‘We don’t want your backyards’: Briggs reassures Aussies afraid the Voice is a land grab

Indigenous rapper Briggs, the face of a viral video for the Yes campaign, has addressed a question central to the No campaign’s success.

Indigenous rapper Adam Briggs, who stars in a viral video supporting the Yes vote, wants Australians to know one thing — this is not a land grab.

Six days out from the referendum, the iconic Aussie rapper and Yorta Yorta man is hoping to change some minds about the vote to enshrine an Indigenous voice in Australia’s constitution.

And he is tackling the questions that many people are asking — perhaps not always publicly.

Speaking to The Guardian from a festival in his home town of Shepparton, Briggs said of the Voice to parliament: “It’s not scary. This is not a psy op, it’s not a UN land grab.

“This is simply about us having a Voice to be able to direct more care and have better outcomes.”

Baker Boy, Briggs and Paul Kelly were among the artists performing at the Now & Forever concert for the Voice. Picture: Supplied.

New polling released on Monday showed support for the Voice to parliament has fallen further heading into the final week of the campaign.

The exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian showed just one in three of voters are now backing the proposed constitutional change and the bad news for the Yes campaign is that scepticism is even infecting the youth vote.

The Yes case now stands at 34 per cent – a 2 per cent drop in the last fortnight – as the campaign enters its final days.

During months of campaigning, some proponents for the No vote have claimed that a Yes vote would lead to people being forced to give up their land.

Briggs tackled that concern head on.

“We don’t want your backyards,” he said.

He described militant No voters and those who burn the Aboriginal flag or threaten Aboriginal people as “just rednecks”.

“It’s like the Superbowl for them or something, its like their Grand Final,” he said.

The comments come after the release of a new video featuring the Aussie rapper titled ‘Far Enough – Vote Yes’. It was directed by Australian filmmaker Nash Edgerton – whose brother is actor Joel Edgerton.

Hollywood powerhouse Jason Momoa bolstered its viewership by sharing it to his 17 million followers last week. New Zealand director Taika Waititi did the same.

While it’s been widely applauded since it launched, the video has also attracted a wave of backlash from the No camp, with some accusing the team behind it of being paid by the Labor government.

Edgerton, 50, debunked this suggestion, affirming the independent people involved did it for free and of their own accord because “we believe in this thing.”

“No one got paid. No one commissioned this. It was just us wanting to do something about it,” Edgerton told news.com.au.

The viral video uses humor to explain the Yes vote. Picture: YouTube.

The three-minute video, which was shot in half a day and turned around within a week, shows Briggs talking to two women about the upcoming Voice referendum.

The trio are chatting over drinks at a pub, where the women unwittingly echo sentiments from the No campaign based on a clear lack of research on the topic.

“80 per cent of us do [want it],” Briggs calmly states. “Have you Googled it? The proposal. The referendum, Have you Googled it?”

The women laugh, saying they’ve “not had heaps of time”, because, you know, “Life.”

Briggs laughs along with them, before adding, “Have you got your phone? Let’s see what you do have time for,” he says as he opens up the woman’s search history. “‘Did Aaron leave Love Island 13 because he had gonorrhoea?’ Big questions,” Briggs jokes.

He then Googles the proposal and lands on the government website in seconds, as he asks the women to read out the basic explainer. They come to discover the Voice is simply an advisory board that carries no legislative power, but presents important issues among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to a parliamentary platform.

“OK, well, that is quite clear, I’d just vote yes to that?” she adds. “How did you find that? You went on Google, and it’s, the first result? OK, well you need to tell people about that Google thing.”

A message flashes onscreen, ‘Vote Yes to that referendum thing.’