‘The Voice’ a path to greater foreign influence

Australia’s Director-General of ASIO, recently gave a sombre and sobering assessment of the country’s national security threats. 

It’s an annual assessment the country’s top spy delivers to Australia’s Parliament - the fourth Mike Burgess has delivered since assuming the role in 2018. 

For those who understand the intelligence landscape and the underlying messaging of what Burgess was hinting at, the content of his referencing was an alarming and disturbing indictment on the attack being waged on Australia’s sovereignty. 

Australia faces a crisis where its national security is challenged in ways that may require ASIO to change its approach to how it deals with foreign actors and the tactics it deploys. 

These are unprecedented times, and what Burgess is saying, is Australia is not only besieged by foreign agents seeking to impose their nation’s will, but from elements within.  

Who they are, is a fascinating concern when assessing the why’s of subversion enacted.

The Albanese Government’s move to introduce the Voice as part of Australia’s constitutional reform, requires greater examination of its intent and the undiscussed dangers of what it poses to Australia’s security.  

Burgess’s threat assessment and why there is an overwhelming belief The Voice will play a critical part in advancing interests of foreign powers, should alarm the Federal Government. 

The links are real and far closer than what the motivating forces are prepared to admit to or are choosing to ignore.

The Voice, for all its perceived good, is considered by community leaders to be another way to manipulate Indigenous, and all Australians through an increased opportunity for foreign interests to potentially exploit the resources sector and again benefit from the sacrifice Indigenous Australians have endured.

What indigenous Australians think they are getting may be in truth a sell-out by the Federal Government, and Indigenous leadership, who’ve never experienced the challenges of those living in remote parts of Australia.  

Is The Voice selling out Indigenous Australians and serving a political master that’s a foreign power?

The hidden hand of Chinese hegemony could be rocking Australia’s cradle, and the Albanese Government and indigenous leadership are prepared to sacrifice Australia’s sovereignty for what it could deliver ‘them.’

It’s the modern-day version of pioneering explorers claiming their stake over Australia.  

If China is the modern-day explorer, then Australia’s geopolitical allegiances have shifted surreptitiously, and Australians have been conned by the events taking place. 

Mining interests, profits, a grab for land, and Australia’s sovereignty are all for sale in this carefully executed strategy. 

Burgess is right to want Australia to be on high alert, he obviously knows more of the threats of exposure and manipulation taking place - ‘easing up’ ASIO’s vigilance isn’t an option.  

Only this week, The Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers ran with a story that reaffirms Burgess’s threat assessment.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald story ‘Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years – and we’re not ready,’ is a verdict it says was part of a review of Australia’s national security, sought from top experts, Lavina Lee, foreign policy expert from Macquarie University, former Chief Strategist as Deputy Secretary of the Defence Department, now head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, Alan Finkel, Australia’s former chief scientist, Lesley Seebeck, chair of the National Institute of Strategic Resilience and retired Australian Army Major General, Mick Ryan.

They all agreed China was an overwhelming source of danger to Australia’s national security.

If the knowing sell-out of Australia’s sovereignty and that of Indigenous Australians to greater powers as alleged by many Indigenous Australians is true, then the ride is about to get bumpy, and Australians should hang on. 

One Indigenous Australian expressing concern is academic and former local SEC chair of the Liberal Party of Australia, Reuben Humphries.

Humphries is a Wiradjuri man with ancestral ties near Narrandera in New South Wales, now living in Victoria.

He believes The Voice could be the gateway for foreign powers to affect a greater stake in Australia using Indigenous Australians as the means.  

The final report tabled entitled ‘INDIGENOUS VOICE Discussion Paper’, is a document Albanese and its authors, Dr Marcia Langton, AO and Professor Tom Calma, AO, believe heralds a new pathway for Indigenous Australians.

But the Report appears flawed, and Humphries citing it says, the legislation is concerned about the risk of low voter turnout in its regular elections for candidates to The Voice and permits Canberra to make undemocratic appointments at whim with only a concern of low voter turnout in non-compulsory elections as a justification for having no election and only appointing candidates acceptable to whoever is in government.

Humphries also fears that legacy candidates “appointed” by an outgoing government will be a veto over legislation and the democratic process next elected government.

Humphries, like South Australian Senator, Alex Antic, is concerned about non-Indigenous experts ‘advising’ and ‘controlling’ The Voice.

Antic at the February 20, Senates Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee this year, asked Labor representatives about who qualifies for the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament.

Their response was to accuse Antic as being “borderline racist”.

Antic’s assessment was seemingly right. “How can Australians have any confidence in this overtly politicised process?”

If The Voice gets up, Humphries says, it casts a shadow of manipulation and control by the government and foreign influence in Indigenous issues and mining rights that Director-General Burgess can already see over our Federal leadership.”

“These documents don’t state the obvious, but the politically experienced can see the top-down controlled process that will disadvantage indigenous communities and all Australians alike for the benefit of a privileged few.”

Australians like Antic and Humphries clearly understand the Federal Government’s intent.

“The Fed’s will decide who is or isn’t Indigenous, where before, it was Indigenous Australians who decided their own identity.

“Albanese will step in and make that decision. But what happens when there’s a change in government of a different political persuasion. What will their definition be and how will they decide who is Indigenous and what constitutes being so?”

On reading of the Langton/Calma report, it will be Parliament and the bureaucracy who Indigenous Australians will be forced to obey, begging the question, what do bureaucrats know about being Indigenous and how would they determine what and who is Indigenous?

The solution to overcome the perception of corruption as proposed by The Voice is there would be 25 to 35 (Co-design Process Final Report, p. 11) regional branches each having its own unique structure and selection process to adjust to local preferences that will be decided by the local community (Proposals Discussion Paper, pp. 1, 7, and Co-design Process Final Report, pp. 8, 10, 19). 

Humphries says local Indigenous communities are already infiltrated by special interest groups – “from environmental pressure groups engaging in ‘lawfare’ to the extractive (mining and fossil fuel) industries themselves.”

“These special interest groups, already adept at influencing Native Title claims, would be able to influence the regional selection of representatives and front, in person, as experts chosen to advise, or verbalise, the National Voice.” 

If Humphries is right, it will enlarge the playing field of competing interests which have fostered corruption and influence within Indigenous communities, with the extractive industries guarding foreign shareholders interest by keeping costs and taxes low by cutting renumeration to those communities and ensuring freehold or radical title land ownership will never be allowed - avoiding paying a fair market rate for mineral wealth that should be in private ownership, something that would benefit the whole Australian economy.

“All Australian’s are losing by keeping massive tracts of Australia out of any kind of private ownership as Native Title holders have been learning.”

“They may have some token usufructuary rights and are entitled to ‘negotiate’,” Humphries says, “but they can’t prevent, control, or enjoy the market value of what’s being ripped out of Australia.”

“This is the core of foreign interests, especially the CCP as our biggest buyer. Remember the Mining Resources Rent Tax? That’s why we went through ‘Rudd, Gillard, Rudd’. None of the proposal for The Voice would be developed without first discreetly consulting and winning support of the Extractive industries,” he says.

If this approach becomes a filter installing political allies and ousting political opposition, it will be a corrupt process according to Humphries, “where the influence of money and political donations will determine mining leases and allow for foreign interests to extend and expand their influence.”

“Knowing the subtly of the influence shortens what seems, at first, like a long bow to draw, that the  CCP (and others) will deeply influence, and even control, The Voice.

“Now we can see the power of a federal government already subject to foreign influence providing greater incentive to foreign powers to manipulate Australia and compromise decisions that’ll benefit or harm Indigenous communities and Australians alike.” 

As Australia’s top spy, Burgess is unable to divulge information that compromises Australia’s intelligence assets or sovereignty, and yet he’s not naïve.

He and Humphries see the same shadow of leverage and influence that foreign powers have to exact their will on Australia’s mineral wealth.

Australia is entering a realm it may no longer be able to defend if it doesn’t act to address Burgess’s warnings.

Whatever your politics, it’s inarguable the Indigenous community suffered harms from the colonial project.

“The worst of it where greed was in control, The Voice will be securing the voices of special interests hidden in the shadow of the Australian and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags,” Humphries says.

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