Mulka MLA Yingiya Guyula backs Yes campaign, but warns against regional voices being drowned out

‘Our people are dying’: A Yolngu leader and politician has come out in support of the Yes campaign, despite holding early doubts.

A Territory politician has warned against the Voice being used as another “colonial institution” calling for the concerns of remote communities to be amplified if the referendum succeeds.

In an emotional keynote address at Garma on Sunday, Mulka MLA Yingiya Guyula came out in support for the Yes campaign despite having harboured early doubts for the upcoming referendum.

The Yolgnu man said his support for the constitutional change was in the hope it would open the door to truth telling and Treaty.

Mr Guyula said the coming referendum would bring “both hope and concerns for many people”, but said the ongoing pattern of one-way, top down policies was too destructive to continue.

“The balanda (non-Indigenous) system brings a slow death by assimilation,” he said.

Mr Yingiya (Mark) Guyula at the Garma Festival 2023. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The Yolngu leader said this impact “spoke to every government interaction” – from the NT Intervention, super shires, town policies, the community development program, police deaths in custody, drug and alcohol policies, mental and physical health services.

“The cumulative impact of these policies and laws have resulted in avoidable and early deaths,” Mr Guyula said.

“In my own family I am performing funeral ceremonies for people I call child, grandchild.

“These are my loved ones in their 20s, 30s, 40s. They are too young.

“Our people are dying.”

Mr Guyula said constitutional recognition could sit alongside the recognition of Yolngu and other Aboriginal communities as the “sovereign people” of their lands.

“The ultimate goal is to have our people have control over our lives, so we can be who we are,” he said.

“But the Voice must not take grassroots voices away, it must amplify our voices.

“It must come from the lands working together, not manipulated by outsiders who think they know best.

“So it is not another colonial institution.”

“We are telling the government to get off us so we can stand up freely”.

Speaking to the crowd - which included the Chief Minister Natasha Fyles and acting Police Commissioner Michael Murphy - Mr Guyula called for radical change to “roll away” destructive policies.

“These systems do not observe two-way laws and djambatj (intelligence and skill),” he said.

“These policies have all set on top of Yolngu people, suffocating us,” he said.

“We need them to be rolled away.”