I believe that we need to change the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as the First Peoples of Australia. However, I am not convinced that this should be accompanied by the decision to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Here's why:
In late 2021, I was with a charity team responding to support those affected by the floods in the NSW Northern Rivers region. We were dropping off some supplies to an aid station that was set up outside the Koori Mail in Lismore, when a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men approached me and asked to have a chat. They had seen me in the media advocating for Veterans’ Affairs issues and wanted my thoughts on Indigenous Affairs issues, particularly on the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I told them I had not read it and couldn’t give an educated answer - to which one of them responded “Good, so shut up and listen”. Two of the men proceeded to explain to me about the circumstances they found many Aboriginal communities and issues within. They spoke of politically aligned and bureaucratic ‘elite’ elements of their community that profited from maintaining a victimhood based approach to Aboriginal advocacy. These men were readily able to accurately relate this situation to my experiences in the Veterans’ Affairs advocacy community, where there are senior ‘elite’ organisations that draw the majority of political and bureaucratic support in quite an ‘old boys’ network that also sees them holding hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and achieving millions of dollars more each year.
These gentlemen went on to say very directly - “We actually live and work within our Aboriginal communities. If you want to help our communities, then stop giving our young people free welfare, make them work for and earn it. If they commit a crime, then hold them to the same standards as white people - lock them up and make sure they learn their lesson, because too many Aboriginal kids now know that they can get away with a lot more than they should. Or let us discipline our own people. The current system sees governments reaching in to try and solve issues with money and special privileges, but all they are doing is further facilitating and enabling these patterns to continue. Community issues need to be solved by the communities and their members themselves - that goes for every community with unique issues, just like Veterans I imagine”. And they certainly are right in that last regard - with the ability for us to help and hold our own accountable usually being the most effective.
Since then reading the Uluru Statement from the Heart, it has become so evident to me that this speaks to the trauma that is still carried by too many within our generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It speaks to the possession of Australia, and that such was never ceded or extinguished. “That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?”.
My view is that all of us who have lived and currently inhabit the lands we now call Australia do not own this country ourselves. No one community can claim that any land ‘always was and always will be’ theirs, because our lands can be taken from us by those with the will and resources to do so. This is the greatest lesson that we must lean into and accept as our first true step to real reconciliation in Australia. Modern day Australia came from a time when we were colonised by the British. Invaders who were able to conquer the peoples they found and set about building the foundations for our federation today.
This was because the First Peoples of Australia were not united and able to fight against the will and technology they encountered on the battlefields they were forced to face. This is the lesson we must learn and accept today.
We must become a nation united with all our tribes together to make sure that we are strong with our will and bodies bound together to be able to protect and progress that which we have been entrusted to be the custodians of here and now. Because, as the tribes in constant conflict that we find ourselves in today, we provide opportunities for those seeking agendas of their own to exploit the cracks this creates within our society.
Our tribes are those who were first here, those who have travelled and continue to come from shores overseas, and those of us who were born here and have always known and chosen Australia as our own. We need to acknowledge all the ancestors of Australia when we welcome visitors to this great country. Those who were first here and those who have served and died to protect our country home.
The five generations of my family that signed up to serve and defend Australia, to fight for our nation when called into combat, are among those ancestors that are now part of the red earth at our nation's core. As are all those Australians who signed up to serve when our borders were threatened by invading forces during World War II.
There are nearly 600,000 Veterans alive in Australia today. We are a community who have been indoctrinated into a culture of service, where actions and attitudes were our measure. Where any other discriminating factor was subordinate to the team and task at hand. I have only spoken with a handful of my Veteran peers regarding the referendum, and do not speak for all. However, the majority of Veterans that I have spoken to share my concerns and struggle to understand this path of representing people based on birth bloodlines. It is a struggle for many of us Veterans who have felt so inspired and invested in serving our country within the armed forces, including fighting for this sovereignty in combat, to then return home and be told that we are not considered custodians of the lands, seas and skies that we have otherwise been willing to commit our lives to defend in the name of Australia and all our peoples.
If we continue down this path of progressing one tribe over another based upon race, colour or creed we are setting a course for creating a divide in our country that has already shown can bring the opportunity for more tragedy and trauma to our lands. Merit and service to our society must again become the measure of our values as the nation of Australia and our systems of governance therein.
I absolutely believe that we need to accept that trauma was caused to those who inhabited Australia when the colonisers came, and even more by those who thought they knew best to take children from their mothers and call it care.
We also need to acknowledge here and now that we have set the path to create racism in Australia by already treating people differently based on the bloodlines that they identify as flowing from. We need to ensure that the laws of Australia are agreed and accepted by all our people, including those living on Aboriginal communities. We need to seek a treaty and call on these communities to accept the laws of Australia, to help each other and work with our law enforcement and first responders to protect those who cannot protect themselves. We need this to be the purpose that all in the police, remote communities and reporting media are working towards, not create a position where laws are made lenient or not enforced due to fear of public opinion cast astray by media bias.
We need all Australians to commit to the rule of law and due process that are the pillars of our democratic society. To take on the responsibility and be the parents and elders of their people in this process. We need to reinforce and support the role of responsible parents in our society as we face crime and chaos from youths like never before. It is the parents and communities that must be the first line of teaching and discipline for the youth of Australia, and also be the ones who support the police in maintaining the laws we agree to live by. By bringing those who require it to justice and ensuring they are there to welcome and reintegrate them back after any sentence is served.
As the Uluru Statement form the Heart also mentions, I do firmly believe that modern day Australia has all too often lost our “ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’”, and that all Australian peoples, not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, “were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors”. This is the link that we indeed need to better establish and maintain in our nation, and it is a responsibility of all Australians today.
We are the lucky country, set down in the southern hemisphere on our own tectonic plate and free from so many issues experienced by other countries in the world. Our lands abound in nature's gifts, full of resources to sustain our people for so many generations to come. We are lucky to also be so young as a formed nation, with our lands and tribes fully connected today. Lucky because this provides us with the ability and opportunity to learn from so many other cultures and countries who have experienced their own evolutions to achieve a true national identity. We have the ability to take action now to build the foundations that will finally see Australia become the great nation we can truly be, and to lead in this light as an example to all the countries of the world within our global community.
The loss of our ancestral link to Australia, the portion of ‘mother nature’ that we are responsible for as custodians today, is perhaps what actually needs to be better addressed. We need to reconnect with earth that is mother to us all, embracing all of the spirits that our people choose to be the comfort of their soul. This includes our ANZAC Spirit that was forged by those who first fought together with unity when tested in war. United as a nation and serving under one flag. A spiritual connection to our country that is not held to the confines of the church, but embraces our spirituality so we may evolve as a people alongside our industrial innovations.
Sadly, I see the notion of requiring a separate entity, a Voice enshrined in our constitution, to actually better reflect the current issues we face within our political systems. Every square metre of Australia is governed by at least three levels of political authority - Local Council, State and Federal Parliaments, with multiple political layers of representation therein. Each with elected members required to serve and support all the members of their electorates. Does this referendum demonstrate that this system is no longer capable of selecting and maintaining the people who are able to execute their elected responsibilities, or work together across these levels and layers to achieve the designed outcomes of their enshrined roles? Is adding another element to this going to better achieve the required outcomes, or is there actually a need to review and better refine these systems and structures to achieve greater success for all Australians?
Please, Prime Minister, let us absolutely vote this October 14th to change the Australian constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia. Please do not allow the second element of your referendum question to deter and disrupt this outcome otherwise. This issue has now become so political and polarised, as far too many issues within Australian society seem to become. Now we are set for a Yes vs No outcome that is not based on good policy and diplomacy, it has instead become a vessel for division and is creating more combat within our own borders.
Prime Minister, you have made it perfectly clear that your Government can establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament without the need for agreement from the referendum. Let’s work together to achieve the pivotal step in our nation’s evolution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia in our constitution. Then let us work together to establish the society and responsible practices that our country really needs together as all the peoples of Australia, represented equally.
References;
1. Uluru Statement from the heart, 2017
2. Ibid
3. Ibid