Sean Gordon AM is co-convenor of the Liberals for Yes campaign, chair of Uphold & Recognise, managing director of the Gidgee Group, CEO of the Yadha Muru Foundation and serves on many national boards and advisory committees.
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A voice will help make right this country’s history of division. Will Australians slap away our outstretched hand?
Sean Gordon
This week I was honoured as a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for a lifetime of significant service to the Indigenous community as an advocate for equity. My deep pride and gratitude for this honour are mixed with trepidation and unease.
The medal was bestowed by a crown and country that – unlike other Commonwealth countries – still does not recognise my people in its founding document, our constitution. A crown and country that – unlike other comparable democracies – still does not guarantee my people a voice in decisions made about Indigenous affairs.
Anxiety twists in my heart as I think about the upcoming referendum. My people through the Uluru statement have held out a hand of peace, forgiveness, and healing to the Australian people. We have sought unity and inclusion to make right this country’s history of division and exclusion of my people.
We have asked only for recognition through an advisory voice in laws and policies made about us, so that the travesties of the past are less likely to be repeated. So that our future and outcomes are fairer and better than our past. So that our Indigenous people are listened to, bringing fresh thinking and practical solutions to the various challenges our communities face.
Will Australians slap away our outstretched hand?
This week, I was handing out yes pamphlets at train stations with Liberals for yes, which I co-chair. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive, warm, and energising. However, two individuals came up and said: “The voice is apartheid.”
Those people might not realise: my family lived through apartheid.
My people were explicitly excluded from the constitution of 1901, including under a race-based clause that said they should not be counted. They were subject to decades of unjust and ineffective race-based policies including segregation and the forced removal of children from their families.
In 1938 my great grandparents were forcibly taken from Wangkumarra traditional lands (the corner country) to the Brewarrina mission 500km away in far north-western New South Wales. My great grandparents, Albert and Rose Ebsworth, were subject to the 1909 NSW Aborigines Protection Act. They were stripped of their names and given the numbers Native 140 and Native 141.
During the so-called “protection era” Aboriginals were controlled, told who we were allowed to marry, and where we were allowed to live. Forced to not speak our language and practice our cultural customs. My family members had their bodies prodded and measured, so officials could figure out whether our blackness could be bred out so we could be assimilated into white society.
Before forced removal, Wangkumarra people worked hard as stockmen and servants, with one Wangkumarra family having £75 pounds in the bank and four families having £25 pounds in the bank. This was replaced with rations and handouts.
Unlike our white counterparts, Indigenous soldiers who fought for Australia were not treated equally by the country they defended, let alone recognised or honoured for their contributions. Indigenous veterans generally couldn’t apply for land under the soldier settlement schemes.
Unequal or non-existent wages. No ability to buy and receive land, despite our service to the country. How were we supposed to get ahead, in a country that wanted to keep us down? These policies had devastating impacts on my people and continue to do so.
I grew up in a foster home that was built at the site of the old Brewarrina mission. It’s where they sent the kids of Aboriginal parents incapacitated by unemployment, addictions and trauma. Many of these parents were forcibly placed on the mission.
Most of the Aboriginal kids I grew up with have struggled. Some have not lived beyond the age of 30 years. Many are still lost in welfare dependence and addiction.
I don’t know how or why I turned out OK. I worked hard, but I was also a lucky one. Not everyone can be as lucky – not with the history we have suffered.
My life’s work has been dedicated to empowering other Indigenous people to overcome their past by stepping up and take responsibility for their future.
I beseech all of you who are reading this piece: is it really asking too much for my people to be recognised in the constitution from which we were excluded for so long? Is it really asking too much to be able to give advice when parliament and government make laws and policies that impact our community?
To those no case proponents saying the voice will divide us by race: get a grip.
My people have been treated as an inferior race under the Australian constitution since 1901. Race-based clauses excluded us. Race-based policies treated us as second-class citizens in our own country. Race-based clauses still exist in the constitution.
The fact is, parliament and government already make Indigenous-specific laws and policies – such as the Native Title Act, Closing the Gap and so on – to address the history of discrimination we have suffered. All we are asking is that Indigenous communities at least have a say in those laws and policies, so that the injustices of the past are less likely to be repeated, and so that better outcomes can be achieved.
We know that when governments listen to local Indigenous communities, we get better results.
I ask all Australians: accept my people’s hand of love and friendship. Include us, finally. Recognise us, finally. Give us a voice in decisions made about us.
Together, we can make our future better than our past.
My people have been treated as an inferior race under the Australian constitution since 1901. All we are asking for is a voice in decisions made about us
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