‘It’s just a guess’: Yolngu artist Yalmakany Marawili on the Voice to Parliament

As she works on a bark painting of a guava-like fruit called a bundjunu, Yalmakany Marawili says while she hasn’t really heard much about the Voice, she is going to vote yes anyway.

Yolngu artist Yalmakany Marawili paints a guava-like fruit called a bundjunu at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka arts centre. Picture: Jason Walls

With a referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament just months away, many of those most affected by it remain unclear about how it will all work.

Yolngu artist Yalmakany Marawili travels from her remote homeland of Yilpara (Baniyala) to paint bush plants and foods at Yirrkala’s Buku-Larrnggay Mulka arts centre.

As she works on a bark painting of a guava-like fruit called a bundjunu, the 65-year-old says while she hasn’t really heard much about the Voice, she is going to vote yes anyway.

“I don’t know (why), it’s just a guess for me,” she says.

“If we have a voice from our community maybe it could work that way, make it better.”

But if the referendum does get up, Ms Marawili is clear about where she expects it to help her community.

“We are struggling in education, we need more kids in our community, to stay and have their education in their own homelands and we are struggling about the houses as well,” she says.

“In the one house that we have there we have a family living all crowded and there’s nowhere (else) to live.”

Yolngu artist Yalmakany Marawili says her community struggles with education and housing. Picture: Jason Walls

It comes after Territory MLA Yingiya Guyula called on the commonwealth government to travel to Arnhem Land to “go out and sit down with the people and get the real story and understanding”.

“Somebody needs to go out there and explain to people,” he said in May.

“People are just wondering, I believe, especially in my electorate, the people out there, they would be relying on me to collect the stories from the government and tell the people out there but I would urge the government to come out and do consultations, proper consultations.”

Last month, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney promised remote communities would have a chance to learn about the referendum after it’s enabling legislation passed the parliament on June 19.

Ms Burney said she was “very conscious of the issues being expressed by remote communities” and teams would go all over Australia to spread the word.

Despite pamphlets on the Voice stacked up in the Laynhapuy Homelands Aboriginal Corporation office down the road from the arts centre, it would seem that word is yet to reach many in Yirrkala.