Leigh Tabrett PSM
If you vote NO…
There is an idea that a NO vote is the safe option - if we can’t see the future in its entirety, we can just stick with the status quo. My more than 20 years in State and Federal Government roles has taught me that at all levels of government, our existing systems continue to fail to deliver equal life opportunities and outcomes for First Nations people. This is not in dispute: it is clearly evident in the data on life expectancy, educational attainment, incarceration, and children removed from their families – just for a start.
If we vote NO, we will be rejecting an invitation carefully crafted by First Nations people themselves, over years of thoughtful national consultation, culminating in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That invitation is addressed to us individually and collectively, not to governments.
So, if we vote NO, what will we, individually and collectively, be saying? That we are comfortable to continue to analyse and report on these patterns of failure, to ignore their shocking consequences for individuals, families and communities, and to see them passed on through generations? That we think that non-Indigenous people still know what’s best for Indigenous people, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, and sixty thousand years of lore, wisdom and practice?
Do we think, if we say NO, that this issue will just go away? That a new gulf will not open up between those who must always campaign for better outcomes for their people, and those who choose not to hear them? First Nations people have relied on the processes of democracy – nation-wide consultation, public advocacy, scrutiny by legal experts, Parliamentary debate and legislation – to address a historical and persisting problem with terrible consequences: where can they possibly go next?
Or perhaps we think that preserving the wording of the Constitution - which indeed provides the referendum power precisely to enable change - is more important than this precious opportunity to recognise First Nations people, to create a new partnership with them, and a new foundation for the future?
Right now, the world is watching this process. What is it we want them to see? A people who put fear of change ahead of its sense of justice and optimism about the future?
And what do we want to see about ourselves, and leave for our children?