On October 14 2023, Australia will hold a referendum to change the Constitution, the country’s document from 1901. The vote is to constitutionally recognize First Nations people by giving them a Voice on issues that affect them—via a representative advisory body to the nation’s Parliament. Huw Kingston, a non-Indigenous Australian by immigration, shares how his travels have helped inform his perspective on this pivotal moment.
The small fire crackled, its glow matching the last remnants of light across the desert to the west. I buried my toes in red sand, sand still warm from the heat of the day. It was 2001 and I’d been in Australia only 10 years, still exploring the richness of our continent. On this journey, hundreds of kilometers west of Uluru, cycling across desert tracks, I headed toward that incredible monolith for my first visit.
Earlier that evening, a 4WD had pulled up and its two occupants camped close by. Both had worked with Indigenous communities for much of their careers. They told me of a project they had worked on a few years before, a project engaging with remote communities to discover what they wanted from their housing. These communities voiced suggestions on how their houses should be built, what they should feature. The end result of the consultation was a simple shelter style: Open-plan, open walls, shade, wind protection.
The design was taken to government who dismissed the request. It was too simple, they said. They feared the world would criticize Australia for building what was, in their view, sub-standard housing. So, poorly insulated bungalows with dark, poky rooms continued to be built. Unequivocally equal opportunities are necessary, but it struck me back then as an odd approach—to engage but not to listen.
Now an immigrant of over 30 years, I’ve learned and loved so much about Australia. But three things have really gnawed at me: Obfuscation and lack of action on the climate emergency, our treatment of refugees, and the urgent need for reconciliation with First Nations people.
“Ultimately, if Australia is to become the country it truly can be, the 4 percent and the 96 percent must walk together in the one direction, must come together. Must engage and listen.”
My own heritage is Welsh, in its own way another culture blemished by invasion albeit from just across the border, not the other side of the world. Protests in the ’60s and ’70s for the promotion and maintenance of the Welsh language still bubble up today. It was only 30 years ago that the Welsh language was put on an equal footing with English—after more than 400 years of subjugation.
In 2017, I welcomed the issuing of the Uluru Statement From The Heart. It will take no more than five minutes of your time to read the 439 words of the Statement. Five worthwhile minutes. A statement agreed upon by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives from across the country, agreed after many years of consultation amongst First Nations people.
I was impressed by its language, the process that had led to it, the engagement, and hand of friendship it offered to all Australians. But almost before the ink of some 250 signatures was dry, I was equally unimpressed by its dismissal by our then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Engage but not listen.
Like my own journeys around this continent, the road is often long and hard. Sometimes, headwinds slow you down but equally tailwinds can push you on. Tailwinds are now finally pushing progress on those things gnawing at me. The Voice referendum on October 14th offers an opportunity to amplify these winds of change.
“We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future,” the Uluru Statement concludes.
Over this Australian winter just finished, l had planned take up this invite and walk 3,000 kilometers from Uluru—where, five years ago, First Nations people issued that generous invitation—to Parliament House in Canberra where ultimately their voices should be heard. Unfortunately, a niggling injury meant I had to cancel the walk before it could begin.
I am optimistic by nature and hopeful that my fellow Australians will grasp this opportunity and the referendum will pass. I recognize the understandable anger of some First Nations people, and I recognize the proposal is not perfect—but what is?
Given 96 percent of Australians are, like me, non-Indigenous, it is us, the immigrants, who will decide the ultimate fate of the referendum. It is us whitefellas who will once again decide what is right for First Nations Australians. But this time, uniquely, we are being asked by them, gently, to give them a Voice. We have an opportunity to celebrate over 60,000 years of First Nations cultures in Australia with a strong, positive move toward reconciliation. To engage and to listen.
In the winter of 2022, I skied and walked the 700-kilometer length of the Australian Alps. At the start of that alpine journey, Taungurung Elder Uncle Shane sent me on my way with a Smoking Ceremony. Earlier, we’d discussed the difficulty of regathering stories that were never written down. Stories that had been lost to his people in large part by dispossession and assimilation. He told me how the mosaic was being rebuilt with the help of tribes near and far. How stories of this white stuff—snow—had come back from as far away as the deserts of Central Australia. An unbroken connection from the heart of Australia to our highest, coldest mountains thousands of kilometers away.
My alpine odyssey raised funds for Our Yarning, an Indigenous literacy project, one of so many measures that need to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous outcomes, in education, health, employment, incarceration rates and more. After 52 days, I finished where those alpine mountains peter out on the outskirts of Canberra, the heart of our democracy. A democracy that must face up to our past.
These past months, the voices of division have often seemed to drown out those of discussion. If, on October 14th, a majority of people in a majority of states* say no, I fear another opportunity will not arise for decades. No Australian Prime Minister will again invest so much political capital in measures toward reconciliation. First Nations leaders will surely despair. We will be left with Reconciliation Action Plans; Welcomes to and Acknowledgments of Country; that beautiful black, red and yellow flag flying and projections of Indigenous artworks on the Opera House sails at Bennelong. All are totally commendable for sure, but the Voice can be an engine that, once started, will accelerate the journey.
All Australians are in this. Ultimately, if Australia is to become the country it truly can be, the 4 percent and the 96 percent must walk together in the one direction, must come together. Must engage and listen.
*In Australia, in order for a referendum result to succeed in changing the Constitution, a double majority is required. That is a majority of voters across the country and a majority in at least four of the six States must vote in favor of the change.
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Writer and environmentalist Huw Kingston has spent over 30 years undertaking long, human-powered journeys in wild places, and has long been involved campaigning against single-use plastics.
