‘Yes’ leader Noel Pearson has said the issues First Nations people want to be able to make representations to government about via the Voice include justice, housing, health, infrastructure just to name a few — and the exchange can be as simple as a conversation at a table between communities and official decision-makers.
“There’s no need for infrastructure. You just need a table, and the community sits on one side and the government people sit on the other side, and we do business [for Indigenous communities like] Kowanyama and Wilcannia,” Pearson said.
“There’s no construction of special offices, no creation of special bureaucracies. The community wants the opportunity to talk directly with the powers that be across the table,” he said.
In Pearson’s view, the local conversations with government about policies affecting First Nations people would deliver what communities both wanted and in a more sustainable way.
A direct and clear form of participating in the democratic process on matters affecting their lives was what was important, he said.
“Make plans, make commitments to one another, allocate budgets to do things, and get stuff happening — that’s what they want.
“That’s how the Voice will play out for the practical benefit of people on the ground,” Pearson said.
The respected lawyer and land rights activist, who served as Cape York Land Council chair from 1996-1997, made his remarks in Canberra on Wednesday.
Addressing the National Press Club (NPC), Pearson said he had just this week met with a small community on the Cape York Peninsula in Aurukun.
“I was with a leadership [group] anxious to get on top of a lot of problems — they’re making progress on some fronts and on a lot of fronts they are frustrated,” Pearson said.
“We had this meeting between the store and the Shire Council Chambers under the mango trees — they need an Aurukun Voice, set up under the mango trees where they always meet,” he said.
This model of consultation, where grassroots First Nations voices could make representations to government — be they politicians or public servants — may look different for various communities, Pearson said.
In Kowanyama, on the western coast of Cape York for example, the meetings might be by a riverbank; in Wilcannia groups may meet in a barn; and in other places meetings may take place in the local CWA or council hall.
“The Voice needs to operate at the local level … that’s where you sort out the real practical problems facing people, that’s where you close the gap,” Pearson said.
“The ideas that I spoke about with [the Aurukun people] on that day, was that you’d set up a marquee under the shade here, there would be an Aurukun Voice under the shade of the mango trees meeting every quarter with the relevant bureaucrats, with relevant politicians from time to time, [and] talking about their business,” he said.
‘Yes’ supporters for the referendum believe listening to First Nations communities will achieve better policy outcomes and clear what Marcia Langton called the “bureaucratic haze” that has stymied effective government decision-making to Close the Gap.
“The Voice, should it eventuate, will be able to rebuild trust and confidence and engage Indigenous Australians in an empowering way to have a say in their own futures,” Langton told the NPC earlier this month.
“Strengthening the sense of agency among our peoples is vital to improving outcomes and enabling people to take up the opportunities that other Australians enjoy.”
The latest data released by the Productivity Commission on Closing the Gap measures showed implementation of the reforms was weak. A draft Closing the Gap review released in June indicated only four of 17 targets were on track to be met, while another four were going backwards.
But ‘No’ proponents like Warren Mundine have argued the Voice and constitutional recognition will instead undermine the Indigenous agency. He said the advisory body, proposed as a means to ensure constitutional recognition is more than symbolic, would make punitive systems worse.
In Mundine’s own address to the NPC this week, he warned the Voice would mark a return to government policies based on segregation, bureaucratic control and dependency on institutions.
However, a few sentences later he did an about-turn and underscored the good and promise of Australian institutions to deliver opportunities and equality for First Nations people.
“The Voice is intended to be a vast, expensive new bureaucracy interposed at every level of government decision-making.
“In 1967, we fought against segregation and to get bureaucrats off our backs. We don’t want them to return,” Mundine said, alluding to the referendum Australia held 56 years ago to count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of the population, and give the commonwealth powers to make laws for them.
“…The radical and divisive voice — that pathway will not reconcile Australians. It will only divide us and keep us that way,” he said.
In contrast, Pearson’s speech on Wednesday called for unity — finally — between Australia and its First Nations people, reconciliation and justice. The director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership said a ‘No’ vote in the referendum would prolong the alienation of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.
“We can Close the Gap when we are empowered to take responsibility for our destiny — blame us when you give us a voice. Hold us accountable too, when we do this, we want our right to take responsibility,” Pearson said.
“[My people] have much to contribute to their country — if only they be given the chance to,” he said.
Pearson asked that on the October 14 referendum day, voters acknowledge in the constitution Australia’s Indigenous people as the first peoples of the country.
“This is not about race, this is about ‘indigenous’. The simple question about ‘indigenous’ is: ‘Were there people here before 1788?’
“The answer is, ‘Yes — there were Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders’. That’s what we’re recognising — not a separate race,” Pearson said.
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