Voice Referendum Campaign Goes Local

The AIM Network

2 years ago

By Gillian King

I am a private person. I don’t have a cat or a dog, and dog parks are a foreign territory to me. Yet, last week, I put on my YES t-shirt, picked up my corflutes and flyers, and headed off to a popular local dog park to talk to strangers about the Voice Referendum.

There were six of us in t-shirts, we set up our signs at one end of the oval and started to offer our flyers. Over an hour, we talked to about 60 people while their dogs chased balls and played rambunctiously.

“Bend your knees”, said a dog owner when a mass of wrestling dogs writhed around me.

People and dogs were very friendly. Most people intended to vote YES, many were thinking about it, and a few were definite ‘NOs’.

From across the oval, I looked back at our little set-up – a handful of people and some corflutes. I saw that we were the face of the YES campaign in our community. Some of the people we met were quite relieved to see us there because they were worried that the YES campaign was lagging. They wanted someone to do something about it.

I, too, want a strong YES campaign because this referendum is really important to me. I live on a street that has been a pathway to the river for thousands of years. How many millions of sunsets have Aboriginal people seen from my home area over tens of thousands of years?

We all know that policies and programs work better when end users are consulted, yet Indigenous people are rarely consulted about the policies and programs that apply to them. The Uluru Statement from the Heart calls this the torment of our powerlessness.

I want to see an Indigenous Consultative Body that can advise on policies and programs. I prefer for it to be in the Constitution so that, if a future government disbands the Consultative Body of the day, then they will be obliged to replace it with something.

This is the best chance we have of Closing the Gap where only 4 out of the 19 targets are on track.

So, I have stepped up to be one of the faces of the YES campaign in my local community. A visible presence is a great encouragement to YES voters and gets people talking.

We’ll be brave and talk to strangers to encourage them to vote YES.

If things get a bit gnarly, I’ll remember the advice from the dog park, “bend your knees”, and I’ll lean into it.

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Gillian King, a former social researcher, was surprised to find that her deep concern for the unfolding damage of Climate Change and worsening social inequality have turned her into a campaigner for social justice and climate. She lives in Roseville with her husband and enjoys time with two daughters and four grandchildren.