LIKE most of us, my views and values related to prejudice and racism were shaped by my family upbringing and by my schooling, and I am forever grateful for working class immigrant parents who taught me that racism was/is abhorrent, and that every human being, regardless of colour or creed, deserves to be treated equally and with dignity.
Growing up in Australia I grew to better understand the plight of our indigenous peoples, and to better understand their history, their connection to the land, and how they have been treated since colonization.
Earlier this month I spent time in the northern Flinders Ranges, around Beltana and Nepabunna, and I learned more from talking with some of the local Adnyamathanha people living in the area.
I learned how we colonialists initiated the dependency model when we sliced the land into segments to establish farms and stations, put up fences, and stopped indigenous people from roaming their land to live independently by traditional hunting and gathering as they had done for over 50,000 years.
Having excluded the indigenous people from their traditional lands and way of life, we colonialists then proceeded to place indigenous people in holdings and missions, to provide European style food rations as ‘compensation’, and proceeded to steal their children in order to ‘protect and educate’ them into being more like us!
We demonized their aboriginal beliefs, and we set about destroying their culture and killing off their languages…and then there were the mass slaughters!
From the very beginning we mainly white colonialists have done it TO our indigenous peoples!
The Voice to parliament is about doing it differently, and doing it WITH our indigenous peoples!
Enshrining the Voice to parliament in the constitution commits government to consultation with our indigenous people in order to ensure that they are treated fairly, and not further disadvantaged by the policies and laws that our government passes…and that is why I voted YES!
Ian Tooley, Gawler East
