After the Voice Referendum: Thomas Mayo in Conversation with Clare Wright. About lessons from the past, a path towards the future, after the failure of the voice to Parliament referendum.
He ended his talk by repeating the Statement from the Heart and was given a standing ovation.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a 2017 document, issued by First Nations people, calling for substantive constitutional and structural reforms to achieve a fair and truthful relationship with all Australians, including a First Nations Voice to Parliament, a Makarrata Commission for treaty-making and truth-telling, and a focus on justice and self-determination. The statement was authorised by a majority of the 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders gathered at Uluru, May, 2017
‘‘There’s a lot of raw wounds among these people … There’s the desperation in the room,’ Thomas Mayor [Munro], a Torres Strait man of Badhulgau and Kulkalaig heritage, said. Mayor is the NT branch secretary of the Maritime Union; he knows how a meeting like this should work. On Friday, he was one of the galvanising voices in the room encouraging a unified position.’[i]
Note: In November 2022, he changed his last name from Mayor to the original spelling of his family name as seen on the tombstones of his ancestors.
The idea of a representative voice for Indigenous Australians was developed over decades, but it was ratified in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart. During the 2022 federal election, Anthony Albanese made progressing the Uluru Statement and enshrining the Voice into the constitution through a referendum an election promise.
The campaign was full of lies, exacerbated racism, and was a failure. Such a shame.
Thomas Mayo has written many books including ‘Finding Our Heart’. A Story about the Uluru Statement for Young Australians. Blak Douglas (illustrator).
[i] ‘We want referendum’: intensive Uluru talks call for an end to the fighting’, Calla Wahlquist, Guardian, 28 May, 2017.
