Key players in the Uluru Statement from the Heart campaign have welcomed the PM’s commitment to a referendum question on an Indigenous voice to parliament and a form of words in the constitution, saying the proposal is almost identical to the wording they had put forward in 2018.
The From the Heart campaign director, Dean Parkin, said the announcement is a very promising step forward in a long campaign for change.
“It’s great that this level of clarity is with us now, with the PM backing up an election commitment with a clear and simple set of words,” Parkin said, following the PM’s landmark speech to the Garma festival in Arnhem Land.
“It’s really encouraging to see those words and questions are familiar to people. They reflect a lot of very rigorous work that’s gone on by constitutional experts across the board. It’s showing the government has been listening, they recognise the work that’s gone before, they know they are on a strong foundation that can launch the next phase of the process that leads up to to a vote.”
On Saturday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese told the Garma festival that the Australian people should be asked a “simple and clear” yes or no referendum question regarding whether an Indigenous voice to parliament should be enshrined in the constitution.
“We should consider asking our fellow Australians something as simple as: ‘Do you support an alteration to the constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice?’,” Albanese said.
Albanese said he was putting forward the question as a “basis for dialogue”. It was not a final form of words but rather “something to give the conversation shape and direction”.
Indigenous law academic and Uluru Dialogue member Eddie Synot said the campaign already knew that the nation is ready for a debate, “but in terms of the detail, it may come as a surprise to some to see a government deliver on a promise”.
We welcome today’s announcement as an important step toward finally giving Australians their opportunity to vote “Yes” at a referendum, and to robustly test the Government’s proposed question & amendment. It’s time! History is Calling! #UluruStatement #auspol pic.twitter.com/VksjhJ3wl9
— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) July 29, 2022
In 2018, Co-Chairs of the Uluru Dialogue Pat Anderson AO & Professor Megan Davis along with a team of legal experts first proposed a draft amendment & question in their submission to the then Joint Select Committee for a First Nations Voice to Parliament. #UluruStatement #auspol pic.twitter.com/pR0WXRC9Ga
— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) July 29, 2022
Parkin and Synot agreed that the next steps would be to hold the government to account to deliver on their promise.
“The job is always to make sure the government, regardless of who they are, follows through on their promise,” Parkin said. “This is a step towards meeting that commitment but we still have to have a referendum, we need a date set, we need the detail of the wording in place before, so people understand what they are voting on and then we need to let that run its course.
“So it’s an encouraging step and we welcome it, but the work is yet to come.”
They said criticism that the voice represents “empty symbolism” ignores the reality that both are important for the future wellbeing of First Nations people.
“You can do two things at one, and this reform more than anything shows that,” Synot said.
“If you look at [Liberal] Senator [Jacinta] Price’s maiden speech and [Labor MP Marion] Scrymgour’s speech, they are talking about the exact same issues in their communities and it’s beyond party politics. The power of the voice will have an impact on that.”
Parkin said there was agreement that more of the same “wasn’t going to work”.
“What’s happening to women and families in those communities lies with those people who are actually affected by it. The solutions are not in Canberra, they are on the ground where these challenges are being faced and that’s what the voice is simply all about,” Parkin said.
Albanese is accompanied by a bipartisan delegation from Canberra, including the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, Labor’s NT senator Malarndirri McCarthy, new NT MP Scrymgour and the Coalition’s spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Julian Leeser. The show of bipartisanship is being interpreted by some as a sign there may be support across the aisle for the referendum, but the Coalition is yet to formally respond to the speech.
The Uluru statement has been discussed at Garma for a long time but never with such high hopes. The last prime minister to visit was Malcolm Turnbull in 2017, the same year he declared he could not support the voice as a “third chamber to parliament”.
About 2,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have gathered at Gulkula, a site of great significance to Yolngu as the place where the ancestor Ganbulabula brought to life the yidaki (didgeridu).
Late on Friday afternoon, a large crowd assembled on the dance ground to hear Yolngu leadership officially open the ceremonies, in a powerful expression of manikay (music), bunggul (dance) and rom (law).
