Referendum passed Indigenous people by in town camps
Of the dozen or so groups of Indigenous people spoken to in the town camps around Alice Springs, none knew anything about the referendum – let alone the result.
Graham Hoosan and his family are sitting in the red dirt around a camp fire cooking steak and kangaroo tail, a world away from the bitter aftermath of the voice referendum.
Not far away there are yells and cheers from a crowd of 200 spectators as half a dozen horses thunder around the Santa Teresa racetrack, kicking up dust, the riders caked in sweat and not a helmet in sight.
Santa Teresa, also known as Ltyentye Apurte, is home to an Arrernte Indigenous community, 80km southeast of Alice Springs.
Hoosan lives in one of the town camps surround Alice Springs; he’s here for the Sunday races. The 34-year-old Yankunytjatjara man didn’t realise that the final day for voting was Saturday.
He would have voted yes, he tells The Australian. “I don’t know if the voice (was going) to work, nothing wrong with trying, aye?” he says with a shrug.
It’s a common story. Of the dozen or so groups of Indigenous people The Australian spoke to on Sunday, here and in the town camps around Alice Springs, none knew anything about the referendum – let alone the result.
Hoosan previously worked at the Amoonguna Night Patrol, but has been unemployed for a while.
He wants his son, Hussain, to get a job when he grows up, but says jobs for “white fellas” are prioritised over jobs for Aboriginals.
There’s no relationship between bureaucrats in Canberra and Indigenous Australians out in bush communities and in town camps, he says. “The government needs to start listening to us. We need more things happening out bush, we’ve got young people running around in town doing nothing. We’ve got children running amok in town.
“We need more nurses and workers in town, and train some more people up, but not white fellas – black fellas.”
Hoosan believes the government is listening to the wrong people. “They listening to other people, but not the people (who) stay in the community.
“We need to give the youth something to do, we the ones who live out here. White people, they just come and go. They don’t understand the problems.”
It would help if there were training courses provided in the community, especially for plumbing or nursing, he says.
“The main thing is white people work to help Aboriginal people to grow, but instead they come out here and work and live for a few years, and then they leave and the next white person takes over, they don’t help Aboriginal people take over.
“Lot of these Aboriginal teenagers are smart, all their knowledge stops at wherever they finish at school, they don’t get taught more.”
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