Can Malarndirri McCarthy Convince You To Vote Yes?

TW: This articles contains discussion of suicide.

It’s just one day out from the Voice referendum and more than 4 million people have already voted.

According to the latest data from Guardian Australia’s poll tracker  the downward trend in support of the Voice has slowed.

It estimates that around 41 per cent of Australians intend to vote Yes nationally, while the numbers indicate each state has a majority No vote lead.

You’ve got to have the double majority and we have to win four states. Our opponents only have to win three. So clearly it’s a much tougher battle for those in the yes side to win that. But I am quietly confident that we are getting the support that we require on the ground.

Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Senator Malarndirri McCarthy

Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Senator Malarndirri McCarthy is a Yanyuwa woman from the Gulf country in the Northern Territory. She joins Tom Tilley on today’s episode of The Briefing, to make her final arguments for why she believes Australians should vote Yes on Saturday, whilst drawing on examples in history where a First Nations Voice would have made a significant impact on improving the lives of First Nations peoples.

I can certainly speak from a very personal example Tom and that was in 2007 when the Northern Territory Intervention was a piece of Commonwealth legislation that the then John Howard government declared on the Northern Territory. They did that, so they could intervene in the lives of First Nations people only in the Northern Territory. That had a deeply profound impact at the time they sent in Defence Force in places like Mutitjulu, for example, where families took to the hills, thinking that their children were being taken again for a second time.

That legislation, that entity occurred without any conversation, any discussion with First Nations people. So you know, we could look at that and so for the next fifteen years that legislation stayed in place followed along when the Labor government got in with the Stronger Futures legislation. So it wasn’t removed, but still there was no discussion with First Nations people. 

McCarthy says a First Nations Voice will address the high rates of suicide, incarceration and low birth weight among First Nations peoples.

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