Where to after the Voice referendum? Canada offers a case study of what not to do   

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The Canadian model is built on a fundamentally flawed UN declaration. Australia must choose a different path.

Canadian Cree Indians at the United Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland (Image: AAP/EPA/Laurent Gillieron)

In the wake of Australia’s 2023 referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the question arises: where to next? More of the same isn’t an option; the evidence surrounds us as to why more genocide in all its forms, including assimilation and the ecocide of our territories, doesn’t work. But urgent, alternative action is needed. In moving forward, how might we secure our ancient Aboriginal connections to Country and kin in a way in which we remain free to be self-determining while also meeting our obligations to them?

Some eyes are cast towards Canada as a model for Aboriginal futures and are looking to legislate aspects of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The UNDRIP came about as a result of foundational work done by Indigenous peoples responding to the critical position that we are in, with ongoing global genocides and ecocides being perpetrated against us and our lands. The declaration intended to provide minimum standards that would ensure that the genocides of Indigenous peoples across the world would come to an end.

Read more about the way forward, post-Voice referendum…

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About the Author

Irene Watson

Contributor

Irene Watson belongs to the Tanganekald, Meintangk, Portuwutj and Bunganditj peoples. With a long commitment to obligations to care for Country and people, Irene is a research professor of law at the University of South Australia. A prolific writer, her book Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law, was published in 2015.

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