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In the face of historically low levels of Indigenous representation in our parliaments, the Indigenous caucus between Commonwealth, State and Territory Labor representatives points to some progress. But we have a long way to go.
It seemed enough for many 'progressives' that the majority of the people who had fallen by the dual citizenship wayside were Coalition members, with the added bonus of Malcolm Roberts. I began to wonder why what is essentially an issue of racism and discrimination was not considered a priority for those who state they believe in social justice.
The bones of the foreign policy white paper, released last week by Julie Bishop, have been picked over by the country's leading international relations thinkers and the consensus is clear - the timing is right and we must act now. But we need a leader who is willing to put the work in.
It's easy to ridicule Hanson and her party. After all, they are our resident shambolic political show with a line of defecting MPs, racist stunts and statements, and staff arrests. What is not so easy to dismiss is the fact that PHON candidates were steadily clocking 20-30 per cent support in their seats at the Queensland election.
During the month of Muharram, the No message was being handed out at mosques and spoken from the pulpits. Yet many Muslims voted Yes not because we wanted to reinvent the Islamic idea of marriage, but because the scriptures teach that we should stand up for justice even if it goes against our families and ourselves.
In the ensuing debate, we shouldn't let ourselves forget that this postal vote never should have happened in the first place, and nothing like this should happen again to any minority group. The public voting yes or no on human rights is not what democracy looks like.
I said I would be very happy to play second fiddle. I wanted my presence to assist a respectful dialogue. I wanted to make it clear that a thinking and compassionate Catholic could have good reasons for voting yes. I wanted to insist that respect and endorsement of loving same sex relationships did not preclude consideration of issues such as freedom of religion.
The most prominent self-described conservative in Australia, former prime minister Tony Abbott, has expressed many views on conservation and on the merits of addressing climate change, but none of these views could be argued as coming from a position of conservatism that Teddy Roosevelt could agree with.
One of the first votes I ever cast was the one in which I got to help decide whether a marginalised group of people should have the same rights as me. It was March 1992. I was a young, white, enfranchised South African working as a journalist. The referendum was one of the methodical steps taken by F. W. de Klerk in the dismantling of apartheid.
On the one hand, one could look at the campaign for marriage equality and feel that it's refreshing that a section of society wants marriage to be affirmed and made more available. But what are people really going to be voting on when they make their decision in the postal survey?
For many Catholic voters, this has been a difficult issue because for the first time in their lives they have found themselves in the same position which our politicians find themselves every time they have to vote on contested moral and political questions in parliament. They don't find themselves getting all that much help from official church declarations. This is no criticism of our bishops. They are the custodians of a tradition which has been somewhat skewed on this issue for a long time.