so that people of Aboriginal descent are assumed to think alike and that their needs and aspirations can, and must, be addressed as a group.
As for truth telling there have been eight major inquiries into the condition of Aboriginal people, particularly child sexual abuse. Each has been an opportunity for Aboriginal people to tell their truth. It’s all been done. Why go over the same ground?
Australia has had enough of the special pleading, it is time to dismantle the voices of arrogance and return to the hard task of helping those in need, not an Aboriginal elite to the spoils of Canberra. The democratic system must not be assaulted by Voice, Treaty and ‘Truth’ simply because a claimant fails to receive satisfaction.
Philanthropic leaders have vastly overplayed their hand. It is time to cease the war against history and Australian society.
Gary Johns is the former Commissioner of the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and secretary of Recognise a Better Way. He is also a former Labor federal minister.