The Voice to Parliament, a Voice from the Heart

 Australia let’s keep this referendum vote simple. All we have to do is write yes or no to one question:

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. 

Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

 The Voice proposal does not give Indigenous people a separate power over the country only the power to work with the Government and Parliament on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

It also gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recognition and a place of honour in our constitution as the original custodians of this land. 

I have been campaigning for Yes and voting yes for three reasons. 

First I am voting yes out of respect for my family and friends who come from an indigenous background. 

Second I am voting yes because as a person who lives with a disability, I don’t believe it is fair that people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds with a disability receive worse outcomes than I do just because I am white and they are not. This was proven quite strongly in the recent Disability Royal Commission Report. 

The third and final reason I am voting yes is because I have always believed in social justice. 

If there is one thing true about us Aussies, it is that we hate to be wooden spooners and if we don’t vote for an Indigenous Voice to be included in the constitution we will be one of the last former empire countries to recognise our indigenous people. With New Zealand and Canada both showing us how it can be done successfully and Australia’s proposed amendment does not go as far as Canada and New Zealand. 

The question before Australia now came from the Uluru dialogues that formed the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The Statement from the Heart asked us to walk together for a better future.

Indigenous Senator Pat Dodson said “Voting No is to say no to the recognition of (First Nations) peoples and to deny them a rightful place in our Constitution and to deny them an advisory body that can talk to the parliament and to the executive on matters their communities are concerned with.”

A successful referendum will continue the uniting force that started in 1967 when Australians voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Indigenous question put before them in the referendum. Surely in 56 years we as a country have gone forward not backwards. 

For the No campaign that argues for a legislated voice, I say the previous attempts have always been undermined by governments not willing to take the advice and doing everything they can to destroy previous indigenous voices. By enshrining a Voice into the Constitution it is guaranteed for future generations. 

It will add 65 000 years of history to Australia’s legacy.

“It is the love of our country that joins us all as Australians,” said Noal Pearson.

Writing Yes means you’re voting yes for recognition, listening, and better results. Everything is always better if we listen to the voice from the heart.

Voice from the Heart

Three letters can be heard if you listen to your voice from the heart;

If we connect to country the voices will go back sixty-five thousand years to the start.

My white ancestors did not hear because of fear;

But we are a new generation and just three letters begins a New Year.

With the stroke of a pen, millennia of story

Can be added to Australia’s glory.

What a beautiful future we will birth,

When we recognise our First Peoples' worth.

A new future will shine when we embrace the beauty of indigenous song line.

Unity will spread over our land if we all write three letters and accept the First Nation's hand. 

The question is in every Australians' Constitution from the start; 

The answer yes beats in the voice from the heart.

Chris Van Ingen |10 October 2023