Voice campaign stepping up a gear, Noel Pearson signals at Garma Festival
The Cape York leader has signalled a new stage in the referendum campaign for an Indigenous voice to parliament, saying there will be ‘no stone unturned’.
Cape York leader Noel Pearson has signalled the voice campaign is moving into another gear, saying: “We’re going to love them on the beaches in this campaign.”
“We’re going to love them at every front door, we’re going to love them at the football. We’re going to leave no stone unturned,” he said.
Mr Pearson was speaking at the Garma festival in northeast Arnhem Land when he told the non-Indigenous people in the audience they were crucial to the result of the voice referendum to be held later this year.
He described it as the most important vote in the nation’s history and our “last best chance” to complete the constitution.
“At 3 per cent (of the population) it means we as Indigenous people can’t win the referendum on our numbers … it’s your 97 per cent that counts,” he said.
Mr Pearson urged the audience to talk to fellow Australians about the proposed constitutional amendment for the voice.
He said the words were in plain English and made it clear the voice’s limits. It was simply a body – in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – that can make representations to parliament and government. Parliament would decide its structures and functions.
Mr Pearson said the voice would address pressing health issues in Indigenous communities – such as rheumatic heart disease, a condition that exists in Bangladesh and India and eradicated from most of Australia except remote communities.
The result was that the Indigenous child or toddler with rheumatic heart disease risked dying suddenly in their teens, 20s or 30s.
“I’ve known too many in the middle of a football match who have collapsed of a heart attack,” he said.
It meant Indigenous children in remote communities had “a sword hanging over their heads”.
Mr Pearson said Hansard showed rheumatic heart disease had not been mentioned once in 26 years by the member representing Cape York. That would change if the voice was established, because it would press the issue.
Gumatj leader Djawa Yunupingu says non-Indigenous Australia is already part of the Yolngu constitution because it exists, and has asked that Indigenous people are in turn included in the nation’s rule book through a voice to parliament. The younger brother of the late land rights giant Yunupingu has formally opened the annual Garma Festival with an explanation of why his people want the voice referendum to succeed.
Around 2500 people have attended the festival in northeast Arnhem Land that Yunupingu turned into a showcase of Yolngu culture and one of the most important forums for Indigenous affairs discussions.
At the first festival since Yunupingu’s death aged 73 in April, Yunupingu’s close friend Jack Thompson continued as master of ceremonies. On Friday night the actor did poetry readings for a fireside crowd. He recited Australian classics including Clancy of the Overflow.
Djawa Yunupingu, who replaced Yunupingu as chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, delivered his plea for an Indigenous voice to parliament in an outdoor auditorium at a bush escarpment called Gulkula.
“Where I stand today is Gulkula, the land of our ancestors, Mr Yunupingu said.
“This is the headquarters of Ganbulapula, a lawmaker for my people … He lives in us, as he is our law maker and law giver.
“This is his home, and it is also the home of Garrtjambal, the great Red Kangaroo. “Garrtjambal is a guardian for all Australians. He is on the Australian Coat of Arms and our Coat of Arms. In many ways he is the original Australian.
“So we honour him, as an ancestor and a part of our ancient history.”
Anthony Albanese addressed the festival on Saturday, promising not to delay the upcoming referendum.
“We will not deny the urgency of this moment. We will not kick the can down the road. We will not abandon substance for symbolism or retreat to platitudes at the expense of progress,” the Prime Minister said.
“Just as we will continue to make it clear what voting Yes will achieve Australians should be equally clear about what voting No means: it is more of the same.
“We can bring our country together. We can bring our two worlds together. With our hearts and with our heads.”
Meanwhile, Mr Yunupingu said sacred laws were made at Gulkula “and our world was put in order and the land that we share with all Australians was made right”.
Mr Yunupingu said all Australians were now part of Yolngu reality.
“We welcome you here, we listen to you, and we bring you in to our ceremony and the life of our people,” Mr Yunupingu said.
“We don’t expect you to know every detail … But we include you as fellow Australians.
“You are in our Constitution already, you are here, and we don’t deny the reality of who you and the lives that are lived in Modern Australia. “If we denied you, we would be denying the reality of the world around us.”
Mr Yunupingu said Yolgnu had hope for the future and a belief in a world that was better than the past.
“We love this country – it is Australia to us and we want it to be strong and powerful from north to south to east to west.
“And we want to be in it. Not sitting on the side waiting each year for Garma.
“We want each day to be a day when we are fully engaged in the life of the nation through the Rule Book that runs Australia – the Australian Constitution.”
Mr Yunulingu said Yolngu people respected their ancient laws. But those did not run the country. “The Australian constitution runs the country and governs the parliament, and the courts, and the taxes we pay, and the allies we make and the enemies we fight,” he said.
“Yet Australia is incomplete … Australian is built on ancient foundations.
“Let the voice of our people be in the Constitution. Let it be given shape by our parliament. Let us then have the conversations that make things right for the children that will inherit the nation from us.
“So, on behalf of my family, I say that it is time for the nation to believe that we can be complete. “It is time to trust ourselves as a nation. To trust our parliament. To trust our democracy. To trust each other.
“Myself I believe in this pathway to unity. I believe in this ancient southern land. I believe in Australians and I believe in Australia.”
On Saturday, Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin welcomed reports that the West Australian government intends to scrap unpopular new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws that had become conflated with the Indigenous voice to parliament.
“From our perspective, it absolutely gives us a clear pathway through from now through to the referendum to be able to focus very closely on that very simple question of recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first because this country through a voice,” Mr Parkin said.
“Unfortunately some of those issues have been caught up a little bit with that debate about cultural heritage in WA.”
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