Jennie Gordon has a ready answer to a campaign doing the rounds on the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament referendum.
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Addressing a recent forum, the Mulwaree Aboriginal Community Inc public officer was asked how she countered the catch cry: 'If you don't know, vote no.'
"Why don't you know?" she replied.
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The Uluru Statement from the Heart signatory said there was no shortage of publicly available information on the yes and no cases for the referendum, due to be held later this year.
"(If people don't know) it shows they haven't taken the time or opportunity to find out what it's about," Ms Gordon said.
She was guest speaker at The Goulburn Group's recent community forum at the Workers Club on the referendum. President, Urs Walterlin, said as one of 250 signatories to the Uluru Statement, Ms Gordon was well qualified to speak.
Ms Gordon said she wasn't there to tell people how to vote but to provide information for their decision.
The referendum will ask people to answer yes or no to the 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?"
Warren Murray, an initiator of the 'Goulburn for Yes' campaign, said someone at the bar that night had stated the referendum "would divide the country forever." Asked her response, Ms Gordon said it was valuable to ask people why they thought this.
"When people start talking they say Aboriginal people will take over. (They) don't take over anything; they are just asking for a voice," she said.
Mrs Gordon was speaking on the day the National Productivity Commission released its review of the 2020 Closing the Gap agreement. It found that governments were still making decisions that "disregarded or contradicted" their commitments to addressing Aboriginal disadvantage.
She said disparity still existed in the 17 closing the gap targets but it was starkest in rural and remote Australia.
"In non-third world countries these targets are very basic human rights...that people are born healthy and strong and have an education," she told the gathering.
The continuing gaps prompted her people to go to Uluru in 2017 and sign the Statement from the Heart. It was the culmination of 13 dialogues across Australia that all had a say. Mrs Gordon participated in the ACT and region group. She told the crowd the Uluru delegates represented some 750 groups across Australia.
The statement invited the nation to walk with Aboriginal people "towards a better future."
"We said this was a gift to the Australian people and we don't want to take it to Parliament House at this point but let's walk together in reconciliation," Mrs Gordon said.
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Over many years she had watched organisational knowledge build up in Aboriginal voice groups to government, only to have them dismantled by both major parties. But the referendum, if successful, would enshrine a permanent voice to parliament. Under the change, the Voice "may" make representations to the parliament and government, with the former retaining the right to make decisions.
Mrs Gordon pointed out that more than 2000 organisations currently had a voice to parliament. They were lobby groups that could walk into politicians' offices and argue their case, courtesy of an 'orange card' giving them special access.
"While everyone worries how much the Aboriginal voice to parliament will cost, please be assured, thousands of people already have a voice," she said.
"...I do this because it is about my future, children's future and our past. This place has always been home to Aboriginal people."
She spoke of Goulburn's Ngunnawal/Gundungurra history, the area's wealth of scar and ring trees that were often overlooked or ignored by developers. More are being found and registered, making a "world of difference to the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System."
The Goulburn Group vice-president, Mike Steketee, said he never knew he had a scar tree at his property's entrance until Mrs Gordon visited. She had also shown him a ring tree, used as a signpost for a food source or meeting place.
"You can feel you are very familiar with a place but be blind to the things around you that are very important to Aboriginal history," he said.
Mr Steketee asked Mrs Gordon's response to claims the Voice was a "radical proposal." She replied it was radical only for the fact that "up until now" Aboriginal people were not recognised in the Australian constitution.
"At the end of the day, it doesn't impact on you but for Aboriginal people who've had their voices taken away, it does matter. They won't be able to take this away from us."
Among the estimated 100 strong crowd, Goulburn man Phil Irvine said he'd was "strongly" in the yes camp.
"It's just the truth; First Nations people are not represented in the constitution and (governments) are not getting results in trying to close the gap," he said.
Goulburn woman, Jane Suttle, said if the referendum didn't succeed, it would be "embarrassing for Australia."
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