By Parker McKenzie
Wiradjuri man and an Associate Professor at the Australian National University, Reverend Canon Glenn Loughrey, will be in Tecoma on Sunday 5 March to talk about the upcoming referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
The Voice – All you want to know is a free event from 2pm until 4pm and will be held at the Tecoma Uniting Church and gives local residents the opportunity to learn more about the Voice and the implications it has for Australians.
Rev Loughrey said people will have the opportunity to ask him questions during the event about the upcoming referendum.
“I’ll provide them with as much information and material as I can, and promise to hear them and give them the information that they need,” he said.
He said it is vitally important for people to understand what a Voice to Parliament will be.
“There’s a lot of misinformation, a lot of people who are invested in ensuring people are a little confused about what it is,” he said.
“It’s a very simple process, but it’s really important that Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders are recognised inside the constitution and then as a result of that, have a voice on matters that relate to them.”
Residents throughout the Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley will vote on whether to recognise First Nations people in the Constitution later this year, with the date yet to be set.
Rev Loughrey said people have the right to have a different opinion, but he believes there has been fear-mongering and purposeful misinformation in public discourse surrounding the referendum.
“It bares very little relationship to what has been produced by those who worked on all of the previous projects to bring about The Voice to this stage, like the Langton-Calma Report and the ones that went before that,” he said.
“There’s also little understanding, I think, of the importance of the process that went into putting the Statement from the Heart together in the first place.”
The Final Report of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process was produced by Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, commonly referred to as the Langton-Calma Report, and is the result of 18 months of consultation with people and organisations about the Indigenous Voice to parliament.
Rev Loughrey said the referendum is a very simple process that isn’t about legal matters, sovereignty as a legal term or politics.
“It’s about that moral and ethical responsibility to put right the things that have been done in the past and to allow Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people to sit alongside the rest of the country in the Constitution,” he said.
“You’re going to be asked one question and one question only: Will you recognise Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Constitution with a Voice to parliament?”
He said at his age, if significant constitutional reform doesn’t go through at this time, it will be unlikely to occur while he is still alive.
“Having been born in 1955, being twelve when we had the 1967 referendum, having lived through all the promises and failures of many programs, this is the most promising,” he said.
“If this fails, the issue will be that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, wherever they go there is that sense that the majority of people said no to me having a voice on matters that relate to us.”
The 1967 referendum asked voters whether to give the Australian Government the power to make special laws for Indigenous people and whether to count Indigenous Australians in population counts. It passed with 90.77 per cent of people voting yes.
Rev Loughrey said there is a moral, ethical and spiritual understanding that this is about putting right what was wrong.
“The Voice is the stage where we get recognised, if you’re not heard, you aren’t seen,” he said.
“Once you recognise people, you move to the next stage, where you agree to move forward, to make the process work with an agreement or treaty. That’s reconciliation, and we’ve never got to that space in this country. Once you’ve done that, you move to proper truth-telling.”
Free tickets can be booked at trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=1018495&
