{"id":338202,"date":"2023-10-09T15:41:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T05:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=338202"},"modified":"2023-10-10T10:31:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T00:31:55","slug":"why-im-voting-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2023\/10\/09\/why-im-voting-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I&#8217;m Voting Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SAqIypjk-5A?si=HMSs_kA3HYKYJdO6\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-77900\" src=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/editorial-d.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/editorial-d.jpg 210w, https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/editorial-d-180x300.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>October 9, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Dafyd Martindale<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up on the southern fringe of Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s and I had no contact whatsoever with Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n<p>There were no Indigenous children at school and &#8211; as far as I was aware &#8211; none in the local community, either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My education was unhelpful, too. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like most children at that time, we were taught a potted, highly compressed version of Australia&#8217;s history that started with Captain Cook and finished with Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson crossing the Blue Mountains, with barely a mention of Aboriginal people to disturb any of this heroic narrative.<\/p>\n<p>Aborigines, we were led to believe, lived mainly in the desert areas of inland Australia and spent their days in red loincloths leaning on spears and staring into the distance.<\/p>\n<p>This narrative created the impression in most of my generation that Aborigines didn&#8217;t really play much of a role in the day-to-day life of the nation, and their issues could be ignored.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But that all changed for me in the late 1970s when I visited Bega on the far south coast of NSW and came face to face with Australian racism for the very first time. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Talking to shopkeepers in the main street, I learned there was an Aboriginal community near Bega but no one in the town would ever employ &#8220;an Aboriginal&#8221; because they were &#8220;lazy and unreliable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I also learned that Aborigines were banned from many of the town&#8217;s shops and all the town&#8217;s hotels (except for one that would serve them at the bottle shop) and that everyone in Bega at that time &#8211; certainly, at least, everyone in the shopkeeping community &#8211; regarded them as less than dirt.<\/p>\n<p>After a day of listening to this hateful bile spilling out of everyone I talked to, all I could think was how deeply unfair this was.<\/p>\n<p>I wondered what I&#8217;d do if the situation were reversed and I was living in Bega&#8217;s Aboriginal settlement with no prospect of work and nothing to do every day?<\/p>\n<p>The answer? I&#8217;d do exactly the same as the Aboriginal residents!<\/p>\n<p>My Bega experience left a very bitter taste in my mouth (and I can only hope Bega is a far different town today).<\/p>\n<p><strong>But one positive that came out of it was that from that point forward, I began to take a genuine interest in Indigenous issues and the more I learned, the more I realised the horrors our First Nations people have endured for more than 200 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Fast forward half a century and I believe there has been a significant change in the views of many non-Aboriginal Australians about the true history of our nation, along with a genuine desire to make things better.<\/p>\n<p>I have also seen a growing realisation that apart from being the oldest continuous culture on Earth, our Indigenous brothers and sisters contribute a uniqueness to our national identity that can only lift us all up as we move along the path of genuine Reconciliation.<\/p>\n<p>Indigenous bands like King Stingray, dramas like Mystery Road and movies like The Sapphires have been gradually demystifying and normalising First Nations&#8217; cultures for non-Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n<p>The drone of a didgeridoo has become our national sound in the same way that bagpipes are synonymous with Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>And the brightness and vitality that Indigenous art lends to our public buildings shouts &#8220;Australian&#8221; louder than I ever could.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So on Saturday, October 14, I&#8217;ll be voting Yes in the Voice Referendum. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Why? Because I want to see this process of Reconciliation continue and because I want to see problems in Indigenous communities solved.<\/p>\n<p>Australia is one nation and I believe a vote for No will consign us to remaining two nations.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not just unfair &#8211; it&#8217;s wrong, too.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Related article: <a href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2023\/10\/03\/the-voice-why-not\/\">The Voice: Why Not?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/editorial\/\">Read more Editorial columns<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I grew up on the southern fringe of Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s and I had no contact whatsoever with Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[598,3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - 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