This week, Aboriginal children will walk into the store at Warburton in Western Australia and purchase the typical fare of an Aboriginal diet. On the same latitude as the border of Northern Territory and South Australia, Warburton is as remote as it gets. But cake, Coca-Cola, and energy bars are all available, and expensive. For adults, throw in smokes. These are typical purchases. Week in and week out. Eating and drinking junk foods, not working, and having no purpose in life other than consumption, is a death sentence.

And then there is the violence by children, women, and men.

My mate in Warburton texted this: –

8pm at night here and 6-year-olds are wandering the streets throwing fireworks into our and others yards. Why? Because the 6-year-olds today told us to Get F….d because we were F…..g white trash C…s. 6-years-olds. What hope is for them?

Another day in Paradise. Two women fist-fighting and hitting each other over the head with Coke bottles. Roll on my plane on Tuesday please.

Shop was open for an hour today, before a local man ran in with an iron bar, and started smashing the shelves and walls, calling us f…..g white trash c….s.

Closed now for the day. We fly out in an hour…

No Voice, no committee, no treaty, no ‘truth-telling’, no Makarrata can save these people.

Aboriginal people are a modern people. In Warburton, mobile phones are commonplace. Electricity keeps the food and drink cool. Without the paraphernalia of the modern world there would be no Warburton, it would have closed decades ago. Aboriginal people rely on modern means to survive. Most have no idea how it is made. This is cruel.

And yet, too many legal professional associations are for the Voice, medical professional associations are for the Voice, the Australian Academy of Science is for the Voice. Why is it that these professional associations would cast their lot with an industry that refuses to release its own most vulnerable people into the open society? What is it that keeps these poor souls locked into an ancient and ignorant world? The very antithesis of the professionals, the brilliant and trained minds, condemn their objects of concern to a life of ignorance and violence.

Not only professionals are being taken for a ride, but shareholders are also being taken for a ride, as are donors, trade unionists, sports fans and taxpayers. Egotistical professional leaders, CEOs, charity leaders, trade union leaders, sports administrators, and politicians, foolish enough to forsake their duty and send other people’s money to the referendum Yes case, are doing harm. A majority of their members and funders are against the proposition. They are not as foolish as their leaders.

Leaders who think that a solution to Aboriginal despair lies in permanent government intervention in the lives of those few Aborigines who are failing in this modern society should think again. It is not all about government. Changing the constitution does not change behaviour. Changing the constitution will not get children to attend school. Changing the constitution will not stop the grog, or the abuse, or the awful habits that cause early death.

The task of leaders is to have every child understand how it is that the mobile phone and electricity that makes their food and shelter available comes into being. Government may be the provider, but it is not the maker. Government makes nothing, it merely covers the indignity of woeful ignorance. Why do governments refuse to teach their citizens how their lives have been degraded to the point of begging? This referendum proposal is no gracious gift; it is stealing the future of these people. It is an abandonment of leadership. Recognition via the Voice is not reconciliation.

Aboriginal parents face an awful dilemma. To keep children ‘safe’ on country, away from the worst of modern life, grog and drugs, but in doing so, condemn their children to live restricted lives, with poor education, few prospects and a poor diet. The great lie of this referendum is that choices can be avoided. Somehow, 24 select delegates in Canberra will solve the parents’ dilemma. They will not. They will continue to mask the choice and, in default, make the choice for them. A slow death on country, rather than to break free, with the help of their families and guidance from outsiders on how to handle the wider world.

There is no love for Aborigines in this referendum proposal, just ego. The Aboriginal people at Warburton are radically disabled. They are self-determining alright, sitting on country, speaking language, and dying early. And CEOs and the Prime Minister think that this is a good idea. They must do, because their solution is to change nothing. Not to learn how to create value, not to adapt, but to wait. Government monies as a permanent way of life are poison.

Some thousands of naive supporters of the Yes campaign think it’s a good idea. Think again. Emotion and faux morality are no substitute for a steely focus on what a person needs to make it in this world. A world not of their making, but one they inherited. Wishing it were otherwise is no substitute for action. Would any leader in the eastern and southern capitals tolerate the behaviour tolerated in Warburton, and a hundred other failing communities in northern and Western Australia, in their backyard?

Leaders beware, this referendum has already failed, it has failed to unite Australia. A razor-thin win would be failure. A razor-thin loss would cause resentment. A huge loss, which is in prospect, will create an opportunity to reconsider known paths to success. Leaders, put your ego aside and think, what did it take to raise my child? You know the answer –  mentoring, discipline and love. This referendum disdains all three.