‘It’s time’ for a Voice: $5m donation underwrites Yes campaign

A $5 million donation will turbocharge the Yes campaign for the Voice to parliament, as it prepares to recruit thousands of volunteers to drive a groundswell of support in neighbourhoods across the country.

The Yes Alliance announced the donation from the Paul Ramsay Foundation as it launched its ground campaign on Thursday night in Adelaide, attended by hundreds of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from community organisations, faith groups, unions, and businesses.

Uncle Moogy conducts a smoking ceremony to launch the Yes campaign for a Voice to parliament, Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Undeterred by the sweltering 40-degree heat, supporters queued outside the Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, taking in the wafting smoke of a traditional cleansing ceremony performed by local elder Major “Uncle Moogy” Sumner.

Inside the venue, the Yes Alliance campaign leaders Dean Parkin and filmmaker Rachel Perkins rallied the crowd, channelling an “it’s time” message as they placed the referendum on a continuum of a long fight for Indigenous rights.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this – 65,000 years of continuous connection, 235 years of the modern Australian nation, 122 years of silence in the Australian Constitution, 56 years since our forebears did it in 1976, six years since the Uluru Statement From the Heart,” Parkin said.

The late Paul Ramsay, founder of Ramsay Health Care, whose philanthropic foundation is backing the Yes campaign.

“When we vote Yes, we get the recognition and we get the Voice. This a very good deal for the country.”

Perkins, whose father and Aboriginal rights activist Dr Charlies Perkins was a key campaigner in the 1967 referendum, said the campaign was standing on the shoulders of giants and the decades-long push for reconciliation.

“We are coming from a position of strength. All that learning, all that work. Here tonight we are taking the Australian people on a walk with us,” Perkins said.

“Our dream is to unify this country, bringing the Australian people together with the first people of Australia, in unity. To achieve that dream, we need one thing. One simple thing. We need the Australian people to say one simple word. Yes.”

The launch marks the start of an eight-month campaign before an expected referendum in October – the last and most important leg in a long road since the auspicious convention at Uluru in 2017, where 250 Indigenous leaders called for a First Nations voice to be enshrined in the Constitution.

Volunteers will be the ballast of the Yes campaign, with organisers hoping a grassroots movement involving community-led events and kitchen-table conversations will cut through an increasingly divisive political debate.

About 200 people attended two days of workshops before the launch, aimed at training them to deliver a pro-Voice message and assuage concerns among potential supporters. However, their ground campaign starts against the backdrop of a raging political debate about how the Voice will operate, as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton pursues the government for more detail amid resistance to the referendum in his partyroom.

Parkin was unconcerned about Resolve polling on Thursday that showed that more than 60 per cent of the electorate wanted more information about the Voice.

“There’s a long way until the referendum will be held … so there’s a long time between now and then to get that information out there. You’ve also got to understand that out in the community, people are approaching this issue much more simply, and from a place of deep goodwill. They want to actually be engaged in the conversation,” he said before the launch.

Supporters of the Yes campaign gathered outside the Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute in Adelaide.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was also in Adelaide but did not attend the launch – billed as a politician-free affair, accused Dutton of deliberately trying to confuse Australians.

“The Liberal Party are showing, at least Peter Dutton is showing, that he wants to create as much confusion and is doing nothing that would indicate that his starting point is, ‘OK, how do we work on this together?’, ‘how do we get this done together?’ – that’s my approach,” Albanese said on Thursday.

The $5 million funding injection is the largest donation the Yes campaign has received since Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition was granted tax deductibility status early this month. Organisers said it also eclipsed any single donation received by the former From the Heart campaign vehicle, which relied on corporate sponsorship and grassroots donations, and has now been rolled into the Yes alliance.

The Paul Ramsay Foundation, Australia’s biggest charity following a $3.5 billion bequest from businessman Paul Ramsay after his death in 2014, said it was proud to support the Yes campaign.

“We understand that the best outcomes emerge when the voices of those affected are heard, so we believe that enshrining an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice is vital for stronger communities, and for a stronger nation,” foundation chief executive Kristy Muir said.

The decision by the Albanese government not to publicly fund the Yes and No cases means the competing campaigns are in a funding race, with the $5 million injection to the pro-Voice group outstripping a $1 million donation reportedly received by conservative lobby group and anti-Voice fundraiser Advance Australia, from an undisclosed benefactor last year.

The No camp, which has splintered into two campaigns run respectively by Indigenous media commentator Warren Mundine and Country Liberal Party senator Nampijinpa Price, has been tight-lipped about funding. However, Mundine has positioned his “Recognise a Better Way” campaign as an underdog in the fund-raising stakes, saying it would be relying upon grassroots donations and support from business people rather than large corporate sponsorship.

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