I usually like to stay out of topics like these but wanted to give my 2 cents. As a young bloke this referendum feels like a slap in the face to all of us worrying about how the future looks... at this rate we'll never be able to afford to buy a house, some people I know have had to move back in with their parents because the rental market is crazy, the cost of living is shooting up like a rocket but the minimum wage is hardly increasing & yet all I see over the news is our PM wearing a vote yes shirt. If he really cared that much about Aboriginals why doesn't he head over to NT & try & actually do something over there with all the problems they got going on?
You say you're voting no you get accused of being a racist & not caring about our first nation people which is a total load of BS. I understand that what happened to the Aboriginal people was sad, heart breaking, unfair & completely undeserved but this happened over 100 years ago & what can anyone do about it today? Is that a racist thing to say or is that the truth? There are plenty of programmes/initiatives that our first nations people receive as many people here have noted out.
It feels like the world has moved towards a landscape of catering to minorities & no one is really tackling any issues to help EVERYONE which is causing more & more division/unrest amongst the population. Referendums like the SSM bill you can get behind because it's just handing people basic human rights but this Referendum just seems like a big what if & we've hardly heard what this Referendum is set out to achieve just our PM walking around Redfern in a vote yes shirt.
When you get into the detailed mechanics of it, Colonialism is a process of Capitalism.
So it was Capitalism that destroyed aboriginal society and now it is coming for your generation as you cannot buy a house, cost of living etc as you describe. Capitalism determines the minimum wage that has not moved.
Capitalism divides wealth and society into classes, creating an ever increasing gap between rich and poor. This is what you are experiencing now.
In the case of the large gap between aboriginal society and the rest of the nation (as in 'closing the gap') it is an extreme gap created by capitalism. So while the prevailing economic system exists, that gap will never be closed.
So the real division, the division that actually impacts people, is driven by the economic system.
As a 'yes' supporter I have been extremely dismayed that this vote is taking place in a time of such terrible economic difficulty for so many.
The Liberal Party is the predominant pro-Capitslist party, it supports the monied classes. Elements of the 'no' campaign, lead by the Liberal Party, are actively pitting the classes struggling for money against each other - Aboriginal Australians against Aussie Battlers. An example of this is the false claim being made by the 'no' campaign that the Voice will necessarily lead to reparations and other payments.
This suits them as while the Battlers are focus on the Indigenous, they are not seeing what is really destroying their way of life.
Further to some of your other points, massacres occured into the 1930's. Well less than 100 years ago. Indigenous not counted as human beings existed up until 1967, stollen children into the 1970s. Stollen wages, which actually constitutes slavery, into the 1980s etc. The economic division, as a class of people, continues to present day. Deaths in custody and incarceration rates are now.
I hope my post reads as respectful to you as a person. I empathise and respect with the frustrations you describe. My point really is be watchful when you are told to 'look over there'.