By ERWIN CHLANDA
Many in the nation welcome Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s commitments on the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including the formulation of a possible referendum question*, announced at the Garma Festival last month.
Aboriginal people at yesterday’s Todd Mall Market were far less certain.
The winter sun was clear and bright, unlike the issues of a First Nations Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution and truth-telling between governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
I spoke with 29 Aboriginal people, several of them artists displaying their work for sale.
Only three had heard about the Uluru Statement and the issues that flowed from it.
A man from across the border, speaking with me on condition of not being named, had detailed knowledge: He was at the Uluru meeting in 2017, but remains unimpressed with its results.
He described as the main problem the inevitable breaches of the taboo about not speaking for someone else’s country.
He said he had misgivings right from the start about inadequate consultation with the people on the ground. That – in his view – remains a problem.
He had also thought the purpose of the Uluru meeting was to replace the Intervention, the $587m package in 2007, also known as the NT National Emergency Response.
It was passed by the Howard government in response to the Little Children are Sacred report, an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the NT, commissioned by the Northern Territory Government.
It’s just not working, said the man.
I ask a man and a woman: “Do not know what the Uluru Statement is?”
They say they don’t know, the almost standard answer, or silence when I put the question.
A local man shared his views: “We support them what they do” but there is just not enough information.
A woman says: “I don’t know what that is. Can you tell us?”
I say: “It’s about an Aboriginal voice to Parliament, it’s about truth telling and recognition of Aboriginal people in the Constitution.”
She says: “Ah, OK.”
I ask: “Are you aware of it?”
“Not now. Until you just told me. I haven’t watched the news for … but I believe in all that. Thank you.”
Indicating the woman sitting beside her she says: “She won’t know it” and closes the conversation.
I ask a woman: “Are you aware of the statement?
“No. I don’t elaborate on it.”
“Are you aware of it?”
“I’m not aware of it, I’m sorry.”
I ask a man: “Are you aware of the Uluru Statement?”
“Nah, that’s all them bubblegum blackfellers.”
“What happened at Uluru?” asks another man.
A man challenges a tourist for taking photographs of women offering their paintings for sale: “We are not objects,” he says.
“We are human beings and we want to be treated as such.”
The man does not respond to my request for a comment and walks off, but catches up with me later.
He too is extremely concerned about possible breach of territorial taboos.
*The PM’s suggestion of a possible, simple referendum question: “Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?”
He also suggested three sentences as a basis for discussion of such a proposed amendment.
- There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
- The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
- The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
Did you mean only three people had heard of the Uluru Statement?
Only 26 had heard … surely you got that arse about, Erwin.
Hi Connllan and Frank Baarda,
You are right, it’s the other way round. Only three had heard about the statement, not 26. I’ve corrected the text in the fourth paragraph.
Thank you for pointing this out!
Erwin Chlanda, Editor.
You are right. The perpetrators are not interested in their people per se. This is a political contrivance directed at changing the status quo to achieve a total land grab by a totalitarian greedy sector of humanity intent on absolute control – dictatorship in other words.
I’ve waited and waited for a voice of reason. But alas.
I’m not going to dismiss the work of 11 Inquiries, many of which were Parliamentary Committees, nor the work of an expert panel that consulted around the country for a couple of years prior to the Uluru meeting.
This work provides the Nation with an opportunity to cleanse the stains on our history; from the original flag planting at Botany Bay, to the violent frontier, and the Grandees drafting the Constitution.
The Australian people must rule on this important matter in a Referendum. It must rise above politicians.