[worik]

No easy answer. It is called politics.

The culture helps too. In Australia the "democracy is majority rules" meme (which is a lie) is very strong. Just ask the Australian Indians.

Fun fact: Māori people had the right to vote in Australia from the start, Aboriginal Australians (just how racist are they when there is no word in Australia for the first people?) did not get that right until 1967.

It is a tough fight for the Australians.

[yesenadam]

> In Australia the "democracy is majority rules" meme (which is a lie) is very strong

I don't have much idea what you mean here.

> Just ask the Australian Indians.

Uh, could you explain what you mean here?

> Aboriginal Australians...did not get that right until 1967

I thought that too until recently, but not true.

On the history of Indigenous Australians’ right to vote: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous...

On the 1967 referendum:

While many people think that the Referendum gave Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the right to vote, this wasn’t the case. Aboriginal people could vote at the state level before Federation in 1901; Queensland and Western Australia being the only states that expressly prevented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from voting.

It wasn’t until 1962, when the electoral act was amended, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were given the right to register and vote, but voting was not compulsory. Full voting rights were not granted federally until Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were required to register on the electoral roll in 1984. ...

When the Constitution first came into being in 1901 there were only two parts that referred to the First Peoples of Australia: Section 51 (xxvi) gave the Commonwealth power to make laws with respect to ‘people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any state, for whom it was deemed necessary to make special laws’; and Section 127 provided that ‘in reckoning the numbers of people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted’. ...

On 27 May 1967, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. A resounding 90.77 per cent said ‘Yes’ and every single state and territory had a majority result for the ‘Yes’ vote.

https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/1967-referendum

[worik]

Democracy is not majority rules. Democracy is rule by the people. Minorities matter too, and if minorities are railroaded by majorities it is not much of a democracy.

Voting is important, but much more important is the rule of and access to the law.

"Australian Indians" means the same thing as "Australian Aborigines" Indian and Aborigine are synonyms.

You schooled me on the right to vote! My prejudice leaked out!! I will not let it become bigotry. But I think it is at the federal level. At federation (I thought it was 1905) they really wanted NZ to be a state, and in NZ Māori electorate was a thing, not a particularly democratic thing, but a thing. So to make NZ a state Māori had to able to vote at a federal level.

[yesenadam]

Hi. "Democracy is rule by the people" - well, I know enough to know that it's not any one thing, or captured by any one definition. How that one differs from "majority rules" I'm not sure. Anyway. Let's not get into that here.

> "Australian Indians" means the same thing as "Australian Aborigines" Indian and Aborigine are synonyms.

Uh I'm not sure where you are, but in Australia it sure doesn't mean that. No-one here calls aborigines "Indians", and far as I know never has.

Hehe it's ok, I think most Australians probably believe that 1967 thing, if they know the date at all, I'm not sure why. The truth is somewhat complicated.

Gee, I had no idea NZ was involved in the pre-Federation conferences in Australia, although sounds like NZ just wasn't very into it. A wise decision!

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

[caf]

The continent was home to a very large number of difference language groups and languages prior to settlement. There is not one common demonym - in southeast Australia "Koori" is often used, but more commonly people are referred to by the language group to which they belong (eg an Arrernte man).