VOICE DEBATE CONTINUES
Telona Pitt.
The debate around the Voice to Parliament continues, with some First Nations people concerned the proposal won’t make a meaningful difference in their lives.
Ngarluma, Kariyarra and Meriam woman and former Port Hedland Councillor Telona Pitt said the Voice would be just another advisory body, which government could ignore.
“They’ve got a track record of not doing the right thing by us, even though when they come and they sit in our communities and they speak to us, they say ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ when we use our voices,” she said.
“So we do have voices out there in the community, so they say ‘yes, we’ll do that, we’ll do that’, and then they do something totally different.”
Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney told the ABC the Voice would improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“It is about finally recognising the incredible history that we have in this country of 65,000 years,” she said.
“It’s about making sure that we put something in place that is going to mean a change in the life outcomes of First Nations peoples”.
Ms Pitt said she felt the Voice to Parliament was unpopular with First Nations people.
”All our mobs are out on the street saying that they don't want the Voice,” she said.
“It's not good enough. It's not a good enough offer. They want a treaty.”
Ms Pitt said that rather than a Voice to Parliament, she wanted the Australian Government to be held accountable for past wrongs done to Indigenous people and to give first Nations People a right to a greater degree of self-determination.
“This Voice to Parliament won’t give us that right,” she said
“Even though they're selling it out there through their campaign that it's going to close the gap. It's going to solve all of these issues in our community. I don't believe that it actually will do that because the Prime Minister himself has said it's just an advisory role.
“It holds no veto. So it holds no legal power to make any decisions the government are going to control the destiny of Australia, and we're going to sit underneath them.”