Why I’m voting Yes.
By Tom Wolff
Eight years ago, in my very early days as a published writer, I spoke to a young Bundjalung & South Sea Islander woman named Amelia Telford. Millie and I were a few years apart at high school in Lismore back when floods represented the exciting prospect of starting school holidays a week early. When I interviewed her for Pilerats Magazine in 2015 she’d already founded SEEDMob, an organisation focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth taking action for climate change to create a more just and sustainable world. There’s a deep irony in there somewhere; the fact that a young First Nations woman would take on the greatest challenge facing her generation as a result of something her ancestors had no part in causing. But I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Every Indigenous Nation on this continent has Lore centred on caring for and protecting Country.
But what strikes me most about this interview, and what I’ve been listening to lately from First Nations people across australia, is that eight years ago Millie was talking about the very same things we’re talking about today. This isn’t a new idea. It’s just taken us whitefellas a long time to get to this point. And that’s on us.
Take this extract from the interview:
Tom: “Much of the history of Aboriginal Australia has been written by white Anglo Saxon men. How important is it to for the Aboriginal community to tell their story, from a perspective that is wholly their own?”
Millie: “The biggest challenge that we overcame (and are still working on) with building SEED is enabling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be able to tell our own story in our own way for our people. It’s crucial. For too long people have talked about us, made decisions for us, written history about us, researched us and the list goes on – yet most of the time it has come without even asking us. This helps to explain why so much of it has been false, misleading and had disempowering impacts on many communities.
It’s crucial that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people determine the future of our people, which means telling our own story, making our own decisions and taking leadership in all areas that we live and thrive in – in order to survive in!”
A lot has changed in eight years but a lot has stayed the same.
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Connection to Country is something I’ve grappled with for years as a non-Indigenous person on this ancient continent. Looking back I can see it in some of the questions from that interview by my younger self in 2015:
Tom: “We both have the good fortune of hailing from the Bundjalung country on the NSW North Coast. Tim Winton, in his new memoir, Island Home, talks a lot about the effect of place on identity – both for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. What aspects of home have had the most profound effect on who you are today?”
When my grandfather died a few years ago, I learnt for the first time that my family could be traced back seven generations in the Northern Rivers. Through some DNA testing & a few days trawling Ancestry.com I found that my ancestors on my mother’s side came to this area chasing the same resource as many other early European invaders: timber.
Over time and through generations of my own family I’ve inherited connections to this land of the Bundjalung people and I feel very lucky to live here and benefit from its many riches. But for me the relationship remains conflicted; a blend of invasion, exploitation, destruction, restoration and the beginnings of a revival. In my work, primarily with rivers, I see firsthand the kind of naivety, ignorance and destruction that my ancestors contributed to. That is not to say it was wholly intentional, but to acquit them of all blame would be historically inaccurate and give credence to many untruths still spoken by those who continue rely on the myth of terra nullius.
Two years after my interview with Millie, and half a century after the 1967 referendum, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented to the Australian people. The Prime Minister in 2017 was Malcom Turnbull and I found his response to this ground-breaking moment in our nation’s history to be weak and disheartening. I remember openly criticising the man for his inability to move Australia forward; his response to the Uluru Statement felt like a slap in the face. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like for thousands of First Nations people involved in its creation, formation and delivery. Turnbull’s government announced in October 2017 that it “[did] not believe such an addition to our national representative institutions [was] either desirable or capable of winning acceptance in a referendum.” As much as I hate to admit it, when that announcement was made back in 2017 the Prime Minister might have been right about the second part. Ultimately his biggest mistake was to say that the Voice to parliament “would inevitably become seen as a third chamber of parliament.” These words have fed much of the misinformation and disinformation we’ve seen festering in the petri dish of social media feedback loops. Given that Malcom Turnbull fully supports the ‘Yes’ campaign, I’d imagine he probably regrets ever saying it.
I think australia has come a long way in the six years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was created but a startling and unacceptable fact remains: Systemic and institutional racism continue to drive gross disparities between the health and wealth outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples; First Nations people are still not being listened to in crucial decisions about water and are unable to exercise custodianship over rivers; land is being mistreated and destruction continues to directly impact the health & wellbeing of Traditional Custodians across the continent; and – most alarmingly – Indigenous men and women continue to die in gaols at the hands of institutions that are founded in racist doctrines. If that doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable, it should.
I have tried to keep myself informed of the ongoing debate from both sides in the lead up to the referendum on October 14. I’ve yarned with mob, read stories, listened to podcasts, watched TV shows and trawled social media looking for viewpoints that both align and conflict with my own. There’s been things that made me laugh and others that have brought me to tears but a quote from Yuin & Thungutti rapper & producer Nooky stood out above the rest:
“Charlie Perkins said that our people partake in all the hardship of this country, but none of its joy and success. No continues that harsh reality. Yes may well allow my children to experience a lil more joy in this world than I did.”
It’s unjust and unfair that the Voice to parliament is voted on by an overwhelming majority of non-Indigenous people. But that is the only way we can change our governing document, racist as it may be. I’d like to hope that one day we can come up with an alternative to the australian constitution but for now it’s our best avenue for the change that is still to come. I recognise the paramount importance of Treaty, Sovereignty & Truth Telling for First Nations people and hold on to the belief that a ‘Yes’ vote at this referendum is the first step on a long journey we must walk together.
In a twist of fate, or maybe destiny, I now work with 3 proud Telford men –– Millie’s gentle brothers Silas & Jesse and their wise father Greg. Today I spoke to Greg about how I felt that the referendum had started a hard conversation – one of many yet to come – that we needed to have as a nation, but we somehow got hung up on the wrong things. The saddest part is, it has been First Nations people that have paid the biggest price yet again. This wasn’t how this was meant to go; somewhere along the line it all got mixed up in a maelstrom of division and hate that was incredibly traumatic for so many people. It also discredited some of the genuine No arguments that some First Nations people were putting forward.
Given this is my chance to say it, and speak only for myself here, I’d like to extend my deep regret and apologise to all First Nations people who have been through so much in the last couple of centuries. We have to be better.
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I do not wish to tell you how to vote. I write this ten days before australia makes one of the biggest decisions in its short history, with the intention to acknowledge a much, much older story, in the hope that something might resonate with you too. I’d like to leave you with only one piece of advice that was gifted to an audience I sat in as we listened to Bundjalung matriarch Rhoda Roberts up on stage:
“Your vote must come from the heart.”
You can find out more about the Uluru Statement from the Heart at ulurustatement.org