In the lead-up to the Voice to Parliament referendum on October 14, we First Nations peoples are feeling the boot on our neck. It’s harmed my health, and I’ve been feeling extremely conflicted about voting Yes.
I know the incredible work of Blackfullas who demand we should have Treaty first, and I agree with the progressive No in so many ways — I’m usually fighting side by side with them against the violent settler colonial system. However, this time my approach will be different.
It is not only politically engaged Blackfullas who are conflicted about voting Yes or No, or who are voting No. Recently my older brother moved in with me, and although he isn’t engaged with politics, he is angry because he believes, like many others, that First Nations peoples should be the only voters on this matter. I agree, but due to the very nature of Australian constitutional change, we can’t be.
The result is that no matter our vote, we’re required to convince the non-Indigenous people of this country of our demands and values, forcing us into a Yes and No binary that is divisive for our peoples. After the referendum has come and gone, we will be the ones left to pick up the broken pieces for many years to come.
This isn’t my first rodeo. When the Coalition forced marriage equality to be a public debate, calling for a plebiscite over simply introducing a bill to Parliament, it boiled all of the nasties to the top. We saw people online and in public saying homosexuality was like bestiality and paedophilia. That we should be quiet and accept our lot in life, and be grateful for their tolerance. And because of homophobia and transphobia, we saw too many LGBTQIA+ people tragically take their own lives. These losses and the fallout from these vicious public debates are still being felt.
At the time, I understood the damage a successful No vote would have for LGBTQIA+ people. The parameters of the plebiscite were just about marriage equality, but the outcome manifested into more transformative policies that continue to affect our everyday lives. If the plebiscite had been voted down, I don’t think we would’ve seen the progressive policies that followed in Victoria — such as the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, the commitment to banning surgery on intersex children without their personal consent, and the improved accessibility for trans people to change their name and gender marker on their birth certificate.
In my time on the interim Aboriginal Treaty Working Group, I learnt that Victoria has had recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in its constitution since 2005. Has my sovereignty been signed away because we are included in this constitution? Absolutely not. Though after constitutional recognition in Victoria, we saw little changes from its inception until Victoria committed to a Treaty in 2016, just over a decade later.
I didn’t care then and I don’t care now about constitutional recognition. I once thought being recognised in the Australian constitution would give up my sovereignty, but I now understand that my sovereignty can’t be taken or given away. Our sovereignty is not only spiritual; it constitutes all of who we are — our laws, our conduct and our lives.
I agree with what Associate Professor Crystal McKinnon writes:
Indigenous sovereignty pre-exists and exists independently from colonial discourses of Aboriginality. Our social movements, our political protests, our artistic and creative productions, are bound together by sovereignty. They are connected because they are practices of sovereignty. If we accept that sovereignty is an embodied quality, then this embodiment means that any artistic or creative works that are produced by an Indigenous person are sovereign texts. This is the same for Indigenous people producing and acting in social or protest movements.
Gradually this year, while speaking to Black women such as Meriki Onus, Millie Telford and Larissa Baldwin-Roberts about what the Voice means for our mob, I’ve had haunting flashbacks from the plebiscite. I’ve thought about the effect of national campaigns putting minority groups in their sights, asking the country to debate their worth. Should we get these rights? Should we be listened to? Are we worthy of a say? Are we worth it?
During these times, media platforms are given to the most rabid racists and vicious transphobes, with little recourse or accountability. Lies spread like wildfire and so much campaign energy is put into myth-busting and countering false information. It is these racist and vile views that scare me the most. Who won’t be here at the end? Whose funeral will I have to attend?
We cannot compare the plebiscite and the Voice referendum too closely though. First Nations peoples face settler-colonialism as described by the late Patrick Wolfe, who defines it as “a system rather than a historical event, that perpetuates the erasure and destruction of native people as a precondition for settler colonialism and expropriation of lands and resources”.
We can’t look past the racist history or ignore the racist present of this country, one that continues to occupy our lands and waters by force. We face this in nearly every system, from Native Title to engaging with police officers or health professionals who have an utter disregard for First Nations life. The Voice is not the answer alone to racism. It will not make this country not racist, because we know that Australia has and always will be a racist country, so long as it exists on stolen Aboriginal land and is a settler state.
What I was worried about is happening in real time. As Millie Telford has said, “This country is having a conversation about us, without us.” Opposition leader and No campaigner Peter Dutton had gone to Alice Springs three times by May to stir up stories of dysfunction, as well as fuel lies that we aren’t capable of looking after our own affairs. This in effect led to Avi Yemini, a notorious Australian provocateur who has flirted with Neo-Nazis, going to Alice Springs and interviewing First Nations peoples on the street and in their homes in June.
Of course, the lies about dysfunction are far from the truth. Our communities have shown time and time again that when we are included in decisions and policies that affect our communities, we have the best outcomes and success. That’s why it’s important for First Nations peoples to be at the forefront of this conversation, the way we want to be seen and how we see ourselves and how we really are: as proud, Black and deadly.
First Nations peoples are better off when we are free to set our own course. Yet successive governments have long locked us out of decisions, instead forcing their policies on us, insisting they know what’s best. We know what our communities need. Forty years ago, when government health services were failing us badly, we took the driver’s seat and set up Australia’s first Aboriginal community health centres. Today, these services are the best in the country, and the government models their health, legal aid and childcare systems on ours.
Our people are strong and resilient, and when we are free to choose our own path, the whole country benefits. We’ve seen this in Victoria, where because of Aunty Tanya Day’s family, we’ve abolished the criminalisation of public drunkenness; and because of Aunty Veronica Nelson’s family and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, we’ve changed the bail laws.
A representative body is a small step along the way, a mechanism for us to demand policy changes. This isn’t a means of justice, or land back, it’s a representative body.
Ultimately, I believe that when a clear majority of Australians vote Yes in the referendum, it will send a strong message that we want justice, equity and enduring change. A No vote will set back First Nations justice for decades, and nothing reflects this more than the rapid rise of right-wing neo-Nazis who are becoming more brazen, more vocal and more organised.
I worked on a message research project involving Blackfullas from around the country this past year, called Passing the Message Stick. In its report, it highlights a theory of change: “If we build a groundswell of public support and win a resounding Yes, then a wave of transformative change for First Nations justice will follow. Public momentum and demand gives governments a political mandate to act on bold policy reform.”
This is far from ideal, but it is happening, and a No vote will have devastating effects on Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike. On their ballot papers, I ask settlers to vote Yes to First Nations’ strength and leadership. And if the Yes vote wins, non-Aboriginal people must resist complacency and the slumber that often happens after historic moments.
The fight is not over and the work is not done. I ask that your Yes be a commitment too, to continuing to support our campaigns, standing alongside us in our fights for justice, and joining us on the streets at our protests — because Yes isn’t enough.
