For weeks, there’s been mud-slinging in Canberra over the Indigenous voice to parliament. But this week, the yes campaign launched at a “politician-free” event run by Indigenous campaigners – and the tone was noticeably more respectful.
The launch on Kaurna land in Adelaide was infused with energy and excitement, boosted by a $5m donation from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, and ended with a call for the people to take charge of the conversation.
“It’s time to bring that conversation to where it belongs, and back to where it started – with the people of Australia,” the From the Heart campaign director, Dean Parkin, said.
“We are now starting the work of welcoming people into that conversation and the millions of discussions that are going to happen across Australia – from kitchen tables to sporting clubs and from farmyards to beachfronts.”
A two-day campaign lab preceded Thursday’s launch, where advocates had training in how to help people “reflect, ask questions and air their concerns”.
The voice is simple, fair and practical, the campaign materials say. The more people know about it, the more likely they are to support it. “By listening, welcoming discussion, sharing our experiences, and approaching this as a conversation rather than a debate, we have a much better chance of bringing as many Australians as possible along with us.”
Such conciliatory language was a respite in a week where debate raged about the implications of the inclusion of “executive government” in the wording of the referendum amendment. Constitutional lawyer Greg Craven accused members of the working group of wanting to “actively blow it up” if they could not control the outcome. Shadow education minister, Sarah Henderson, likened the school sector’s public support for a voice to a form of “indoctrination”. The deputy Coalition leader, Sussan Ley, called it the PM’s “re-election vanity project”, while the leader, Peter Dutton, continued to accuse him of refusing to provide more detail.
Dutton was visiting Arnhem Land on the day the yes campaign launched, where he told Sky News he’d seen firsthand how Yolngu clan leaders managed their affairs like “a mini parliament” and remarked on their ability to achieve consensus.
“The local community here, through the dialogue they’ve got, which is the clans coming together, essentially sort of a mini parliament … it’s fascinating to watch how they work that dynamic within the group. We’ve just met with them, and there are different views, but the consensus they can achieve has made for such a positive difference in this local community,” he said.
“The right voice from the right people can be a positive influence,” Dutton added.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe indicated other civil conversations were being had among Indigenous leaders behind the scenes as well. Thorpe has so far rejected the voice as powerless and says she wants a treaty.
On ABC RN, she said she would like to attend a working group meeting.
Thorpe also said she had spoken privately with Prof Megan Davis, an architect of the Uluru Statement and constitutional lawyer, and would do so again.
“I’m just letting people know that this little black divisive figure does have respectful, meaningful conversations with people like Megan Davis. I will keep the content of that conversation private,” Thorpe told ABC RN Breakfast, saying the media should “stop setting black women up against one another” and allow “a fair and accurate account of what black people are saying in this country”.
Davis declined to comment on the conversation. A government spokesperson said that the working group agreed in its last communique to invite crossbench and Greens senators to an upcoming meeting.
Albanese kicked off the “national week of action” last Sunday promising he would continue to “reach out” to any opposition politician to talk about the voice, “because this should not be the subject of partisan debate”. He left that invitation open at a doorstop later in the week, and again rejected accusations of withholding detail, saying: “I am not being prescriptive. I have never been prescriptive. I want this to happen, Australia needs this to happen, but it’s not my process.”
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, attended community forums in Sydney and Dubbo. In Orange, she met with the former Nationals, now independent, MP and voice supporter Andrew Gee, and in Tasmania she met with Liberal MP Bridget Archer, in a show of bipartisanship.
Senator Pat Dodson was in Perth with independent Kate Chaney and voice proponents at a community meeting where people raised their concerns about the high rate of youth incarceration and child removals. Both are state government responsibilities, but show how strongly Noongar people feel they have been ignored on matters that deeply affect their communities, that they took the opportunity to vent their frustration.
Human rights lawyer and Noongar woman Dr Hannah McGlade told the meeting these are “the cries of everybody. I really think that this is up to us, the Aboriginal people, to vote for our best Aboriginal leaders to tackle these issues.”
Community forums, and there will be many more of them before the vote is held, may end up being a place for Aboriginal and Islander people to speak up and speak freely, work through their own views about the voice, ask questions and, most importantly, be heard.
Luke Pearson, the founder of 100% Indigenous owned media company IndigenousX, said as much this week.
“I listen to all opinions and perspectives carefully and with humility as best I am able,” he said. “I see the bad faith arguments and ad hominem attacks and I try to look past them for those with sincerely held beliefs, valid questions and concerns, and interesting insights.
“I always liked the idea that before you can say someone is wrong, you need to understand why they think they are right,” he said.
