A key proponent of the Indigenous voice to parliament, rejected at a referendum a year ago, has challenged Australians to be “bigger and wider – to be grand” and to forge from that bruising experience “an authentic Australian nation”.
Pat Anderson’s rallying cry on the eve of the anniversary came at the close of an hour-long online event for key yes advocates to reflect, lament and commit to “stay true to Uluru”.
“There’s a real opportunity here to actually turn Australia into an authentic Australian nation,” Anderson told the online audience, “with people who are proud and respectful and acknowledge each other, and can go forward with all the energy that we have in this country and all the resources that this wonderful country has to offer to us.”
Anderson, an Alyawarre woman, joined other participants in the 2017 Uluru dialogues in reflecting on the process that had created the Uluru statement from the heart and its three ambitions – voice, treaty and truth – and then the brutal defeat of last year’s attempt to realise the first.
Anderson lamented that Australia still couldn’t “have the hard conversations”. She said the Uluru statement was “a guide, a roadmap to how we can all move forward as a sophisticated nation”.
“The Uluru statement from the heart was a gift of love,” she said. “It was a gift of hope. It was a gift of asking you to join us. And the most of you rejected it.
“But we’re not going to stop, because this is our place. And as I said, we ain’t going anywhere.”
She said Indigenous Australians would keep inviting the rest of the nation “asking you, begging you almost, to see our point of view, to respect us, to acknowledge us”.
Participants in the event thanked the 6.2 million Australians – the 40% of the population – who voted yes and emphasised that 80% of Indigenous Australians were among them.
“This is a really quite emotional time for us,” Anderson said. “And I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask us to think bigger and wider and to be grand and to be fantastic. We have all the resources to do it. So let’s grab it and do it anyhow.”
The youth dialogues co-chair and Cobble Cobble woman Allira Davis became emotional praising the elders who led the campaign.
“As young people, we had the best leaders to lead the way forward and keep leading the way forward until we are given the torch to fight the good fight,” she said. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Anderson spoke of Indigenous mothers who warned their children that if they encountered police, they should be polite, answer the questions and not make trouble. It was, she said “abhorrent racism”, which put them at risk just for being Aboriginal.
“We tell our kids, especially our boys, the same message every Friday night, every time they go out,” she said. “And this has to stop.”
She called for structural reform so Indigenous people could move forward.
“So we are not at the arse end of society, that we can take our proper place, that we are not excluded, that we can contribute to the nation in a way that we already do but it seems to be unrecognised.”
The dialogues co-chair and Cobble Cobble woman Prof Megan Davis said that with greater public education about misinformation, Australians were beginning to understand “we didn’t get a fair go last year”.
“Mainstream politics is now moving to protect itself,” Davis said. “But we were exposed to a lot of political lies and misinformation that scuttled our people’s attempt to finally do what wasn’t done in 1788, 1901 and 1967,” she said.
“And so we’re still here.”
Davis said that since the time of colonisation there still had been “no settlement to the original grievance”.
“That’s never happened, and that’s what we’re still fighting for.”
The dialogues elder and Wiradjuri man Geoff Scott said while the referendum question was ultimately rejected, the process of talking about the proposal around the country had been positive.
“It was about unity,” Scott said. “It wasn’t about division. It was about a real way forward and understanding why we wanted to do it. And it’s for our kids, for the children, it’s for the elders, but it’s also about for the whole nation, about bringing us together.”
Anderson was the last of the speakers, some of whom said the online gathering was held on the anniversary’s eve to give some Indigenous leaders space on the day itself. Addressing her remarks to the whole nation, Anderson explained, again, what the voice was about.
“Our mob across the country wanted structural reform,” she said.
“They want to change in the relationship between you and and all of us. Our very lives and our existence actually depend upon it.”
