Why the Indigenous voice to parliament makes sense to me

The proposal for an indigenous voice advising our parliament is about the grace of listening, writes Nikki Gemmell. Picture: Getty Images

Listening. We never seem to do it enough, in private and public discourse, online and in person. Don’t like acknowledging inconvenient other-truths. Constantly talk over the othered in our modern day Tower of Babel, that toxic stew of fury, scorn and righteousness. But there’s grace in listening. “When people talk, listen completely,” Ernest Hemingway said once. “Most people never listen.” From listening comes understanding; it’s generous and respectful. As someone once pertinently said: the word “listen” has the same letters as the word “silent”.

The takeaway from any work of art that reverberates is emotion, how it made us feel, and so it is with listening. How will we feel, as a nation, after we vote for The Voice? How would we like to feel?

The Voice is all about listening to the people who know best. And with The Voice vote – the most important question our nation has faced since the Republic poll – the loudest voices are scrambling the thinking. Again. And how we vote will have reverberations for generations to come. All around us the shrill forces of racism, small-mindedness and winning for the sake of winning are kicking up the dust of confusion. Bullying us into doubting ourselves. What is fact, what is fiction – it’s hard to discern. Are the opposers opposing for the mere sake of opposing? To win, just that, like abusers and gaslighters who need to be validated by a sense of control over others. It’s a political tactic fine-tuned by Donald Trump and it feels abusive and manipulative.

Former High Court judge Michael Kirby, Uphold and Recognise chairman Sean Gordon and filmmaker Rachel Perkins with the Uluru Statement in Sydney, 2018. Picture: John Feder

Yet what of the politics for the good of the nation, to advance us as a modern, pluralistic and confident democracy? To show the world that we’re listening to the mighty Voice from our indigenous Australians, that we’re giving them the respect of our listening. I want good to prevail, but good by nature is quieter. Like the Republic, the impetus for indigenous recognition in the constitution will be lost for generations if we don’t say yes.

It was, arguably, infighting and message-confusion that killed the Republic idea, not the merits of the idea alone. The message was scrambled, strategically, by John Howard, and it feels like the very loud and fractious forces of fearful conservatism are going down that path again. The possibility, a soul-flinch for the nation in the days after the vote. A soul-flinch where we’ll hang our heads in shame at how small-minded we are, as a collective.

Pope Francis is presented with a copy of the Uluru Statement at the Vatican in May 2022. Picture: Vatican Media

I look at the tragedy of Alice Springs unfolding before us as a nation and think, the whitefellas aren’t listening enough. They’re still talking over the blackfellas with their paternalistic we-know-best attitudes. In terms of the white settlement of Mparntwe, on Arrernte land, it was ever thus. Tragically. Do the white people in power really know best, with all their Band-Aid solutions? How could they? What arrogance is that? It’s a refusal to listen writ large.

The proposal for an indigenous voice advising our parliament is about the grace of listening. It just makes sense to me. I’m so sick of the whitefella attitude of “this is what has to be done, this is how to fix the situation”. By not listening, over generations, we’re implying that the indigenous voice has nothing worth saying or adding to the situation – and how shameful is that. “It takes a great man to be a good listener,” Calvin Coolidge once said.

How will failure on this vote be seen, around the world? Of course the narrative of defeat will be reduced to its simplist parameters: Australians are racist. Mean-spirited. Odd. Tortured by their past and unable to embrace it in a mature way. The perception will be that we’re afraid of listening, because that’s what The Voice is – a mere voice for the rest of us to listen to. How will it make us feel, as a nation, if it doesn’t pass? Embarrassed, ashamed, small, I’d hazard a bet. Listening is not about not shutting ourselves off, but opening our hearts.