A policy of assimilation rather than separation First and Second I believe will tend to engender common cause rather than accentuating difference which tends to create increasing prejudice as the rhetoric fails as in the past to match reality.

“By despising himself too much a man comes to be worthy of his own contempt.”(Amiel, 1909, p. 180)

Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry already have more voice to power within the existing National and State parliamentary frameworks. They have their own National Ministry for Indigenous Australians run by an Australian citizen of indigenous ancestry as well as State equivalents. There are already expensive extensive bureaucracy plural.

How will further embedding of an already failed voice close the Gap, other than an elite indigenous and non-indigenous doubling down on failed policy demanding further scarce resources belonging to all Australian citizens to fill their bottomless pit policy failures.

The claim more voice to power is required when there is clearly much more already in existence than granted to any other citizen or group would rationally determine the Gap has nothing to do with the lack of voice interaction of Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry in policy which affects them.

I argue the voice or any increase in its power relative to every other citizen or group simply changes nothing except further entrench the Gap as the voice ideas, ideals, precepts, assumptions have not changed the outcomes will not.

Worse there is another layer of bureaucracy from local to national level inserting increased power to a specific group which no other group has in a Democracy to screw policy and therefore scarce resources in their direction. It is totally equitably unfair. Equal Voice to Power ceases, we are no longer a Nation of equals, literally First and Second citizens in power.

Based upon an assumption no social system will change without an external force, predicated on a view  no one within a system is able recognise how to resolve systemic internal mindsets imbued by biology/culture ideology conception to death development process leading to violence and social dysfunction because they have the same imbued mindset which externalises locus of control i.e. blame others for their own behavior rather than take internalised locus of control i.e. accept they are culpable and seek methodology for change which lie outside their own rationale system precepts.

In 1850 what would you recommend as a Government policy advisor to resolve stone age indigenous tribal brutality against each other?

“The place was all surrounded by bush, and hundreds of Gundagai aborigines used to camp close by. And well do I remember many of the fights in which they participated.
About the year 1850 a big battle took place just behind where the old brick mill on Morley’s Creek now stands. One morning we were awakened at daylight by piteous begging of a blackfellow to be let into our house. My husband gave him entry, and then he let a number of others in. They told us the Lachlan tribe had swooped down on them in the night and had massacred some of the Gundagai tribe. The last black fellow to come in had a long spear sticking out of his stomach-and, really, I wasn’t sorry as he was a cheeky dangerous man. Next morning ??? went to see what the damage was, and found two blacks -Motogee and Mecky, dead while a large number were wounded. A number of gins were speared. One of them Kitty, escaped by swimming Morley’s Creek carrying her two piccaninnies, aHund […] the ??? Ark, which stood below where […]. The marauding band also speared dogs and did other damage. They took away with them the legs of the dead blackfellows, cutting the limbs off at the thigh. They also carried away the dead men’s kidney fat. […] After this slaughter the Gundagai blacks thirsted for revenge. They made elaborate preparations, and, leaving their gins behind, set out to pay back the debt they owed their Lachlan enemies. After being away some days, they returned laden with trophies of war-the most prized of which were the legs and kidney fat of some of their opponents. At night they made a big fire on the Flat, and roasted the flesh of the Lachlan victims, and partook of a cannibal feast.
The blacks never murdered any white folk. I recollect the last big fight between the tribes. An old man named Billy Pemberton was walking down our main street early one morning when a mob of strange blacks accosted him with, ‘’Where blackfellow camped?’’. Billy directed them the wrong way and ran and warned the local tribe. A lot of them raced to our place for shelter. My husband was away at the time-only myself and two babies were in the house. I let a couple of blackfellows in and they got under the bed. Others planted in the outhouse; in Turnbull’s store in Lindley's yard and one got under a cask. But he forgot his dog, which started scratching outside the barrel and when the “invaders” came along the dog's antics directed their attention to the barrel and they hauled out the planted man, and I don’t think there was an inch of his body into which they did not put spears.”
Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, NSW: 1911 - 1954) Sat 18 May 1912 Page 3 Sixty Years Ago.

In 2022 what would you recommended as a Government policy advisor to resolve indigenous brutality against each other and social dysfunction.

We can, and must, stop the violence and dysfunction, The Australian, NYUNGGAI WARREN MUNDINE, 11:00PM MARCH 18, 2022

I argue the Voice will not solve the violence and dysfunction existent in Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry this will only occur if an outside force of assimilation rather than falling back into the exact same imbued mindset by separating citizens in a First and Second groupings where the First determines their children should not be subject to nor removed from them based on Western developed measures of threat to children’s welfare because Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry have a different parental criteria.

Having the Voice claim it will close the gap under such circumstances where such parental behavior has sufficient evidence to determine not intervening will create negative outcomes not only for the child but the community within which they exist will not resolve the Gap, it perpetuates it.

Educating children without a priority of assimilation into the broader Australian community traps these children within a dogma of stasis, a petrified tribal past will not resolve the Gap, it perpetuates it as nothing has changed as the Voice is the same force driving policy under the same old  paradigm, the colonialist simply do not understand, what is involved in bringing up children so they are educated, healthy, non-aggressive and relatively confident in a positive future.

It can be tested if the assimilation approach above is more likely to close the gap by collecting data on Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry and non-indigenous on type and level of indigenous/non-indigenous  education, degrees of tribal-rural-town-urban residence, levels of income, occupations, industry, criminality, health, drug/alcohol addiction.

Clearly the elite Australian citizens of indigenous ancestry have failed to bring the children out of their relatively higher behavior of violence and dysfunction giving this elite even more power to do possibly even worse condemns many OZ children to a continuing cycle of tragedy.

Children must be given the opportunity to expand their life horizons not delete them.

A policy of assimilation rather than separation First and Second I believe will tend to engender common cause rather than accentuating difference which tends to create increasing prejudice as the rhetoric fails as in the past to match reality.

Non-indigenous must take the lead in consultation with indigenous citizens because non-indigenous have greater resources expertise, non-indigenous citizens are paying for whatever policy decisions are made and critically having the same Indigenous elite driving the process who have failed and failed again in providing voice to power to resolve the Gap simply reinforces the mistakes.

A different approach is required but it is not the same Voice repeating the same reasons for failure. It is to be established by analysing the data suggested above and moving children into the most beneficial social scape context which may or may not align with the elites dogma. So what? Who are we concerned about here culture  ideological abstracts or the health, welfare and opportunity for children?

Vote No.

“Results indicated that low maternal care was significantly associated with greater total callous-unemotional traits (CU) traits and uncaring and callousness dimensions, even after controlling for the effects of various types of childhood abuse and neglect. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between CU traits and care, such that aggression was highest among youths scoring high on CU traits who were exposed to low levels of maternal care. These findings draw attention to the importance of maternal bonding to CU traits and related aggressive behaviors among antisocial youth."

Maternal care, maltreatment and callous-unemotional traits among urban male juvenile offenders callous-unemotional traits, ER Kimonis, B Cross, A Howard - Journal of Youth Adolescence, 2013

"Analyses provided support for a direct influence of maternal hostile attributions on the development of child hostile attributions and aggressive behaviour."

A Longitudinal Investigation of Maternal Influences on the Development of Child Hostile Attributions and Aggression, Sarah J. Healy , Lynne Murray , Peter J. Cooper , Claire Hughes & Sarah L. Halligan,18 Nov 2013

“The culture in which one is immersed influences how one behaves towards others on all levels: and individual to another individual, as members of a group towards members of another group, as an individual or group member to the institutionalised social will. Implicit default assumptions about others influence individual cultural worldviews and habit which in turn shape the culture of child rearing that adults provide influencing the next generation and so on."

Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality, Darcia Navais, 2014

“...cultural acceptance of violence, either as a normal method of resolving conflict or as a usual part of rearing a child, is a risk factor for all types of interpersonal violence. It may also help explain why countries experiencing high levels of one type of violence also experience increased levels of other types. Social tolerance of violent behaviour is likely learned in childhood, through the use of corporal punishment or witnessing violence in the family, in the media or in other settings." Changing cultural and social norms that support violence, by World Health Organization - ‎2009

""Culture, of course, is related to violence in general and not only to structural violence. For example, culture influences the determination of "thresholds" which pressure on a person must overcome in order to move that person from being controllable, or even positive, to being negative (that is, into violence)." The Culture of Violence, Chp 3. On the relationship between violence and culture - Galtung's concept"

"Early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence represent the 3 stages of child development. Each stage is organized around the primary tasks of development for that period.

Early childhood (usually defined as birth to year 8) is a time of tremendous physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development.

Middle childhood (usually defined as ages 6 to 12) is a time when children develop skills for building healthy social relationships and learn roles that will lay groundwork for a lifetime.”

Healthy People 2010 (Federal Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)"

“Society rests upon conscience and not upon science. Civilization is first and foremost a moral thing. Without honesty, without respect for law, without the worship of duty, without the love of one's neighbour, -- in a word, without virtue, -- the whole is menaced and falls into decay, and neither letters nor art, neither luxury nor industry, nor rhetoric, nor the policeman, nor the customhouse officer, can maintain erect and whole an edifice of which the foundations are unsound.

A State founded upon interest alone and cemented by fear is an ignoble and unsafe construction. The ultimate ground upon which every civilisation rests is the average morality of the masses, and a sufficient amount of practical righteousness. Duty is what upholds all. So that those who humbly and unobtrusively fulfil it, and set a good example thereby, are the salvation and the sustenance of this brilliant world, which knows nothing about them. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom, but thousands and thousands of good homely folk are needed to preserve a people from corruption and decay.

If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and vulgar crowd, is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty. When any society produces an increasing number of literary exquisites, of satirists, sceptics, and beaux esprits, some chemical disorganisation of fabric may be inferred. Take, for example, the century of Augustus and that of Louis XV. cynics and railers are mere egotists, who stand aloof from the common duty, and in their indolent remoteness are of no service to society against any ill which may attack it. Their cultivation consists in having got rid of feeling. And thus, they fall farther and farther away from true humanity, and approach nearer to the Our demoniacal nature. What was it that Mephistopheles lacked? Not intelligence certainly, but goodness.” (Amiel, 1909, pp. 177,178)

“Liberalism, is then, like conservatism, a state of mind. It is optimistic in spirit. It looks forward to an ideal state and is always on the search for abuse is to remedy. Generosity and broadmindedness are the virtues claimed by liberalism. Vagueness, instability, and insincerity are its defects. It is sometimes so much afraid of nationalism that its sides with the enemy, out of excess of virtue, and so much opposed to tyranny that it encourages licence and is unjust to the ruling side.

There has always been an “extreme left” party. Formally they were called radicals; now they are socialists or communists. They're people filled with a strong sense of the injustice of existing conditions, with a burning determination to right the wrongs of the “underdog.” they are opposed to the existing order of things, not content with gradual amelioration, but ready to face revolution, if it is necessary to accomplish their ideals. They do not accept the categories of rich and poor, master and man, as part of the immutable order of nature.

Socialism is primarily an economic doctrine, but it has become something like a gospel for many. It holds that all our evils of unequal wealth, some men too rich, and many to poor, spring from unchecked individualism, or competition, which encourages self-seeking and greed. It, therefore, proposes to nationalise the means of production, transport, and exchange. This means that the bulk of the population would be civil servants, drawing standardised wages. Socialist believe that civic patriotism would be a sufficient substitute for the motive of individual gain, and that a great deal of waste might be illuminated by abolishing competition. […]

Socialists are strongly opposed to war and militarism. […] In its intermediate stages it resembles an advanced liberalism; it places more burden on the rich and fosters trade unions. Its attitude towards royalty and state religion is tolerant rather than friendly. Its chief danger would seem to be a levelling down to a drab mediocrity. It does offer a remedy for many admitted evils, but many people think it's full aims to be unrealisable in an imperfect world.”(Stobart, 1933, pp. 101,102)

“Criticism become a habit, a fashion, and a system, means the destruction of moral energy, of faith, and of all spiritual force. One of my tendencies leads me in this direction, but I recoil before its results when I come across more emphatic types of it than myself. And at least I cannot reproach myself with having ever attempted to destroy the moral force of others; my reverence for life forbade it, and my self-distrust has taken from me even the temptation to it.

This kind of temper is very dangerous among us, for it flatters all the worst instincts of men,--indiscipline, irreverence, selfish individualism,-and it ends in social atomism. Minds inclined to mere negation are only harmless in great political organisms, which go without them and in spite of them. The multiplication of them amongst ourselves will bring about the ruin of our little countries, for small states only live by faith and will. Woe to the society where negation rules, for life is an affirmation; and a society, a country, a nation, is a living whole capable of death. No nationality is possible without prejudices, for public spirit and national tradition are but webs woven out of innumerable beliefs which have been acquired, admitted, and continued without formal proof and without discussion. To act, we must believe; to believe, we must make up our minds, affirm, decide, and in reality prejudge the question, He who will only act upon a full scientific certitude is unfit for practical life. But we are made for action, and we cannot escape from duty. long as we have nothing but doubt to put in its place, or laugh at Let us not, then, condemn prejudice so long as we have nothing but delta put in its place, all laugh at those whom we should be incapable of consoling! This at least is my point of view.

Beyond the element which is common to all men there is an element which separates them. This element may be religion, country, language, education. But all these being supposed common, there still remains something which serves as a line of demarcation namely, the ideal. To have an ideal or to have none, to have this ideal or that,-this is what digs gulfs between men, even between those who live in the same family circle, under the same roof or in the same room. You must love with the same love, think with the same thought as someone else, if you are to escape solitude.

Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.

How many times we become hypocrites simply by remaining the same outwardly and towards others, when we know that inwardly and to ourselves, we are different. It is not hypocrisy in the strict sense, for we borrow no other personality than our own; still, it is a kind of deception. The deception humiliates us, and the humiliation is a chastisement which the mask inflicts upon the face, which our past inflicts upon our present. Such humiliation is good for us; for it produces shame, and shame gives birth to repentance. Thus, in an upright soul good springs out of evil, and it falls only to rise again.”(Amiel, 1909, p. 88)

Amiel, H. F. (1909). Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel; Tr., with an Introduction and Notes. Macmillan and Company.

Stobart, J. C. (1933). THE GOSPEL OF HAPPINESS. GEOFFRY BLESS.