Week 41 — Sunday 15th October to Saturday 21st October — Day 1
15th October
Cartoon by David Rowe
The Uluru Statement from a Broken Heart
From Wiradjuri News 15th October 2023
This analysis is as true now as it was before yesterday
Fear and misinformation won!
Watch as I did last night
What has been lost?
The losers are all those who yearned for the middle path of reconciliation — as Briggs discerned.
It may well be that Marcia Langton has the clearest vision: ‘Whatever the outcome, reconciliation is dead’.
I take no pleasure in writing this piece. I have spent my life campaigning for recognition and reconciliation in this country. Through all that time, I have found ways to feed hope. I have believed often in our better angels.
Now, though, I can see the truth: whatever the outcome of today’s vote, whether the double majority required to make this alteration to the Constitution is achieved or not, reconciliation is dead.
Australians had the opportunity to accept our invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Only they had the power to decide whether to accept or reject constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by voting “Yes” or “No” on a representative body enshrined in the Constitution.
I hope I’m wrong, but everything around me is saying that today Australia will reject that invitation. It will choose to leave our hand outstretched….
I am hoping the Albanese government will work with our leaders to develop a robust policy stance following whatever outcome in the referendum, to turn the tide of the vicious assault on us as peoples and our right to exist, our right to health services, our right to live as long as other Australians and to thrive rather than just survive.
A slight positive from this campaign is that we have seen with our own eyes the Australians who now know more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and the challenges we face.
These voters can see the value not only in the representative body but in Indigenous peoples themselves, as human beings. They are aware of the mortality rates of adults and youth, the increasing infant mortality rate, health conditions that were eradicated in the rest of the population decades ago, and soaring incarceration and child removal rates. They know that this is unacceptable….
Nyunggai Warren Mundine called the Uluru Statement from the Heart, from which the Voice as the vehicle of recognition is drawn, a “declaration of war” against the nation, appealing to the deep sinkhole of racism where rational thought and evidence go to die. This new twist on fascism lies at the heart of the “No” campaign and it has turned our nation against the truth.
Noel Pearson said it so well in his National Press Club speech:
“This referendum is testing the idea that a nation conceived in the fiction of terra nullius – a continent empty of owners – can come to a new understanding of who we are.
“A nation blessed with an Indigenous heritage spanning 60 millennia, a British democracy captured in its Constitution and a multicultural unity that is a beacon to the world.
“If affirmed, this referendum will seize our first best chance and last best hope for a lasting settlement.”
The rejection of this offer of a settlement is the end of the notion of reconciliation.
What could follow this heartless, baseless rejection?
We are left with only the wit and determination of Indigenous people themselves to find another way to live alongside the descendants of strangers who hold us in contempt.
Those who stood by us throughout the referendum campaign will be invited to join us, but they too will face a bleak future. Australia will not be the land of the “fair go”.
Yes, in that article she may have overblown her rhetoric — but in essentials she may be right. The failure of the middle way — the path so eloquently argued for many years now by Noel Pearson — will leave the real radicals on the floor. Those who deny the very legitimacy of our polity and constitution.
But hope is a thing with feathers….
My son, your troubled eyes search mine,
Puzzled and hurt by colour line.
Your black skin as soft as velvet shine;
What can I tell you, son of mine?
I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,
I could tell you of crimes that shame mankind,
Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,
Of rape and murder, son of mine;
But I’ll tell you instead of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine,
And men in brotherhood combine-
This would I tell you, son of mine.
What a day!
Albo came to Dharawal Country yesterday, on his way back to Canberra.
And at least Wollongong voted YES!
Sydney is on 70% YES. Wentworth 65% YES! Warringah 63% YES! Grayndler (Albo’s seat) 77% YES!
But a solemn evening was had here in West Wollongong, and an uncharacteristic rise at 2.00 am to prepare this post!
The response of YES23
Archie Roach, Emma Donovan, Blake Scott, Ella Hooper, and Richard Clapton cover the Kev Carmody/Paul Kelly classic song “From Little Things, Big Things Grow” with the RocKwiz Orkestra and Vika and Linda Bull to close the RocKwiz Salutes The Legends of Australia on SBS 2016.
From the Wiradjuri News Community Page on Facebook
A STATEMENT FROM INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS WHO SUPPORTED THE VOICE REFERENDUM
A Week of Silence for the Voice
Recognition in the constitution of the descendants of the original and continuing owners of Australia would have been a great advance for Australians. Alas, the majority have rejected it.
This is a bitter irony. That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason.
It was never in the gift of these newcomers to refuse recognition to the true owners of Australia.
The referendum was a chance for newcomers to show a long-refused grace and gratitude and to acknowledge that the brutal dispossession of our people underwrote their every advantage in this country.
For more than six years, we have explained to our nation why the Voice was our great hope to achieve real change for our families and communities.
To the Australians who supported us in this vote – we thank you sincerely. You comprise many millions of Australians of love and goodwill. We know you wanted a better future for Australia, and to put the colonial past behind us by choosing belated recognition and justice.
We thank the Prime Minister and his government for having the conviction to take this referendum to the Australian people at our request.
We thank him for his advocacy and all parliamentarians who did the same, including members of the Teals, Greens, Nationals and independents who stood by us. We pay particular respect to the Liberal parliamentarians who bravely advocated for the voice.
We also thank our fellow Australians from all sectors of the community, including multicultural, faith, professional, business, creative and sporting organisations.
To the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets, knocked on doors and made over a million phone calls, thank you for your love and support.
Our deep chagrin at this result does not in any way diminish our pride and gratefulness for the stand they had the moral courage to take in this cause now lost. We know we have them by our side in the ongoing cause for justice and fairness in our own land.
Now is not the time to dissect the reasons for this tragic outcome. This will be done in the weeks, years and decades to come.
Now is the time for silence, to mourn and deeply consider the consequence of this outcome.
Much will be asked about the role of racism and prejudice against Indigenous people in this result.
The only thing we ask is that each and every Australian who voted in this election reflect hard on this question.
To our people we say: do not shed tears.
This rejection was never for others to issue.
The truth is that rejection was always ours to determine. The truth is that we offered this recognition and it has been refused.
We now know where we stand in this our own country. Always was. Always will be.
We will not rest long.
Pack up the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Fly our flags low. Talk not of recognition and reconciliation.
Only of justice and the rights of our people in our own country.
Things that no one else can gift us, but to which we are entitled by fact that this is the country of our birth and inheritance.
Re-gather our strength and resolve, and when we determine a new direction for justice and our rights, let us once again unite.
Let us convene in due course to carefully consider our path forward.
We are calling A Week of Silence from tonight (Saturday 14th October) to grieve this outcome and reflect on its meaning and significance. We will not be commenting further on the result at this time.
We will be lowering our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to half-mast for the week of silence to acknowledge this result.
We ask others to do the same.
— Central Land Council
— Marion Scrymgour MP
— Northern Land Council
— Senator Malarndirri McCarthy – Northern Territory
— Danila Dilba Health Service
— Empowered Communities
Do read Katy Barnett — a profound view
I read this much later today and it is a must. She is also a long-term blogging friend!
Wife, mother, academic, lawyer, author. Professor at Melbourne Law School specialising in remedies law, contract, tort, equity, animal law and legal history. Member of Heterodox Academy. Generally interested in everything.
Dealing with disappointment
Why No is a hard word to hear
… It is vital that we keep two things in mind.
First, a No vote does not mean that the Australian people don’t care about Indigenous people. Nor does it mean that they want Indigenous people to suffer. Given the high initial polling for Yes, evidently people do care.
Secondly, contrary to the Prime Minister’s comments before the Referendum, this should not be the end of the matter…
I’m a remedies lawyer, and my business is righting wrongs. One must recognise historical wrongdoing, and learn from it, but one should not make people in the current day responsible for the acts of their ancestors. That’s tantamount to blood guilt, a dangerous concept indeed. Our common law has statutes of limitations for a reason. There comes a point when—even if someone has done wrong—liability must run out so people can move on. Recognising wrongs is important; ruminating over them is unhealthy.
We can’t turn back time. Indubitably, Indigenous people suffered during the colonisation of Australia. However, once the egg is broken and scrambled, there’s no way to unscramble it, any more than it’s possible to take the Indigenous part out of me, and extract it from the convicts and settlers.
People from many different backgrounds now share this amazing and beautiful land with the First Peoples. All we can do is try to learn from the mistakes of the past, and move forward. It is really important not to come out of this process angrier and more broken than we were before…..
Neil's Commonplace Book 