Monthly Archives: September 2023

Remembering the 67 referendum: Liz Swain, Charline Emzin-Boyd, Val Timms, Terry Timms and Janet Kneale. Photo Tree Faerie

Australians voted in the 1967 referendum on May 27, 1967. Harold Holt was the prime minister at the time, a Liberal MP who led a Coalition with the Country Party.

The referendum had three issues asked in two questions, regarding two bills to alter the Australian Constitution.

The first question sought to increase the number of members in the House of Representatives. The second question (Constitution Alteration [Aboriginals] Bill 1967) related to Indigenous Australians and was in two parts: voters were asked whether to give the federal government the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether Indigenous Australians should be included in official population counts for constitutional purposes.

The amendments to the Constitution were overwhelmingly endorsed, winning 90.77 per cent of votes cast and having majority support in all six states. The Bill became an Act of Parliament on August 10, 1967.

Three women, in their early to mid-thirties, voted in that referendum. Each was the mother of small children and had experience in varying degrees with Aboriginal people.

Janet Kneale said that she was born into the sixth generation of a Queensland grazier dynasty.

Three generations of my family had Aboriginals working the land. The first two were just given food. The third generation, which was my mothers generation, they paid them. But, when they came to work on our property, they werent sitting at the lunch table with us, they were put in a shed out the back.

Cemented in Janets memory is a moment in time when she came upon one of the workers. I saw Mick Cook. He was eating his lunch alone on tumble-down chairs. Even though I was ten, I knew it was all wrong.

I voted in 1967. When they announced it I thought its about time. I had such pleasure to write Yes.

Liz Swain says the 67 event wasnt even a blip on her radar. I dont remember the 1967 referendum at all. I have spoken to a lot of my friends who are the same age none of them remember the referendum. There was just no opposition to it so it was non-controversial.

Val Timms says in 1967 she was surprised that they didnt already have those things in place.

I knew about it, I was amongst the ones that were helping to organise it, she said.

One thing the three women agree on is that the vote and the lead-up, in their view, was not politicised. It was a bipartisan event that wasnt about agendas. There was no opposition and almost 91 per cent of the nation agreed.

Whats happened? asks Liz.

Its become so political. It is totally divisive. Thats confusing people. Thats the problem. Not just the fact that theyve got this opposition but theyre making up all these things.

Liz says if you dont know about the issue then you need to go and find out.

Really! I was shocked when I heard the National Party came out and say they were going to vote No. This is shameful. It is totally shameful.

Val Timms says she hopes todays youth will get on board. Young people are becoming more aware and they will fight and I think theyll fight for whats right.

Janet Kneale says her memory has played that scene with Mick Cook over and over.

Ive carried that all my life. Ive followed Aboriginals and whats been going on with their meetings and trying to get a Voice.

Some might think me eccentric, I suppose, but Ive been saying for a long time theres one more thing Ive got to do before I go, and I think this is it.

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The politics of the 2023 Voice referendum non-existent in 1967 - Echonetdaily

27th September 2023

A GSD government would not turn back the clock on treaty negotiations despite serious misgivings about aspects of the process to date, party leader Keith Azopardi said on Wednesday, insisting an agreement can be reached.

Mr Azopardi was speaking during a press conference in which he also announced that a GSD administration would continue to attend the UN to champion self-determination and would invite the Leader of the Opposition to present a joint front in New York.

Flanked by GSD candidates Damon Bossino, Roy Clinton and Daniella Tilbury, Mr Azopardi said his team had ample experience and expertise to continue the treaty talks if elected, dismissing as nonsense GSLP/Liberal claims that the party would be soft on Spain.

Asked if he believed a deal was possible, Mr Azopardi said: I think an agreement can be reached.

I think an agreement can be reached because I take at face value the mood music that is out there.

I know it's a very difficult, complex issue, and with open eyes I don't underestimate how difficult and how complex it will be.

But I do think that the political climate is for a possible, safe and beneficial agreement.

The GSLP/Liberals have made the Brexit negotiation a central theme of their campaign, insisting that now is not the time to change the team that has been dealing with Brexit since 2016, first securing access to the UK market for services, then ensuring transition arrangements were extended to Gibraltar after withdrawal, and now negotiating a UK/EU treaty to guarantee post-Brexit fluidity at the border.

But the GSD insists it is up to the job, a message that was hammered home repeatedly on Wednesday.

Experience aside, Mr Azopardi rejected any suggestion that the GSD was at a disadvantage given the political relationships and contacts built by caretaker Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and his deputy Dr Joseph Garcia over many years of Brexit negotiations.

He noted a recent interview in El Pais in which Mr Picardo had said the thorny political issues in the talks had largely been resolved and that what was needed now was less politicians and more lawyers to complete highly technical, highly legal work.

Surely thats an argument that washes away any possible fear that people may have that this [negotiation] is built on political relationships that we dont have and they do, and that were not going to inherit, Mr Azopardi said.

He stressed several times too that a GSD administration would still be able to rely on the civil servants and government officials, both here and in the UK, who had been involved in the negotiations, and that he was confident Mr Picardo would offer every assistance possible in the interests of Gibraltar should he lose the election.

Mr Azopardi underlined his own experience both as a lawyer and on international issues during his time as GSD minister, including the joint sovereignty episode and the negotiation on constitutional reform leading to the 2006 Constitution.

I believe that if the GSD is elected to government, we have the competence to deal with those issues. I do this all the time for a living, he said.

People drop me into very complex issues and load me with documents to read overnight. I do this all the time. This doesn't faze me, it doesn't worry me.

It's up to the people of Gibraltar what they do on the 12th of October. But this issue is not an issue in front of them or a hurdle as to why we shouldn't be elected.

Mr Azopardi played down too the fact that his party had levelled deep criticism at the GSLP/Liberals over their handling of Brexit, but would now have to take over if they won.

The GSD, for example, had previously raised very serious misgivings about aspects of the New Years Eve framework agreement that underpins the treaty negotiation, describing it as flimsy.

Despite those criticisms, Mr Azopardi recognised that his party would not seek to undo the work to date.

If we're elected on the 13th October, I acknowledge we're not turning back the clock, he said.

We're going to work with what we inherit and therefore we are going to take that work forward.

It would be entirely unrealistic, and indeed, that is not our aspiration, to rewrite the New Year's Eve agreement.

What we are going to take forward is the work that has been done under it.

That position extended to the controversial Gibraltar/Spain tax treaty too, despite the GSDs view that the agreement was an intrusive, negative arrangement for Gibraltar.

The GSD, he said, would not seek to scrap the tax treaty if elected, at least for now.

And I say for now because I'm also conscious that the more important issue for us is to land a safe and beneficial agreement, and I recognise that it may be part of the mix, he added.

Would we have done that deal if we had been negotiating? The answer is no.

But we're going to inherit the New Year's Eve agreement that we don't like, we are going to inherit the tax treaty that we don't like.

But we are looking at the bigger prize of the safe and beneficial agreement.

We will reserve our position on all these issues until such time as we progress those talks, hopefully so as to land a safe and beneficial agreement.

ALLIANCE INCONSISTENT

The GSD leader was critical of what he described as fundamentally inconsistent messages on the treaty from the GSLP/Liberals.

That was a reference to statements by Sir Joe Bossano in Parliament earlier this year in which he said the most Gibraltar could hope for was a deal for four years, during which Frontex would handle any Schengen immigration checks.

Are they standing for election on the basis that they are saying to the people of Gibraltar they want to deliver a permanent agreement, or are they standing for election on the basis that they are saying that it is not possible to reach a final permanent agreement with the EU and that all they can achieve is four years, which is what Sir Joe Bossano says? he told reporters.

They need to be clear with the people of Gibraltar what they are offering on this issue. This confusion there is needs to be dispelled.

Mr Azopardi said that on fundamental issues such as Spanish presence inside Gibraltar, the GSD would adopt a firm line.

The issue for us in Gibraltar is not that we are going to enter into an arrangement between the UK and the EU for Gibraltar, or indeed that certain functions would understandably be coordinated from the adjoining member states, Mr Azopardi said.

The issue is whether there are then boots on the ground, to use colloquial language. That is the issue in Gibraltar.

For the GSD, it would be unacceptable that there should be Spanish boots on the ground in Gibraltar.

And while the devil would be in the fine detail of any treaty, he added: I cannot envisage a scenario where it would be acceptable. It's as simple as that.

Mr Azopardi put great emphasis too on rejecting assertions from the Alliance that his previous academic writings on Andorra would be seen as a weakness at the negotiating table.

Mr Azopardi has repeatedly stated that he does not advocate an Andorra-style solution for Gibraltar, but the GSLP/Liberals continue to press on the issue.

People know what I stand for. I've been in politics for 30 years, he said.

People know that they can trust me to deliver and protect Gibraltar as I have before when I have been in office.

People know that the GSD will not give an inch to Spain on issues of sovereignty, jurisdiction and control.

People know that the GSD has protected Gibraltar before and it will protect Gibraltar again if the people of Gibraltar entrust us with the privilege of leading this community.

I have a very clear message on that issue: the nonsense that is being said on the issue of Andorra, and the misinterpretation of everything that I have said before, is complete mischief making and lies.

The GSD leader said the party would also continue to prepare for a no deal scenario should talks fail, adding: We will pick up on the work that has been done before.

UNITED NATIONS

Mr Azopardi said the GSD if elected would be present at the United Nations to advocate strongly for the international recognition of the rights of the people of Gibraltar.

We will attend the United Nations, both the Fourth Committee and the UN Committee of 24, to make that case for Gibraltar, he said.

Not only will we attend, we will invite the Leader of the Opposition to join us in a united delegation to represent Gibraltar.

I would hope that that invitation, if the GSD is elected to government, that invitation that will be tendered for the first time since the 1960s to a Leader of the Opposition would be accepted.

I would hope that a leader of the opposition of the GSLP/Liberals would not be churlish enough to wish not to present a united front at the United Nations.

Mr Azopardi also spoke of the need for constitutional reform and said the GSDs aim would be to ensure additional checks and balances on government were reflected in this core piece of legislation.

He said a GSD government would commit to engaging with the UK Government on a process of constitutional reform.

We recognise now that the Constitution that we obtained in 2006, which was a great advancement then, now needs further change, he said.

It needs further change on a number of issues.

Not least it needs an injection of further checks and balances on the power of government.

I've said before that the GSD intends to be a radicalising government that will, for the first time in history, take measures to lose power, to create greater accountability as its legacy, to ensure that the government, the GSD government, and indeed future governments, face further entrenched checks and balances.

Because that delivers better government and better quality of decision making. It's as simple as that.

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Azopardi says 'treaty can be reached' and his team can deliver - Gibraltar Chronicle

Trashes Aragalaya at UNGA

Sajith regains edge

AKD maintains momentum

Harsha: Ranilnomics adherent

Dullas: PM on Sajiths ticket?

Dont think that the Easter Sunday attack was the last. In the future too there could be more attacks

State Minister for Defence Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon

President Ranil Wickremesinghe misused his speech at the UN General Assembly to attack the Aragalaya that liberated Sri Lanka from a racist autocrat and opened the path for him to become President. He falsified contemporary history:

Even our Democratic traditions were threatened by attempts to occupy our Parliament and bring it to a halt. Nevertheless, we succeeded in bringing about a democratic political transition, due to our deeply entrenched and resilient democratic traditions. (presidentsoffice.gov.lk)

Wickremesinghe hypocritically omits to mention his violation of those democratic traditions by refusing to hold local authorities and provincial council elections, and even mention next years presidential election.

Ranils UNGA version not only contradicts what everyone saw and read in the global media but also democratic opinion across the planet which regards the Aragalaya as a heroic, unarmed, democratic, citizens uprising; (good) pluralist civic populism which overthrew (bad) autocratic, ultranationalist, militarist populism.

Watch his hands

While silently applauding President Wickremesinghes balanced views on world affairs at the Carnegie Institute, I was not convinced. Never mind what he says, watch his hands, is a realist adage attributed to John F Kennedy.

Ranil talks a storm about nonalignment, autonomy and neutrality, but his projected handover of Trincomalee and the Eastern province to India, one of the players in the great power competition, a member of a coalition against another Asian powerChina-- makes nonsense of his assertions.

Such intimate multidimensional dependence on India, establishing contiguity with a giant neighbour, eradicating our island reality and reducing our homeland to an archipelago of a subcontinent, will render us a satellite, a puppet on a string, a pearl pendant on an Indian necklace. So much for Ranils pro-Sri Lanka affirmation.

Ranils rule will incorporate us into Akand Bharat as a periphery, eliminating our unique linguistic and hydraulic civilisational heritage and identity. We shall be unable to choose our direction; determine our destiny. Our de facto capital will be Chennai, power-center of Dravidianism, or Delhi, power-centre of Hindutva, not Colombo.

Congressional crosshairs

With his Anti-Terrorism Act and Online Safety Bill, Ranil is striding into a minefield in the US Congress. There is mounting criticism on Capitol Hill of the Sri Lankan governments human rights and governance record and current conduct, as reported by the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine (FP).

The caption of the FP Report by Anusha Rathi and Jack Detsch says Congress Wants to Hold Sri Lankas Feet to the Fire on Human Rights and the strap beneath it reads The United Nations has given the international community the greenlight to punish Sri Lanka for torture. Congress has taken it. Extracts follow:

Congress is calling on the Biden administration to formally hold Sri Lanka responsible for its human rights abuses and violation of international humanitarian law, including decades of torture, military abuse, and other horrific crimes carried out against the countrys minority Tamil population.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and obtained by Foreign Policy, 12 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle urged the State Department to follow Article 30 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and hold Colombo, which has consistently failed to make tangible progress toward justice and accountability, responsible.

In our view, the impunity enjoyed by Sri Lankan perpetrators, which has also enabled Sri Lankas economic and political crises, is counter to Americas commitment to upholding human rights and democratic principles and must be stopped, wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who are calling on the State Department to hold Sri Lanka legally accountable to the U.N. convention on torture.

Congress is pushing the State Department to hold Sri Lanka to the U.N. torture conventions by opening up formal negotiations under the international statute, but if those measures and arbitration fails, Congress would like to see the Biden administration take the case all the way to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, as Canada and the Netherlands recently did to punish Bashar al-Assads brutal dictatorship in Syria.

The Sri Lankan authorities today continue to stifle activists, journalists, and non-governmental organisations. The countrys northeast region, home to a majority of the Tamil population, remains heavily militarised with residents being forced to flee or give up land. Last summer, the countrys military cracked down on hundreds of peaceful protestors as they demonstrated against the government amid a brutal economic crisis while Sri Lanka battled a food and fuel shortage and inflation skyrocketed to 55 percent.

Emilia Rowland, the communications director for Rep. Lee, the freshman member of Congress heading up the letter, said a report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released earlier this month that called on the international community to pursue accountability for the atrocities spurred U.S. lawmakers into action.

No alleged Sri Lankan government or military perpetrator has been held responsible for international crimes in or outside Sri Lanka, Rowland said. State responsibility for torture can help address the impunity created by the utter lack of domestic and international criminal justice. Canada and the Netherlands recently took Syria to the ICJ. Ultimately, we hope to see the same happen for Sri Lanka. (Congress Wants To Hold Sri Lanka Accountable For Human Rights Abuses (foreignpolicy.com)

Regarding his Anti-Terrorism and Online Security bills Ranil Wickremesinghe should be asked much the same question that Clint Eastwood posed the injured bank robber groping for his shotgun on the sidewalk, in Dirty Harry: seeing as the US Congress, the most powerful legislative body in the world has your administration in its gunsights, do you feel lucky?

Shadow States political wing

Politics for the next few years has been illumined and inflected by the recent parliamentary debate on the Easter Sunday massacre in the light of the Channel 4 revelations.

The SLPP is now the political wing of the Rogue State, or Hidden/Invisible Government as Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa variously called it, or the Deep State as Patali Champika Ranawaka more conventionally classified it. I call it the Shadow State.

The entire discourse of the SLPP in the parliamentary debate was recognisably from the 2019 Gota campaign. The SLPP is stuck in the Gotabayan time-warp, with talking points provided by handlers deployed by the securocracy.

Kanchana Wijesekara declared that many of the SLPP parliamentarians had been opposed to the 52-day interlude of Maithripala Sirisena and Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2018. That was the last gasp of moderate SLFP-type patriotism/nationalism, defeated not only by the courts and the UNP, but also sabotaged by the SLPP parliamentarians who had already lined up with Gotabaya or Basil.

By its uncompromising, unrepentant rhetoric in the Parliamentary debate, the SLPP has quite irretrievably lost the Catholic/Christian vote which Sirimavo won in 1970, CBK in 1994, and Mahinda in 2005 and 2010.

Quite unlike Mahinda, the GR camp had a vicious anti-Catholic/Christian streak. Despite Gotas assertions in the concluding paragraphs of his response to the latest Channel 4 documentary, of his warm munificence towards the Catholic Church and community during his mercifully short presidency, it was Gotabaya as Secretary/Defence who approved the incarceration of a Catholic nun from India, belonging to the Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa. She was released only because Mahinda overrode GR when Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith threatened to boycott the Presidential Christmas party.

It was also on Gotas orders that heavily-armed military moved into Rathupaswela. The Catholic Church in the area was shot into, a civilian who had sought shelter inside murdered (with his skull shattered) and nuns ordered to kneel at gunpoint. The commanding officer was given a DPL appointment by Gotabaya.

In 2024-5 the SLPP starts with huge minus: the Catholic/Christian and Muslim votes. Gotabayas cuckoo fertiliser policies and exploding gas-cylinders have already decimated the SLPP in the Sinhala-Buddhist heartland.

Sajiths moment

In the landmark debate on the Easter massacre the best speeches were by Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Noticeably better than AKDs (a high bar), Premadasas speech was a Benelli combat shotgun which shredded the credibility of the Governments entire argument.

Sajiths performance over the intense two-day debate revealed a persona with focused firepower which if maintained with a consistency lacking so far, could see him elected President next year. However, speeches alone, in parliament or outside, do not a president make, or else wed have had an Anura Bandaranaike presidency. He was an excellent Opposition Leader and orator.

What will count is how Sajith and the SJB fare, not merely on governance and human rights, but on economic constriction, inequity and ruinous privation-- which should have been home-ground to President Premadasas son and paradoxically isnt so (yet), thanks to his partys para-Ranil profile on economics.

The upcoming Budget debate, the last before the presidential election, will be a real test of who-- Sajith or Anura-- can produce a discourse which combines the most rational and balanced economic strategy with the greatest public appeal (something that Ranasinghe Premadasa was maestro of). In a shrinking economy, that is the battleground on which elections are won or lost.

Can the centrists win?

The SJB is pulling in two directions rather than following Sajiths lead, unlike the NPP-JVP which is backing AKD fully. The SJB has to decide whether it is running with Ranil or against him; whether it represents continuity with Ranils economic agenda or is the alternative to it.

The NPP-JVP knows its main asset and attraction is Anura, but the SJB has a pretentious faction that obtusely believes its main asset is not its leader Sajith Premadasa, but its overhyped economic team. That factions ideological inspiration is not President Premadasa, the developmental-political superstar, but Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mangala Samaraweera, the electoral liabilities.

While SWRDs SLFP severed upon birth its umbilical cord with the great DS Senanayakes administration he prominently served in, the SJB parades continuity with Ranils undistinguished administrations of 2001-2004 and 2015-2019 (our Government). Significantly, though led by Sajith Premadasa, the SJB does not trace its roots to the Premadasa presidency and development miracle.

Meanwhile the public is looking not just to turn the page but throw away the old volume with the Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Rajapaksa chapters. The NPP-JVP surfs that populist zeitgeist while the SJB represents no zeitgeist at all.

While Dr Harsha de Silva springs to the unqualified defence of EPF-ETF slasher Mahinda Siriwardena, he and the SJB economic troika maintain a deafening silence on Indrajit Coomaraswamys anti-elections economics lecture.

The SJB confuses its main competitor with its main enemy. The NPP and SJB are each others main competitors /rivals, but their main enemy is Ranil because the presidential election is an audition for the most authentic champion of the people who will end their pain and hopelessness soon. This means a fight for the peoples hearts and minds, against the Establishment and the status quo, i.e., the incumbent and his economic sadism.

In Ceylon/Sri Lanka and the world at large, it is never an undivided Right but almost always a Social Democratic or progressive centrism, often as a broad coalition sharply demarcating itself from the polarising Right, that beats a polarising Left.

The secret of centrist electoral success lies not in the antipodal counterposing of liberal-democracy to populism, but in a composite constellation or fusion: liberal democracy, social democracy, populism, patriotism. A populist liberal-democracy/social democracy; a liberal-democratic/social-democratic populism. Thats how Bandaranaike (1956) and Premadasa (1988) won.

A progressive-centrist alternative can defeat the rancid Right (Ranil-UNP-SLPP-Gota party) and the monopolistic (one-party) Left. A Right or Centre-Right substitute cannot.

Ranasinghe Premadasa didnt run on anyone elses policy platform but his own. If Sajith Premadasa runs on Harsha de Silva and the economic troikas policy platform, it means he represents that economic policy and can be expected to put it into practice.

This means Sajith will forfeit his greatest asset: the Premadasa magic and the appeal of an updated, upgraded resumption of the Premadasa model which produced a development miracle.

Sajith should run on a ticket of himself as President and Dullas Alahapperuma as PM.

SP and AKD should call for the 2nd preference vote to be given to the other, so that one of them can win, causing a generational shift.

The national and public interest are best served by a vote for Premadasas son, the Opposition and SJB leader, at the presidential election.

If the SJB stands for continuity with economic Ranilism including structural Indianisation, the most rational choice is to vote for AKD-JVP-NPP at the parliamentary election, giving Anura the Prime Ministership.

No single party can successfully address the countrys crisis. Either Sajith + Dullas or Sajith + Anura is the power-sharing combination for this extreme situation.

Alternate endgame

In the political multiverse there can be another, bloodier endgame. A sinister moment in the Easter debate was when D. Weerasinghe, a lean, mean, young SLPP MP, declared that there are reports that those who were in the Aragalaya, burned houses of MPs, murdered them, and marched on Parliament trying to occupy it, are training militarily in remote locations.

This could herald a false flag operation, combined with the ghastly ghosts of the Jayewardene 1980s: the bogus Naxalite Plot and detention in Army custody of Vijaya Kumaratunga before Referendum 1982, and the post-July 1983 frameup of the JVP, which led to its proscription, renewed clandestinity, and massive second insurrection.

Following Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Emeritus Prof. Nimal Sanderatne has argued against Presidential election 2024 and the Parliamentary election. (Upcoming elections may undermine economic reform, stability and growth | Print Edition - The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka).

Experienced Indian Lankanologist and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) analyst N Sathiya Moorthy has critically surfaced the postponement scenario, speculating that the regimes formula may be bundling the presidential and parliamentary elections together on the scheduled deadline for the parliamentary election, 2025-- a year later than the presidential. (Is Govt Afraid Of Voters? | MENAFN.COM)

It is the abortion of the Jaffna DDC election of 1981 and the cancellation of the parliamentary election of early 83 by Referendum 82, rendering the TULF and parliamentarism irrelevant, that enabled the Tigers to leap to the forefront, eliminating a Sri Lankan army patrol in an ambush and triggering July 83 after which it grew exponentially. Referendum 82 had the same effect in the South. The moderate Opposition, the SLFP became irrelevant. The JVP rose in hyper-violent insurrection.

Cancelling (zero-funding, postponing) Presidential election 2024 would turn Ranil, now an illegitimate (no popular mandate) but legal (constitutional) ruler, into an illegitimate and illegal (unconstitutional) dictator, deserving and requiring popular overthrow. A shrinking economy, amply-documented immiseration (relative and absolute), and dictatorial rule, constitute a recipe for revolt, rebellion and revolution.

[This column will be rested next week as the writer will be moderating a panel at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Russia. The Valdai 20th anniversarys theme is Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for All.]

Link:

Political trajectories and futures after the Easter massacre debate - ft.lk