Most people, it seems, have an inherent grasp and understanding of ‘sovereignty’.
And although that is not what the recent Now and Forever concert in Shepparton was really about, the concept was evident and alive and well.
The Shepparton show featured some of the biggest names in the Australian music industry, and while simply great fun, at its core was the idea and hope that those attending could be encouraged to vote Yes at the October 14 referendum.
That referendum simply asked people to vote on the idea of providing Australia’s Indigenous people with an advisory Voice to Parliament.
Many at the Shepparton Showgrounds concert, enjoyed by thousands, spread out their picnic rugs, staking out their personal space, declaring their sovereignty.
Most respected that personal space, that sovereignty, stepping politely around the picnic rugs, hopping over them, taking long strides to avoid invading another’s space or sometimes seemingly dancing around the many rugs laid out at the concert.
The Shepparton concert was a huge success. Not so the Yes aspect of the referendum — it was soundly rejected by 60 per cent of Australians.
And on the topic of dancing, Opposition leader Peter Dutton illustrates his agility, dancing around the truth to inject a tirade of disinformation into the referendum discussion.
In arguing the No case, Mr Dutton was, at best, deceitful and, at worst, well, let’s say he handled the facts rather loosely.
Those who prosecuted the Yes case, particularly the many saddened and disappointed Indigenous people who had hoped for a positive result, have retreated to a week’s silence and contemplation.
That came after. However, those who had orchestrated the Shepparton case for Yes from the Fryers St hub met for a post-referendum get-together at the city’s Victoria Park Lake the day after the referendum.
The emotions at that event ranged from outright anger to sadness, even tears, disappointment, disillusionment and bewilderment that the Australian people seemed unable to extend their kindness to the original inhabitants.
The silence of many has not infected the outcome of the referendum being dissected by countless observers, including The Guardian’s Katherine Murphy, who wrote: “People voted no in large numbers for a bunch of reasons. They didn’t vote no because Peter Dutton told them to. Progressive people voted no. Some rusted-on Liberals voted yes. But Dutton’s decision to say no, and help flood the zone with sh*t, was certainly part of the reason public support for the voice tanked. I want to be very clear about this. We see you, Peter Dutton. We know what you did.”
A short letter in The Age said: “Dutton ran an effective, well-researched and funded campaign — not unlike those run by climate change deniers.”
The referendum required simple and uncomplicated answers of either Yes or No, but arriving at those conclusions was not equally straight-forward as they had been conflated with a host of other issues, issues that clouded the conversation and, in fact, had nothing to do with the core reason for the national vote.
The Canada-based organisation DeSmog (yes, our referendum attracted serious international attention) quotes from a research paper by a senior lecturer in social and political sciences at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, Jeremy Walker.
Mr Walker’s paper argues that the campaign to deny Indigenous peoples a voice in Australia’s National Parliament used tactics similar to an earlier conservative legal battle against First Nations communities in Canada.
The DeSmog story said: “That’s no coincidence, according to the paper’s author, Jeremy Walker, because think-tanks linked to these efforts in Canada and Australia belong to a secretive US organisation called the Atlas Network that’s received support from oil, gas and coal companies and operates in nearly 100 countries.
“The co-ordinated opposition to Indigenous constitutional recognition by the Australian arm of the Atlas Network we can assume is motivated by the same intentions underlying the permanent Atlas campaign against climate policy [globally].”
It’s noted in the DeSmog story that the No campaign’s main spokespeople are Indigenous — Warren Mundine and Australian Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price — and that they had been interviewed frequently in the country’s mainstream media.
“Yet few Australians,” the Desmog story said, “are aware of Mundine’s and Price’s connections to the wider Atlas Network.”
And so the referendum was not really just about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament; it was actually about whether or not we endorse the processes that worsen the climate crisis.
That confirms many things, for when I first went to the Yes hub in Fryers St, it felt like I had walked in on a climate activists’ meeting. Two or three people were well known to me through climate activism, and while most others may not have been outright climate activists, they were at least sympathetic to the issue.
In the days following the referendum, I continued to wear my Yes T-shirt (I have a few) and felt like a stranger in my own land, and that was just a little like, I imagine, how our Indigenous friends feel every day.
Let’s leave the final word to Briggs, the fellow behind the Now and Forever concert in Shepparton.
Writing on X, he said: “The thing is with white people in Australia. Do you think Blackfullas haven’t faced this depravity before? We face it every day. For the ‘No’, it was the Super Bowl. For me it was Saturday.”