Aboriginal Australian academic and activist on The Voice to Parliament
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Amongst those who have publicly been campaigning for The Voice is Indigenous academic and activist Marcia Langton, who believes the Voice, though a stepping stone, will create a better future for all First Nations people.
Marcia Langton via the National Portrait, Juno Gemes 2004
Langton spoke at the National Press Club in early September about the Voice campaign and urged Australians to totally understand what voting No looks like.
Like Ms. Langton, many know that this is not the fix to all problems that First Nations communities face, but it is certainly not an opportunity they are going to pass on, and is rather a more progressive move for the future.
[Don’t imagine that there is another opportunity around the corner, don’t think your no vote goes in a different pile marked ‘next time’. In this referendum, there are only two options, a Yes vote that delivers recognition through a Voice, and all the hope and healing it represents. …. Or a No vote which binds us more closely, all of us to a broken status quo.]
Langton also spoke about the level of abuse that the Yes campaign is receiving and urged her fear that when a younger generation of First Nations people come through to support the Voice, they too will be targeted.
Within the Australian Government’s official Yes and No Campaign Pamphlet, the Yes Reasons list reason number two as being able to deliver ‘Constitutional change that delivers concrete results’. It goes on to explain that voting Yes is a ‘powerful statement that will drive practical change’.
Many Indigenous figures like Marcia Langton believe that voting Yes will secure a better future for not only First Nations people but Australian society as a whole.
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