It is Sunday and Katie Moore, a Wiradyuri woman, attends a ‘yes’ rally for the October 14 referendum that will decide whether Australia adds the sixth chapter to its constitution. “The ‘no’ campaign will send us back to a world we cannot contemplate for another 250 years,” says Noel Pearson, a lawyer and one of the architects of The Voice, from the stage.
Written in 1900 by representatives of six British colonies, the Australian constitution recognizes Queen Victoria (Elisabeth II’s grandmother), trains or lighthouses, but does not mention the Indigenous population, and did so until 1967 only to recognize them to discriminate against them. .
The new amendment proposes the creation of The Voice to Parliament, an indigenous body to provide expert advice to Parliament and the government on social, economic and spiritual matters affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. “This is what we have on the table,” Katie acknowledges, “we can discuss whether it is a good thing or not, and whether other tools can come later, like a treaty.”
The proposal, which is an evolution of the fight for Indigenous civil rights, was included in the Uluru from the Heart declaration when a hundred Indigenous delegates produced a document calling for the Makarrata truth commission and treaty, and a voice for the First Nations of Australia.
Next Saturday’s referendum is a promise from Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and does not have the support of the other major party, the Liberals. The Nationals, allies of the LNP and with strong representation in white rural areas, do not support the proposal either, while The Greens and some independent candidates joined the ‘yes’ vote. So far, eight of the 44 approved referendums had bipartisan support.
The campaign has been getting tougher at the same time that the ‘no’ vote turned around in the polls. According to the polls, only Tasmania would approve the Voice, when the electoral law requires a double majority for the referendum to be approved; A ‘yes’ in the popular vote, but also in the majority of states without counting the Northern Territory or the Australian capital.
In a Murdoch group podcast, Conservative senator for the Northern Territory Jacinta Nampijimpa Price claimed that The Voice had no details, “it is an imaginary thing” that is committed “to the activist agenda.” An intervention, in which Price recognized that TikTok had done a very good job.
During the campaign, a group of neo-Nazis joined the ‘no’ march in Melbourne and last week a video was published showing another neo-Nazi group burning the Aboriginal flag and threatening Aboriginal senator Lidia Thorpe. From ‘yes’ supporters to The New York Times they have described misinformation as the Trump style.
The executive and the promoters of the Indigenous Voice – among whom there are liberals such as the premier of Tasmania or Julian Leeser, who participated with Pearson in the preparation of the project – defend that the constitution does not include the details, but rather “regulates the institutions ”.
For the Albanese government, the starting point is a report prepared in 2018 by professors Marcia Langton and Tom Calma where it is recommended that the future advisory body should have 24 members, with regional involvement and a maximum of two mandates per candidate or that in no case would have veto power, would manage funds from the federal budget or would legally put the government or parliament in check.
About 28% of voters have not decided their vote. In Sydney, the foreseeable support from the western neighborhoods, where according to the 2021 census in suburbs such as Merrylands or Liverpool more than 65% of the inhabitants have both parents born abroad, would not be enough to tilt New South Wales, the most populated state, voted ‘yes’. Western Australia and Queensland appear to have the largest ‘no’ majorities.
In the small community of Seisia, in Cape York, Queenlsand, Talei Elu decided to invest her time in getting more voters on the register after noticing the low turnout rates in her community. “Political and electoral participation is key if we want to change our situation,” she says.
For this referendum, the Australian Electoral Commission has estimated registered voters at 17.6 million, 97.7% of the census among non-indigenous people and 94.1% among First Nations. In Seisia as many as 118 voters have registered to vote.
“Our conversation on The Voice is how this will change things for us, not whether the country will say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” Elu explains. After living for six years in Canberra and working for different branches of government, in 2021 he wanted to return to his community, 2000 km from the capital and with problems such as power outages, mobile coverage, supplies by sea and whose nearest ATM It is 900km away.
“I think having these conversations is a reality check,” he concludes, “but right now it’s overwhelming. I had to take measures such as disconnecting from social networks to rest for a while.
