It’s good Garma to advance voice talk

Anthony Albanese will use a visit to the Garma Festival to advance his proposal for a referendum on a voice to parliament to be held before the next federal election.

Anthony Albanese in question time on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

Anthony Albanese will use a visit to the Garma Festival to advance his proposal for a referendum on a voice to parliament to be held before the next federal election, saying it was time for Australia to “seize the opportunity and grasp it to advance us as a nation”.

The Prime Minister will on Friday and Saturday attend the nation’s most famous annual celebration of Aboriginal culture, on the lands of the Yolngu ­people in northeast Arnhem Land.

Mr Albanese said the voice to parliament proposal was a ­“gracious, generous hand being extended to non-Indigenous Australians”.

“It will be one of those moments, just like the apology was, when after it happened, everyone will wonder why we didn’t do it beforehand,” Mr Albanese said in question time on Thursday. “Everyone will be lifted up, the entire nation, by recognising in our Constitution, in our nat­ional birth certificate, that Australia didn’t begin in 1788, nor did we end.

“But it should be a great source of pride that we have the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet sharing the island continent of ours.”

Also attending the festival will be Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, Special Envoy for Reconciliation Pat Dodson, opposition Indigenous Australians spokesman Julian Leeser, Assistant Indigenous Australians Minister Malarn­dirri McCarthy and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

Ms Burney, who has previously said the government would hold a voice referendum only if it was likely to be won, on Thursday said the proposal would go to a public vote “in this term of parliament”.

“This is not a radical proposal. It is fair and it is practical. It is about growing our nation up together,” Ms Burney said.

“It’s about unity, it’s about hope, it’s about consulting … Aboriginal and Torres Strait People about laws and policies that affect us.

“And it is about delivering practical outcomes. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create lasting change. It is one shot in the locker.”

The Garma Festival has been a forum for important policy discussions among leaders and politicians but Malcolm Turnbull was the last prime minister to attend. That was in August 2017, three months after the Uluru Statement from the Heart called for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice. In October that year, Mr Turnbull likened the voice to a third chamber of parliament and did not return to Garma the next year.

In 2019, when Scott Morrison was prime minister, then Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt was warmly welcomed to Garma by Gumatj clan leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who demanded substantive constitutional reform. “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,” Dr Yunu­pingu told Mr Wyatt. “We will dismiss the Constitution … we throw it out of Australia into the saltwater.”

After the global pandemic imposed a two-year hiatus on Garma, it is back with 2000 guests who will sleep in tents at Gulkula. The forward-focused theme this year is Nhanga Ngathilyurra, a Yolngu phrase that means to look ahead to the future.