A decade ago, I took a phone call that would change my life.
Tanya Hosch – an inspiring Indigenous leader – had something to ask. She’d agreed to lead a new grassroots movement across this country. It would build the foundations for a chance to honour the work of the Indigenous giants of our country’s history.
The Recognise movement had heard the calls for Indigenous constitutional recognition echoing down the decades. And it asked all Australians to open our hearts and answer that call.
Tanya wanted to know if I’d join her. I said yes. And by saying yes, I was given a profound gift.
Saying yes gave me a chance to get to know my own country more deeply. To learn more about the complexity of our national story. It enabled me to talk to a vast number of Australians from all backgrounds and political traditions about how we could write the next chapter of our national story together – and forge a better future together for all our children.
Over the next three years, in red dust and on plastic chairs in tiny civic halls, I often sat at the feet of giants. Some were household names. Indigenous leaders who had led with grace and patience on the national stage for decades. And many were giants whose names you wouldn’t know. Their powerful eldership in local communities was humbling.
Across this vast continent, I met elderly aunties and uncles whose eyes and bodies told of lives of hardship and grief. Of the indignity of exclusion. Of the aching agony of loss. Old people who had been treated as outsiders in their own land all their lives – and who were simply asking the rest of Australia to hear them. Their resilience and grace were humbling. So, too, their patience.
As was the other thing I saw in their eyes – and heard in their words.
It was hope.
Hope that Australians in their millions would vote “yes” in overwhelming numbers to recognise them – at long last – in our constitution.
Hope that they would live to see that uplifting day – when they would feel an outpouring of love and respect from their fellow Australians as a powerful salve on the wounds of lifetimes of exclusion.
And hope about what such an expression of national unity and shared pride in Indigenous people and cultures would mean for the next generations of young Australians – for their grandkids and yours.
Their logic was compelling.
If millions of Australians open our hearts and minds and vote “yes”, we will connect all of us – Australians both new and old – to the long story of our country.
By recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution, all of us are being invited to share a unique national identity grounded in the inspiring story of the oldest continuing cultures anywhere on the planet.
The old people hoped that when all Australians feel deep pride in that identity, their grandchildren would be less likely to experience the exclusion, prejudice and hardship their generation had known.
On October 14, all Australians were asked to vote “yes” to Indigenous recognition and a voice. To vote “yes” to help close the shocking gaps in Indigenous disadvantage and to end the policy failures and exclusions of the past.
To vote “yes” to end ““, as Tanya Hosch so powerfully described it when she launched the Yes campaign with a Prime Minister and premier beside her. Because those old people have always loved this country, even in the face of the brutal hardships they have lived.
They’ve asked us for something so simple – an advisory committee that would bring the lived experiences and deep expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to inform better policy. Because they know that will deliver better health and life expectancy- and make stronger inroads on poverty and disadvantage.
On the day after the vote, I want those old people to wake up and know Australians have got their backs. I want to be able to look them in the eyes – and see joy, and relief.
Because I know a “no” vote would cut to the bone. It would be felt as a brutal rejection by those old people who have already known so much exclusion and pain. And that breaks my heart.
Love and hope. A powerful moment of grace. A chance to unify our country. Respect, dignity and inclusion. And a better future.
That’s what all Australians are being offered when we cast our vote together on October 14. And that’s why I’ll be voting “yes”.
Misha Schubert worked on the Recognise movement from 2012-15.
This piece was first published by The Canberra Times:
