Recognise This pushes for youth engagement in referendum

THE seeds of constitutional recognition were planted in Budat Mununggurr’s homeland decades before she was born.

THE seeds of constitutional recognition were planted in Budat Mununggurr’s homeland in East Arnhem Land decades before she was born.

Now, thousands of kilometres from Yirrkala — the site of the 1963 bark petitions that planted the early hope of land rights — the 17-year old is issuing a call to action to her peers.

“We are the generation that will inherit these changes in our Constitution,” says Budat, a student at Wenona School on Sydney’s north shore.

“We are the generation that will help our nation to be its best self — one that is proud of its own long and impressive history and the fact that the oldest living cultures on the planet are part of our shared story.”

Budat will feature in a video released today by the youth offshoot of the Recognise movement, Recognise This, to coincide with the beginning of National Youth Week.

Budat is acutely aware that she is one of a generation of young people who have turned their backs on politics. So great are their numbers — and so massive their disengagement — that young people are seen as key to a successful referendum as the campaign to recognise indigenous Australians in the nation’s constitution inches closer. Recognise This hopes its campaign will encourage young people to register to vote and, in turn, vote for constitutional change.

The Prime Minister has labelled the constitutional recognition push a “very important national crusade’’ but has not yet set a referendum date.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, half of 18-year-olds did not vote in the most recent federal election because they were not enrolled. An estimated 400,000 people aged between 18 and 24 are not enrolled to vote.

Throughout her childhood, Budat’s grandmother Dhanggal Gurruwiwi passed down Yolgnu stories via a stick in the Gulf of Carpentaria sands. Her grandfather, Dr Yunupingu, belted out the iconic rock anthem Treaty on the television screens of millions of Australians many years before Budat was born.

Now Budat wants to see that story writ large.

“I have sat around at family gatherings and been mesmerised by the leadership of my grandfather, by my grandmother, by my uncle and my family — and now it’s my time to step up for something that is important to Australia,” she says.

“My two worlds are different but I want to connect them to each other.

“I want to etch stories too, just like my grandma, but not in the sand. No, I want to see this history etched in the nation’s founding document, the Constitution.”

Recognise This co-ordinator Pete Dawson is calling on young people to watch Budat’s story in the Recognise This movement’s latest video and share it widely.

“Today a proud young woman is standing up for fairness and equality,” Mr Dawson said. “By watching and sharing this video, you can stand beside her and join this historic movement.”