Elders from Gippsland say any Indigenous Voice to Parliament must reflect the diversity of different Aboriginal groups from across the country if it is to make any difference at a grassroots level.
Artist, activist and community leader Patrice Mahoney moved to the Bass Coast (Bunurong country) in south-east Victoria more than 20 years ago and said Aboriginal representation was needed at a federal, state and local government level.
“For me, I see it as an opportunity,” she says.
“We need to have treaty. We need to have a voice. We need to have the many layers of how Aboriginal people can be heard at the table — and that needs to be not one table. That needs to be multiple tables.”
From her experience sitting on countless committees, Ms Mahoney said it was crucial that input from traditional owners, elders, committee leaders, land councils, local government advisory committees, education and community service providers, were all taken on board and valued in equal measure.
“All of those different voices need to make up a broader inclusion of Aboriginal people,” she said.
“It can’t be just go and ask one Aboriginal person and they said, ‘Yes, so we’re going to do it this way’.
“That is just such a shortcoming and why things fall over, why things don’t work.”
Recognising diversity
There are about 600 different Indigenous groups across Australia, all with varying needs, processes and culture.
“On the east coast of Australia, we’re very urbanised Aboriginal people,” Ms Mahoney said.
“We haven’t grown up necessarily with the hardships and disadvantage of remote communities, and often we’re making decisions where we don’t have that full understanding.”
As an Anaiwan women from NSW, she described the Bass Coast as having a multicultural community, comprised mostly of Aboriginal people who had moved to the area from elsewhere.
Despite working, raising kids and contributing to the local area for much of their lives, she said they essentially lived as a minority within a minority.
“Everybody is going to have different wants, different needs. Traditional owners are going to have a different voice to people like myself who live in Victoria but aren’t Victorian,” Ms Mahoney said.
A history of lip service
East Gippsland elder and Aboriginal justice worker Uncle Alan Coe of Wiradjuri, Gadigal and Yorta Yorta heritage, fears that a Voice to Parliament will most likely amount to lip service if the wrongs of the past are not acknowledged and addressed.
He cited the instructions issued to Governor Arthur Phillip in 1787 under the reign of King George III in relation to the protection of Aboriginal people.
“You are to endeavour by every possible means to open an Intercourse with the natives and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live in amity and kindness with them. And if any of Our Subjects shall want only destroy them, or give them any unnecessary Interruption in the exercise of their several occupations, it is our will and pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree of the offence”.
“[But] We’ve had so many government departments coming into our lives telling us what to do with our children, so many departments dealing with our men, there are no real solutions,” Mr Coe said.
Agency required for change
Mr Coe said that there were legal ambiguities around the pursuit of a treaty and constitutional recognition as they currently stood, which were compounded the prime minister’s assertion that a Voice to Parliament would have no authority.
He said that without authority, the Voice to Parliament could be little more than “just a pair of lips whispering in the wind”.
Concerned that Voice campaigners such as Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson had not visited Gunaikurnai country to consult the community, he remained unconvinced that the needs of unique communities would be adequately recognised.
“This process needs to be done right the first time and talking to government-selected Aboriginal people is not the answer. You need to go out and talk to grassroots people,” Mr Coe said.
Lost in administration
Both Ms Mahoney and Mr Coe agreed that the endless bureaucracy and corporatisation of Aboriginal affairs had amounted to a historic frustration towards government departments, and an inherent distrust of politics.
“What we continuously do, is that we throw money at the departments, at the consultation, at state levels of government, but not throwing the big amount of money on the ground at the grassroots problems,” Ms Mahoney said.
“The bulk of the money gets swallowed up by bureaucracy.”
She said with many remote Indigenous settlements without adequate housing, affordable food and essential services such as water and electricity, a tailored investment was imperative.
“You often hear, they’ve thrown all this money at these things for Aboriginal people in different states and territories for different things, but none of those things have come from community,” Ms Mahoney said.
“Aboriginal people will walk away if they can feel unseen, unheard and muted.”