Fix it or we’ll throw Constitution into sea: Galarrwuy ­Yunupingu

One of Australia’s most respected Aboriginal leaders, Galarrwuy ­Yunupingu, makes a final demand for constitutional recognition.

Galarrwuy Yunupingu and members of the Gumatj clan practise a bunggul (traditional dance) at the opening ceremony of the Garma festival. Picture: Peter Eve

One of Australia’s most respected Aboriginal leaders, Galarrwuy ­Yunupingu, has made what he ­describes as a final demand for substantive constitutional reforms, threatening that the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land will throw the nation’s founding document into the sea if change does not come soon.

In a strident speech to open the Garma festival on Aboriginal land in the far northeast corner of the Northern Territory late yesterday, Dr Yunupingu issued his warning directly to the face of Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt, who was in the front row of the audience. The two men were facing each other and seated almost knee to knee — Dr Yunupingu in his wheelchair — when the Yolngu leader said, “Enough is enough”.

“We are thinking of our Constitution, how we can change it and make it a real law for Yolngu people as well as Balanda (non-­indigenous) people,” he said.

“We are doing that, asking for the rights to be accepted by the commonwealth government and by everybody else.”

A youngster looks for guidance during a traditional dance session on the opening day of the Garma festival in Arnhem Land. Picture: Melanie Faith Dove

Dr Yunupingu’s father, Mungurrawuy, was one of the painters of the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions protesting the loss of land — also known as the Bark Treaty — that hang in Parliament House and are regarded as a form of title.

Yesterday, Dr Yunupingu said the Constitution rejected his people. He told the crowd at the annual celebration of indigenous culture that Mr Wyatt had agreed to tell the government what his people wanted.

“If they don’t come to us with an answer, we will tell you what we going to do, what the Yolngu people going to do,” he said.

“We will dismiss the Constitution … we thrown it out of Australia into the saltwater,” he said.

“It will be wonderful. The Yolngu people will stand on the land and see if that document will float away into the ocean. That’s what is going to happen.”

Dr Yunupingu is understood to broadly support the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, which includes a call for constitutional recognition and an indigenous voice to parliament enshrined in the Constitution. Dr Yunupingu has never explicitly called for the voice in public and Mr Wyatt said yesterday that he had not asked for it in their talks, but the Gumatj clan leader’s calls for substantial constitutional reform are likely to buoy Uluru backers. With Dr ­Yunupingu’s consent, actor Jack Thompson read the entire Uluru statement to the Garma audience at the opening ceremony yesterday.

Dr Yunupingu, left, makes an appeal to Ken Wyatt. Picture: Teagan Glenane

Dr Yunupingu said he trusted Mr Wyatt to take his message to the government.

After Dr Yunupingu’s speech, Mr Wyatt indicated Dr Yunu­pingu was looking for change that could be even more substantial than a voice.

“He is seeking constitutional change based on the conversations that he had with former prime minister Tony Abbott, and in line with the Bark Treaty,” he said.

Mr Wyatt has said he will take Australia to a referendum on constitutional recognition for Aboriginal people in this term of government. He has not committed to a referendum question on a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and this week urged supporters of the Uluru statement to be pragmatic about what was achievable because Australians were conservative and did not like governments “tinkering with the rule book”.

Scott Morrison is against a constitutionally enshrined voice. But Dr Yunupingu expressed faith in Mr Morrison yesterday, saying that as a prime minister, he was “a young one” who liked to tell ­stories but people might have underestimated his capacity for ­serious matters.

“He makes people laugh and so on and so on and maybe they overlooked him for what seriousness he can take,” Dr Yunupingu said.