Voice Yes campaign draws big crowds

By Tim Howard

Hundreds of Clarence Valley residents flocked to hear prominent Yes 23 campaigners Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien explain why it was necessary to support the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament in next month’s referendum.

Held in Grafton and Yamba last Tuesday and Wednesday, the forums coincided with the announcement of the referendum date on October 14.

The organisers of the events, Clarence Says Yes, were thrilled at the turnout, first in the upstairs Les Beattie Room at the GDSC and the following night at the Yamba and District Golf Club.

Tuesdays event in Grafton GDSC staff was delayed slightly as staff found more chairs to seat the crowd of around 160 who turned out.

The following night’s turn out in Yamba was even bigger with more than 250 attending.

As well as the public meetings Mr Mayo and Mr O’Brien met with Aboriginal Elders earlier in the day.

In his address to the meeting Mr Mayo reflected his past as a wharfie and unionist where he learned the value of collective action and on the history of attempts to bring an indigenous voice into Australian public life based on the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.

This document is an invitation to the Australian people to enshrine an indigenous voice in the constitution to enable First Nations people to advise parliament on issues involving indigenous people.

“I became a union official, eventually in 2010 after 16 years on the wharves and I’m here talking about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, not because it’s a union matter,” he said,

“It’s a social justice thing. I understand that this is the key to improving the lives of my families and my communities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across this nation.”

He talked about the many groups set up to give Aboriginal people a Voice, but which had been shut down when government changed hands.

He described the Yolngu people and the Yirrkala bark petitions, petitions to kings and queens, Aboriginal bodies like the NAC, the NACC and ATSIC formed and disbanded from the 1920s to the early 21st Century, which sought to give his people a voice, but were silenced because of the power the authorities had over them.

“What I’m illustrating here is this pattern that we have established voices many times before,” Mr Mayo said.

“But we have learned through the history of our struggle, that always another government will come along and take it away.

“So that’s one of the lessons that go into this call for a constitutionally enshrined voice.

“We must rebuild a voice because we know that when we have a voice, we see greater progress when we lose our voice when there isn’t this structure with which to speak together with coherency things get worse. The gap widens.”

Yes 23 speaker Thomas Mayo describing how the Voice would fit into the Australian constitution should it succeed in the October 14 referendum.

In his turn at the lectern, Mr O’Brien described with some shocking examples, what he had seen growing up in Queensland and in 50-plus years of journalism in Australia.

“When I grew up in Queensland, like practically all of my generation and generations before mine, and sadly even generations after mine, I was always totally ignorant,” he said.

“Firstly, of indigenous history, culture, tradition, and civilisation, and I was equally ignorant of the the colonial and immediate post colonial history where white settlers arrived in his country essentially took it over.

“And the history is, is written in blood since that time.”

He said that as a young journalist in 1970 on assignment in Alice Springs he saw things that “shocked him to my core”.

“What I saw was the rawest of racism,’ he said. “I saw people treated in the most appalling fashion. There was just no way that this could be justified.”

Mr O’Brien also reminded the audience of the milestones in indigenous affairs like the Mabo and Wik decisions in the High Court and how they had to overcome the misinformation campaign of the time.

“The scare tactic of the time was that people’s backyards were going to be taken by indigenous people through native title,” he said.

“And when the Wik Judgment came in, which related to pastoral leases, the scare tactic of that time was that farmers were going to have their land stolen from under them.

“None of it ever happened.”

He compared those events to the more recent Marriage Equality Plebiscite.

“Remember how we were told that it was going to rob you have your religious freedom,” he said.

“And look at what’s happened since the marriage equality vote. This country is more united around that issue than ever before.

“There is kindness and tolerance in this country with regard to that issue than ever before.”

Mr O’Brien asked the audience to imagine how it would feel waking up on October 15, knowing the Voice Referendum had been passed.

“We wake up and we’re going to have a wish enshrined in our Constitution, giving indigenous people the right to have a say … before it goes out into the community to be enacted as policy that they are actually going to have a say. How dangerous is that?

“Giving indigenous people or say, not giving them a veto, not giving them a separate parliament, giving them a say.”

He said indigenous people had a long and successful history of running the country, which a Voice would recognise.

“Just just just think what it means, 65,000 years of civilisation is 65,000 years of not just survival, but in their own way, prosperity. 65,000 years,” he said.

“That is huge. We can’t say that. I certainly can’t say that.”

Yes23 campaigners, Kerry O’Brien, second from left and Thomas Mayo, second from right with Clarence Valley residents Kerry Skinner, Michael Kennedy and event organiser Julie Perkins at the GDSC on August 29.

After the address, the speaker took questions from the floor including from several people who said they questioned its necessity.

One questioner sought to liken the Voice to South Africa’s apartheid policy, which drew a sharp response from Mr O’Brien.

He reminded the questioner that the model of apartheid was modelled on the Queensland Government’s Aboriginal Protection Act of 1897, which allowed forcible removal of Aboriginal people to reserves and missions.

There were moments when humour illuminated the debate.

Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung man Vincent Duroux told the gathering he was one of 15 children.

“My family married every European nation in the world,” he said. “The Scots, the English, the Norse, Dutch, American. You name it, we married them all. I took my name from a Frenchman. We love you.”

He said Aboriginal people had demonstrated their sincerity in seeking reconciliation with the white community.

“We have proven that we just want to be acknowledged as 350 nations of Aboriginals on this continent.

“We’re entitled to be respected as any other peoples on the planet.”

Auntie Janay Daley, who made the Welcome to Country, said she was convinced her community would benefit from a Voice to Parliament.

“People have been saying Yes, others are saying No,” she said. “But when you see it close up, you realise people need to know more about it and understand what’s behind it and don’t make a rash decision.”

Event organiser Julie Perkins was thrilled to see so many people turning out for the forums.

“We didn’t realise it was going to be so big,” she said.

To conclude the forum Mr Mayo recited from memory the Uluru Statement of the Heart, which concludes with this message.

“In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”

Mr Mayo also encouraged those who attended to continue to spread the message in the community and enrol to support the Yes 23 campaign.

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