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In short, a particular problem comes to light in relation to the Voice and religion in the course of the essays in this volume. It relates to a danger to freedom of religion; with the associated danger of an imposition of certain religious beliefs and practices upon the entire population.

Some of the essays in this book address this danger. Gabriël Moens explains that whether the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a “religious” document depends on a legal definition of “religion”, which is notoriously difficult to be dogmatic about. He quotes Mason CJ and Brennan J in Church of the New Faith v Commissioner for Pay-Roll Tax (Vic) that: “For the purposes of the law, the criteria of religion are twofold: first, belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle; and second, the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief.”

Moens goes on to note that the Uluru Statement makes use of the term “spiritual sovereignty”, which, he says, “serves as the rallying point of those who want to entrench the Voice in the Constitution”. The appeal thus to “spirituality” makes the Uluru Statement a religious document in just about anybody’s book, even a legal tome.

Oddly enough, even within the limits of that definition, it seems that the imposition of religious practices has already taken place – without the machinery of any Voice – in the “Smoking Ceremonies” that take place at any number of civic, sporting and entertainment functions throughout the country. To go to a graduation ceremony, attend the footy, hear a lecture, means being subjected to a distinctly pagan dispersal (practice) of demons (supernatural Beings) ceremony.

That has certainly gone under the radar of most of the population of this country, whose religions are most certainly not so syncretic and devil-may-care as our actual practice of them would give others to believe.

So, is the Voice a bridge too far, or is it just the next step in swapping our birthright for a mess of pottage?

Most of the essays in this book are valuable for their explication of the basic principles that are pushed aside for the sake of the Voice, as alluded to above. However, the most valuable on the specifically religious dimension are those by Rabbi Shimon Cowen and Fr John Fleming.

Rabbi Cowen, in his very analytic essay, refers to three tiers of ownership: that of the Creator (it’s His world, after all); that of the state; and that of the individual. He goes on to explain that the state’s sovereign ownership must be singular; a “divided” sovereignty is a contradiction in terms. Therefore: “So long as the Voice is tied to a concept of distinct Aboriginal sovereignty, its acceptance must mean that the Australian State must dissolve its sole sovereignty.”

Rabbi Cowen also astutely draws our attention to the fact that the 2021 iteration of the National Curriculum makes no reference to the teaching of any spirituality in our schools except one – Aboriginal spirituality. Thus, all Australian students are to be taught a spirituality that is a million miles from anything most of them would receive at home; that is default establishment.

He ends:

“With the Voice referendum we have the … possibility: that instead of the traditional monotheistic Judeo-Christian society with its attendant values, the society as a whole is intended to receive the identity of the stylised and idealised pristine indigenous morality of the purported ‘victim’, in the form of a standardised neo-Paganism for society from education right through to forms of public ceremony.”

Against the Grain

Fr John Fleming also writes most cogently, if more combatively than Rabbi Cowen, making the case, in agreement with Voice “Yes” campaigner Greg Craven that the Voice is a moral issue, but contra Craven that it “flows deeply from my Catholic faith”.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” writes Fr Fleming, “Sentimentality does not trump basic moral principles.”

He goes on to elaborate on how a Voice to Parliament will mean in practice a deviation from the Catholic social principles of participation, solidarity and subsidiarity.

Participation will be adversely affected because the Voice will displace local voices of Aboriginal people (dog in the manger syndrome); it will operate against solidarity because the Voice is a structure that divides the Australian people into those who are awarded rights under the Voice based on racial identity and the rest of us; and it will entrench in our political apparatus a body consisting of a small number of “representatives” in Canberra that will make decisions for hundreds of tribal groups spread all over this land that should in the main be enabled to make those decisions for themselves.

I lack the space to elaborate on all of the many good essays in this book, so I will merely point the interested reader to those in particular by Augusto Zimmermann, David Daintree, David Pellowe and Rocco Loiacono, all of which contribute to a persuasive argument that the “Yes” case really has no case.

Highly recommended.

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Originally published in News Weekly.