Australia sets October 14 for Aboriginal referendum date
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On October 14, Australians will vote on whether to amend the constitution to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
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Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a press conference in Sydney, Australia on April 10, 2022. (AP)
On October 14, Australians will vote on whether to amend the constitution to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a watershed moment in Indigenous peoples' quest for their rights.
In early August, Western Australia announced it would repeal the Aboriginal Heritage Act that was put in place to preserve Indigenous sites after Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old sacred rock shelter there.
Indigenous organizations criticized the decision to abolish the law, claiming there had been insufficient consultation and that their needs had been disregarded.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the date for the historic referendum in Adelaide, characterizing it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unify the nation.
Speaking to a cheering crowd, Albanese expressed that "​​October 14 is our time...it’s our chance," explaining that the time is "calling out to the best of our Australian character. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people this has been a marathon. For all of us, it is now a sprint."
Read: Museum of Sydney to transform into Aboriginal cultural space
Ahead of the vote, Australians will be asked whether they support changing the constitution to include a "Voice to Parliament," an Indigenous committee to advise the federal parliament on matters affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
According to Pat Anderson, an Aboriginal woman who is co-leading the change movement, the majority of Aboriginal people favor the Voice to Parliament because they believe it will enhance results.
Anderson urged "everyone to remember that we as First Nations Peoples know what works best for our communities and we believe that a Voice will finally be the step to improve our people's lives."
An elite proposal to divide the country
Opposition Liberal party leader for Indigenous affairs, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price believes the Voice to Parliament to be an "elite proposal" that would divide the country.
In a televised news conference, she called it an "old rule of divide and conquer."
The government has put enormous political capital on the referendum's success, and leading athletic organizations, big companies, faith-based organizations, and welfare organizations all back the campaign.
However, public discourse on the subject has been polarizing, and support for the initiative has fallen in recent months.
According to surveys, voting yes would help restore strained connections with the Aboriginal people and unite the nation, and the advisory board will assist in prioritizing Indigenous health, education, jobs, and housing.
Aboriginal Australians are considered one of the oldest continuously existing cultures on the globe. They first populated the continent about 65,000 years ago.
Despite this, Indigenous peoples are currently unrecognized in Australia's constitution, unlike other nations such as the US and Canada.
Some opponents, though, worry that the proposal will split Australians along racial lines and give the Indigenous body too much authority. Others have described the voice as only a symbol.
The measures did not have bipartisan support, with the conservative opposition Liberal Party pledging to push for a "No" vote and several Liberal Party leaders backing the Voice referendum.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose government voted against the Voice to Parliament in 2017, now says he supports the ideas.
Expressing his opinion to the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, he stated that the Voice "delivers recognition and respect to Indigenous Australians in the manner they have sought. On October 14, together, we can bend the arc of history a little further towards justice by voting YES."
Australia has long been unsuccessful in closing the gap between the health and well-being of its Indigenous people and the rest of the people, with soaring imprisonment rates among First Nations people and a life expectancy lower than the national average by eight years.
