Rachel Perkins gets vocal on critics of Indigenous voice

Acclaimed Australian filmmaker Rachel Perkins says she and others calling for an Indigenous voice to parliament have been subjected to accusations they are ‘elite blacks’.

Rachel Perkins holds aloft the signatures supporting a voice referendum. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Acclaimed Australian filmmaker Rachel Perkins says she and others calling for an Indigenous Voice to parliament have been subjected to accusations they are “elite blacks” profiting from their advocacy.

Ms Perkins gave a heartfelt oration on the proposal for an Indigenous advisory body to parliament at The Cutaway at Barangaroo on Friday as religious leaders across Australia jointly urged the Albanese government to proceed to a referendum on the topic.

The leaders of every major faith practised in Australia have signed a joint resolution offering their support for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice as the right thing to do.

Imam Ibrahim Dadoun, representing the grand mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohamad, told The Australian the voice was an election issue in his community.

“I don’t know what the politicians were thinking about during the election campaign but in our community people were talking about the Voice and asking about which party supported it,” he said.

“People care about it.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jillian Segal said she felt it was her role to both respond to and lead Jewish Australians on the issue.

Labor has committed to take Australia to a referendum on the question of whether to establish an Indigenous Voice in the constitution in its first term.

Rachel Perkins joins individual members from peak religious institutions calling on Australian political leaders to take action on a First Nations voice referendum. Picture: Jeremy Piper

It has been five years since Indigenous delegates from around Australia issued the Uluru Statement from the Heart calling for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to advise parliament on matters directly affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The statement resulted from 11 consultations with about 1200 Indigenous people in every state and territory.

On Thursday, lawyers who worked on those consultations met to discuss the detail of the meetings that led to the landmark statement. Constitutional lawyer Gabrielle Appleby said that at the final meeting, delegates read out what the Indigenous people in their region had decided they wanted. The final statement was fashioned to include the wishes of every consultation.

When the final statement was read out on May 26, 2017, more than 250 Indigenous delegates stood and applauded.

Ms Perkins said her late father, activist Charles Perkins, would have been pleased by the declaration of support for the Uluru Statement from so many faiths.

The call was for a body that would offer non-binding advise with no power of veto.

“But in seeking change there is also risk,” she said in her oration on Friday.

“People have accused those of us who push for change of introducing apartheid, that we want a third chamber in parliament, that this is for elite blacks, not for our own people on the ground … and that we are paid mountains of dollars to push for this change.

“Can you believe it.”

Ms Perkins said the Uluru Statement transcended predictable divides.