With just over a week to go until the nation votes on an Indigenous voice to parliament, many residents in western Sydney say they do not know anything about it.
Guardian Australia visited Penrith and Blacktown this week to get a sense of how people are feeling before the 14 October referendum.
“I don’t even know what the voice referendum is,” one commuter at Blacktown train station says as they pass without stopping.
A group of young men stop but say they do not know what it is about – nor that they have to vote.
Olive Booth, 37, is dismissive of the conversation, saying not enough has been done to explain what the voice is.
“It’s all a bunch of talk. I’m Aboriginal and I don’t even know what they want us to vote for. I’m thinking about voting no because I don’t know what it’s about.
“It annoys me – we’re told to vote for our people, but what are we voting for? I don’t understand.
“It just doesn’t feel like they are talking to us.”
The responses paint a difficult picture for both campaigns, with the dearth of knowledge pointing to their limited reach.
Blacktown, like other suburbs in western Sydney, has a large population of migrants, with 44% of residents born overseas compared with 38.6% across greater Sydney, including large Indian, Filipino, Chinese and Pakistani communities.
Three per cent of the population in the region are from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background compared with 1.7% for greater Sydney.
Brenda Reid, a grandmother who is out with her family, says she is frustrated at the state of the conversation. She says she will be voting yes, but does not think people around her are well informed.
“I’m half Aboriginal and half Māori and I think this is something that should be done, but people don’t know about it, people aren’t informed, information hasn’t been put out there for people to understand,” she says.
Panthers jerseys dot the crowds near the Penrith railway station, where people are far more interested in a chat about the NRL than the voice.
Many people refuse to be drawn on the topic or say they do not know enough to discuss it.
Mitchel and his mate are having ice-cream to cool down. “I’m voting no, I just believe we are already giving [Indigenous Australians] enough, and I’ve always been no, always been against it,” Mitchel says.
While he is adamant that nothing would change his vote from no, Mitchel does say that more information on the voice should be distributed.
“I’ve just always been no. I don’t think politicians engage this area enough, we feel ignored out here.”
Some say they are unsure when the vote will be held and what is at stake.
Roxanna Helmi, 30, admits she is dependent on people around her, like her partner, for information on how to vote.
“I’ll be honest, I am one of those people who don’t know what’s going on, and I get a lot of information from those around me who know a bit more,” she says.
Helmi’s partner, Jason Blockley, says the voice is a “small step in the right direction” but laments the lack of advocacy and activism in western Sydney.
“You just never really see anyone out here campaigning,” he says. “They send out a couple of people at train stations, but it is mostly crickets. They’re just doing a bad job engaging with western Sydney.”
Amaechi Inglis, 34, says nobody in his circle of friends and family knows what the vote is about or what the Uluru statement from the heart is.
“Nobody knows what any of it means,” Inglis says. “And people think that Indigenous Australians get enough already. It just means more could be done though, around awareness of what they’ve gone through.
Inglis has done his own research, he says, and that if he had not he likely would not know what was going on.
“I come from a mixed background. My mother is Nigerian and my father is Australian, and that kind of spurred me into some research on the topic.
“My own background ultimately made it easier to understand, but if you don’t do your own research, it’s easy to feel lost.”
