‘We’ve got to get moving’: 400 attend pro-Indigenous voice forum in Albury-Wodonga
If just 10% of those planning to vote yes at the upcoming Indigenous voice referendum were each able to sway two undecided voters, the vote would be won. That was the message Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin gave a crowd of 400 people at Albury-Wodonga this week.
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“We have got work to do,” Parkin told the crowd, which packed into the Cube in Wodonga on Tuesday night. “The time for talking and making grand statements is done; we’ve got to get moving.”
Parkin said 300 volunteers had already signed up to the Yes campaign in Albury-Wodonga and20,000 had signed up across Australia. Their focus is on the 30 to 40% of voters who remain undecided but are “highly persuaded by those from within their own communities”.
Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin with minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Indi independent MP Helen Haines. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian
The event, in support of the Yes case, was hosted by Indi independent MP, Helen Haines, with Parkin and the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, invited to speak. There was a strong police presence outside the venue with some officers brought in from Melbourne, but there were no protesters outside the venue or vocal no campaigners in the event itself.
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Some supporters were bussed in from nearby towns. Bill Aquilina and Bill Fisher, both from Violet Town, made the 110km journey by bus from Benalla with other members of the Benalla Labor party branch.
“It’s fair enough, they should have a voice,” Aquilina said. “I’m not too worried about the detail. I want us to progress as a democracy, as a country.”
Fisher said they were already talking at length about the referendum with people in smaller towns surrounding Benalla, including Strathbogie, Rushworth and Euroa.
Bill Aquilina and Bill Fisher from Violet Town. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian
The speakers outlined the development of the voice, the mechanics of the constitution and how it is changed, the referendum question, and how the proposed voice would work to support Indigenous Australians. The audience then asked questions, including how the Voice would make a practical difference, whether it would create special rights for one group of people, and whether it would unite or divide the nation.
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Haines urged voters to actively participate in the referendum process, saying that the constitution “doesn’t belong to us politicians, it belongs to you”.
“Invite someone in to have a conversation, be respectful and listen,” she said. “If you listen carefully you find you have so many things in common that you can agree upon.”
‘We will get people over the line’
Robyn Pfeiffer, who lives in Rutherglen, a town about 40km west of Wodonga, told Guardian Australia she planned to walk the main street of Rutherglen with a small team to promote the yes case.
Pfeiffer said the forum had given her the confidence to have conversations with those who were undecided.
Robyn Pfeiffer, Lisa Turner and Bobbi McKibbin at the community forum; Pfeiffer plans to walk the main street of Rutherglen to promote the yes case. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian
“I have a really good positive feeling about this if we are working together and just having these respectful calm listening and talking conversations that we will get people over the line,” she said.
Burney said enshrining the Indigenous voice in the constitution would avoid a repeat of the dissolution in 2005 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission “when the government didn’t like what it was doing and with the stroke of a pen got rid of it”.
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Asked how to respond to a person who argued the voice doesn’t go far enough, Burney said to ask that person: “What is your alternative? We can’t keep going as we are now and if you have a better solution, tell us about it.”
Among the few more skeptical attenders on Tuesday was Anglican rector Father Peter MacLeod-Miller, who previously told local media he would vote no because he believed the voice “will be hell”.
He said while he regarded Burney as a “impressive human being”, the forum had failed to address whether the voice to parliament was the appropriate mechanism to bring about change for Indigenous Australians.
‘I have an entirely open mind until I come to the ballot box and at that moment I will decide’: Father Peter MacLeod-Miller. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian
“I don’t think they spoke about the problems of raising inequality under the constitution at all, really,” he said. “I still think there’s a problem with the inequality that is implied by this change.
“We haven’t been asked for alternatives in this referendum, we haven’t been asked at all.”
Despite his objections, Macleod-Miller said attending the forum meant he was better informed as to the reasons why people would vote yes and the evening had provided “food for thought”.
“I have an entirely open mind until I come to the ballot box and at that moment I will decide,” he said.
Some supporters of the voice still have questions about the ‘important and fundamental change’ the referendum could bring about. Photograph: Simon Dallinger/The Guardian
Murray Geddes has already decided his vote. The Wodonga man shared his support for the Yes vote on a pillow case he bought from St Vincent de Paul and held up at the end of the forum.
“It is a pivotal moment in history and even though the proportion of First Nations people in Wodonga is about 2.4% on 2021 figures, in fact it’s much bigger through who their connections are,” Geddes said.
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Geddes said he still had some questions, like how the voice might work with the states, including Victoria, which are already developing treaties with First Nations people.
“I still want to hear some more things. While Linda [Burney] and the prime minister said this is not a revolutionary change, it’s an important and fundamental change,” he said.
“While the government might have the numbers, it’s still going to take a fair time.”
Di Thomas is a journalist based in Albury-Wodonga
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