THE VOICE TO PARLIAMENT: TWO VIEWS – ANTHONY DILLON

The request for creating the Indigenous Voice to Parliament was a result of the May 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, delivered by the First Nations National Constitutional Convention which met at Uluru. With a change of government on 23 May 2022, new prime minister Anthony Albanese promised in his victory speech that a referendum to decide the Indigenous Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution would be held within his term of office. In July 2022, he outlined further plans regarding the referendum, and proposed that the advisory group be named the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. On Monday 17 October 2022, The Sydney Institute heard from two Indigenous Australians the case for and concerns about the proposal – Sean Gordon, Chief Executive Officer of Awabakal Enterprise Ltd and Chair of Uphold & Recognise joined Dr Anthony Dillon, Researcher at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Sydney to share their views.

THE VOICE TO PARLIAMENT: TWO VIEWS

ANTHONY DILLON

Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be. I’m certainly not here to oppose Sean, because I agree with lots of what he said. I’m not even necessarily here to oppose The Voice. But I do have some reservations about it. If The Voice gets up and it works and we see those practical outcomes which Sean referred to manifest, I will be the first to say I was wrong and I should have voted for it.

For me, it’s all about whether it will improve the lives of Aboriginal people in this land. I’ll use the term Aboriginal and Indigenous interchangeably throughout this presentation. You’re very unlikely to hear me say First Nations, or anything like that.

At this stage, I have not seen the detail, I have not seen the dots joined which will show me how The Voice will help Aboriginal people lead the sort of lives that most of us take for granted. Like you and the rest of Australia who have an enormous amount of goodwill for Indigenous Australian, we all want Indigenous Australians – especially those Indigenous people who are suffering most – to not only lead lives like you and I, but to be able to lead lives like the architects of The Voice. I have a lot of respect for our Indigenous even if I disagree with them on lots of things. I give credit where credit is due.

They have marvellous achievements in their lives. They’ve done it without The Voice, they’ve done it without constitutional change, they’ve done it without a treaty and so on. We have have seen many Indigenous people succeed, do well, not only survive but thrive, they’ve done it without these things. What’s been the ingredient, the formula? Generally speaking it’s education, employment, access to modern services and all that sort of thing.

If The Voice has a role to play, I need to ask how would it get Indigenous people into situations where they’re more likely to have access to what you and I have access to. If The Voice does that, I’d be all for it. But I think it can be done without The Voice. And while that’s not necessarily a reason to oppose The Voice, I’m saying that there’s a lot that can be done now, without The Voice.

For Indigenous people, the secret of the formula to succeed is to, like myself, be born into good circumstances. I don’t apologise for that. I have an English mother and a very successful Aboriginal father who was not born into good circumstances. He’s an example of how you can escape. So, you’re either born into good circumstances or you’re helped out of bad circumstances into good circumstances. I like to think that in Australia, no matter how bad your circumstances are, there is always somebody who can help you here and now, today.

Having said that, I have my doubts; I will elaborate on that. The comments I make in this speech are because I don’t know clearly what The Voice is exactly. We know it’s something to do with parliament, that it’ll be advisory in capacity, that sort of thing. But we already have that now, and I’m not opposed to that. We Minister Linda Burney. We have a team of good people at many levels in government, and certainly at higher levels. Sean’s ideas so far are very inspiring for me. But we already have this representation through Burney’s office and other levels of government.

As we know, there’s a lot of disadvantage with many Indigenous communities, very often in remote communities. So, Australians are entitled to say, “Well, it’s not working, we need to do something else.” When we talk about Indigenous disadvantage and problems and we hear buzz phrases like “self-determination”, The Voice, treaty, constitutional change, empowerment, apologies and all those sorts of things, they are all too quickly seen as solutions.

They may or may not be solutions. But, Australians, because they have such good will for Indigenous Australians, are wanting to do something. At the moment, the latest offering is The Voice. So, you’ll have many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people saying, “The Voice, that must be the solution..” It could be, but as I keep saying, I haven’t seen the detail that’s going to map out how it will be a solution.

We have seen many examples of Indigenous people doing well without The Voice, a treaty etc. A major concern I have is that we hear that term self-determination, and that this will be a Voice from Indigenous people, for Indigenous people, Indigenous people taking care of Indigenous affairs and so on, but basically it is an us/them mentality; separatism. Where I disagree with some of my peers is that I don’t see the us/them when I see Indigenous Australians. I just see Australians. I look at my parents; one is Indigenous, one is non-Indigenous; I have an Indigenous family, a non-Indigenous family. They’re pretty much all the same in terms of their input in helping me through life.

Looking more broadly across the country, I like to see more of an “us” mentality. I have a concern that The Voice will further reinforce this us/them mentality, and all done under the label of self-determination. For me, self-determination is something that’s applied to individuals; individuals can exercise self-determination. If I decide to get fit, go to a gym, see a doctor, get a check-up, that’s me taking the initiative, getting help from other people. I will see the gym instructor or doctor, I don’t care what nationality they are, so long as they’re competent. When self determination is defined in a collective sense, at a group level, where it’s Indigenous people needing to receive services from other Indigenous people, I have a problem with that.

I don’t oppose Indigenous services, there’s many good ones out there. But if there’s an insistence that Indigenous people are best served by Indigenous services, I do have a concern about that. Because there seems to be an underlying assumption with not just The Voice but Indigenous affairs for as long as I can remember, that to understand Indigenous people, you have to be Indigenous yourself. I strongly disagree with that. The commonalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians far outweigh the differences. So, if we look at those commonalities, we all have the same basic fundamental needs.

I don’t oppose Indigenous people playing a significant part in Indigenous affairs, but just being Indigenous alone does not make you an expert on all things Indigenous. When it comes to Indigenous affairs, Indigenous people can disagree strongly on proposed solutions and all manner of issues, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The same thing happens in the non-Indigenous camp, there’s disagreements. I do have a concern that if we have a Voice, which voices or people will it be that make up that body. What advice will they be giving? And how will it be different from what can happen now?

Firstly, to say that Indigenous people are without a Voice is a bit concerning when you consider you’ve got the ABC, SBS and ITV – they seem have to have a Voice there. As individuals, like you and I as well. So maybe what a “voice” means needs to be clarified at the level of government; is it that we need a more responsive body? I don’t have a problem with that. If the Voice is the vehicle to do that, fine. But I think it is all there now.

We know that a lot of the problems facing Indigenous people are for those in remote parts of Australia. I see that as a remoteness problem, not an Aboriginal problem. If you put non-Indigenous people in areas where there’s no employment, you’re going to have the same sorts of problem. I am not saying successful Indigenous people did not have their struggles. It’s a struggle for all Australians. But it’s a good country and everyone can achieve when we all help each other.

Categorising people into Indigenous and non-Indigenous can create barriers. I’ve spoken about education and employment. If there’s a part of Australia where there’s a high proportion of Indigenous people and you need Indigenous people’s advice, that’s great, we already have it. Another concern I have is the voices I’ve been hearing so far. They are very often through the ABC, SBS and the like. To say that the problem or barrier holding Australian Aboriginal people back is systemic racism and colonisation, I disagree with strongly. It’s possible that depending on the makeup of the committee, the Voice, whatever it’s going to be called, could be pushing that same message.

I would like to know what sort of message the government and its operatives are going to give Indigenous Australians, what do they see as being the underlying problems and what do they see as the pathway to success, prosperity and so on. I also disagree with some of my colleagues and peers that are opposing the Voice. I do not see the Voice as creating an apartheid system, I do not see it as a racist machine. I think it’s wrong to say that if the Voice comes in, it will be racism, it will be apartheid etc. That’s far too strong. I oppose some of my peers and colleagues who say that.

Thank you very much for the opportunity. It’s been a pleasure speaking with Sean, whom I’ve met only once before. I hope that we get to meet many more times, because I think that, very much, we are on the same page in a lot of things.