Yesterday, I was a No. Today, I’m a Yes. Here’s why

Today I’m an extremely reluctant Yes. I’m not happy about it; I feel compromised. But life in the colony is constantly compromised, and there’s rarely a “win” for First Nations movements that doesn’t feel bittersweet. 

Yesterday I was a No: what some call the “progressive No”, but I would call the “Blackfulla No” (excluding Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine, who don’t represent my views).  

We as First Nations peoples have been forced into binary thinking, a characteristic of white supremacy. In reality, the fight for First Nations justice is so much greater and more complicated than a Yes or a No vote: it’s 250 years of genocide, land theft, stolen children, stolen wages and discrimination. It’s a young Noongar boy killed on the way home from school in broad daylight. Our trans sister girls and brother boys, our women and their babies: stolen, abused, missing and murdered. It’s the years-long waiting lists for public housing. It’s every young Blackfulla locked up in prison. It’s the 500-plus bodies of Blackfullas who continue to pile up, murdered by police and prison officers — business as usual for the colony. 

It feels out of step with my values that to write Yes, I’ll be voting with mining companies such as Rio Tinto, which has donated $2 million to the Yes campaign as it simultaneously destroys sacred sites in the Pilbara. I’m sure Rio Tinto will report the donation in its reconciliation action plan. Meanwhile, the Torres Strait Islands are sinking due to climate change that Rio Tinto is accelerating, and the cultural heritage laws in WA have been abandoned. 

The Blackfulla No 

I fully agree with and understand the Blackfulla No vote, as articulated by the Blak Sovereign Movement, Senator Lidia Thorpe, Michael Mansell, Robbie Thorpe, the Brissy Blacks and Ruby Wharton, to name only a few.

The Blackfulla No in this debate is truth-telling about our experiences, and I don’t agree with those who minimise or discredit it. These valid critiques highlight the many reasons we distrust governments, and show the alternative possibilities for change. 

Having been involved in negotiations between Aboriginal peak bodies and the federal government, I’d argue there can never be a fair negotiation when one party holds all the money, the data, the land and the power. Gregory Phillips suggests the Voice proposal can be considered “merely another example of state power appearing benevolent while maintaining power and abuse”, as poverty thinking. It’s fighting for crumbs. The Voice is palatable because it’s what Gary Foley likens to “a ‘feel good vote’: an exercise that made white people feel good about themselves”.

On the other hand, to write No is in line with the racist No campaign, which is spreading hate against us. Conservatives are backing it with millions of dollars. As Adam Briggs has said: “Not everyone who’s voting No is racist. But every racist will be voting No.” I agree with Professor Chelsea Watego, that a Yes vote is also racist in relation to the “violence of Blak reform”. It is recognition for a racist constitution, in a democracy that does not respect Blak sovereignty. This government pushed ahead knowing that many mob have never heard of the Voice, we haven’t had enough spaces to yarn it through ourselves, and many will not have their vote counted.

As Millie Telford says, it feels like this vote is “being done to us, not with us”. Self-determination is not 97% of the population voting on what they think is best for 3% of a sovereign people. 

I couldn’t bring myself to attend a Yes campaign march. Seeing my feed full of well-meaning white people smiling with their Yes banners, I felt the same way Sissy Austin did when she described the day the referendum was announced: “White saviour self-proclaimed allies celebrating and Blakfullas feeling an insurmountable feeling of powerlessness.” There is so much wrong with this campaign when some of our best Blak campaigners and activists feel alienated. When Yes campaigners are yelling patriotic chants at rallies. I’m concerned this is encouraging a new generation of paternalistic “allies” who “know what’s best for us”, which has historically been a significant barrier to exercising sovereignty. 

If the result is No

If the result is No, I resonate with what Ben Abbatangelo has said about what comes next: “We must as a collective say goodbye to reconciliation, and usher in an era of reckoning.” If there’s a No result, we can stop pretending that so-called Australia is anything but a racist nation. Good riddance to the reconciliation era: the painfully extended Acknowledgements of Country, the Reconciliation Week morning teas, the pats on the back for walking across the bridge, the black squares for Black Lives Matter. Where has it got us?

A No result will hardly be the end of our movements; we will come back stronger, more determined and more radical than ever. As Meriki Onus has put it, the Voice is just the latest in a long history of mechanisms for self-determination that we’ve fought for and tried over the years of Aboriginal resistance.

So I’m writing Yes, even though I feel compromised — for transformative change beyond the referendum. I respect mob who are writing No or abstaining. I don’t have hope that the Voice is going to be the catalyst for systemic change. But I do believe in the power of our mob.

In the words of GetUp CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, the Voice is pragmatically a representative body, and representation matters. I’m an organiser and a campaigner, and I can see the potential for us to use the Voice to help us build our power across the country. Platforms to replace the harmful narratives of us in the media with truth-telling, for coordinating support for each other’s struggles in a resourced way; to demand action on Treaty, land back, climate justice, cultural heritage protection, health outcomes, ending Black deaths in custody and abolishing prisons. 

The challenge beyond Yes

Personally, I agree with Tarneen Onus-Browne that settlers (non-Indigenous people) should be writing Yes. It’s not enough, but it’s a step. Our people are still dying, islands sinking, sacred sites destroyed, children being removed and locked up.

It’s after the referendum when the hard work must continue. It’s not enough to write Yes. I need you to show up at the next Stop Black Deaths in Custody rally.

I challenge Yes voters to condemn Parliament when it tries to water down the (already non-existent) powers of the Voice in its founding legislation. Or begins defunding the Voice, ignoring its advice, or trying to silence or control the Voice. This is what successive governments have previously done with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak bodies, community-controlled organisations and National Aboriginal Congress.

I ask you to demand more when Parliament inevitably says that while it hears our concerns, but it doesn’t have the levers to make that change, as it’s the states’ responsibility — and there’s no action. I ask you to see through the media’s strategy of pitting Blackfullas in the Voice against one another, to divide and conquer our people. 

To all the mob, I have so much love for you, regardless of how you vote and how this damaging referendum turns out. In Nessa Turnbull-Roberts’ words: “Now we have to hold each other with love, community care and strength. This will get loud, violent and harmful.”

Look after yourselves and each other, plan ahead for the day (try voting early so you don’t have to deal with racists or well-meaning whites). Be with mob, reach out for support if you need it. We’ll get through this, and continue the fight our ancestors began.