EXCLUSIVE
An Indigenous leader in one of Australia’s most remote communities says he is ‘excited’ the referendum on a Voice to Parliament has been rejected by voters.
Donald Fraser is considered one of the fathers of native title on Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in north-west South Australia and has always wanted his people to be heard.
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (pronounced arn-ahng-oo pit-jan-jah-jarra yan-kun-ja-jarra) Lands cover 103,000 square kilometres and belong to about 2,000 traditional owners.
A majority of residents on APY Lands voted in favour of the Voice – 402 to 118 with three informal ballots – but Mr Fraser was not in the Yes camp.
Indigenous leader Donald Fraser has lived all his life in one of Australia’s most remote communities and is ‘excited’ the referendum on a Voice to Parliament has failed
The seven main communities on APY Lands are so isolated Mr Fraser was not aware of the referendum result until informed by Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
‘The answer is no, is it?’ he said. ‘Great. I’m excited.’
Australia resoundingly voted No to the proposed change to the constitution, with every state rejecting the Voice and only the ACT voting Yes as the count continued.
Mr Fraser had previously told Daily Mail Australia the Voice proposal had been rushed and that his people, the Anangu, did not understand what it was supposed to achieve.
‘It was all hidden,’ he said.
‘It was under the carpet and that’s what we don’t like.’
The APY Lands are home to some of the nation’s most disadvantaged citizens.
Unemployment among Anangu runs at almost 40 per cent, 68 per cent have long-term health conditions and 27 per cent leave school before Year 10.
Mr Fraser grew up on the APY Lands’ first major settlement when it was a mission known as Ernabella, founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1937.
A majority of residents on APY Lands voted in favour of the Voice – 402 to 118 with three informal ballots – but Mr Fraser was not one of them. Two women are pictured on APY Lands
The APY Lands are a 15 hour drive from Adelaide and a five hour drive from Alice Springs. Among the major communities are Pukatja, Fregon and Amanta as well as Umuwa, the area’s administration centre
Where once there were cattle stations on the Lands, there is almost no agriculture, tourism is next to non-existent, and the potential for lucrative mining of minerals is still only being explored.
‘The place is a mess,’ Mr Fraser said. ‘Everywhere you go the place is a mess. We are struggling.’
Told the referendum had cost taxpayers $400million, Mr Fraser wished even a fraction of those funds had been spent on APY communities.
‘That money could have been used for better things than wasting it on elections and everything else,’ he said.
‘A small portion of that money could have gone to the seven communities here and the homelands so that we can manage our own affairs.’
Anangu are supposed to already have a say in their own affairs through the 14-member APY Board made up of two representatives from each of the seven communities.
Unemployment among Anangu runs at almost 40 per cent, 68 per cent have long-term health conditions and 27 per cent leave school before Year 10. Women are pictured outside Pukatja Roadhouse
But the board’s critics say it is dysfunctional and in the lead-up to the referendum several APY elders said they doubted enshrining another layer of consultation in the nation’s founding document would help them.
Mr Fraser was an architect of the 1981 APY Land Rights Act that was meant to give Anangu self-determination. He has also seen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) come and go.
‘ATSIC was the Voice to Parliament set up by the government and they demolished it,’ he said last month. ‘We don’t know which way to turn now.’
On Monday, he said successive federal governments had not been listening to Anangu and he had not expected a Voice to Parliament to change that.
‘They just gallop along and do whatever they like,’ he said.
‘It’s about time the government treated Aboriginal people and white people equally.
‘I don’t want to split the white people. We want to live together. We want to talk together, white and black Australia.’
‘Today the government are childish. They’re fighting over nothing.’
Mr Fraser was an architect of the 1981 APY Land Rights Act that was meant to give Anangu self-determination and has seen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) come and go
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had repeatedly stated the referendum was supported by a majority of Aboriginal voters and remote communities would benefit from a Voice to Parliament.
‘First Nations people certainly want this,’ he said in June. ‘We know that all the figures show that up to 90 per cent of First Nations people.’
No Australian electorate has a majority of Indigenous citizens and those Aboriginal communities that voted Yes make up only a tiny proportion of total voters.
The APY Lands are part of the federal electorate of Grey which covers 92 per cent of South Australia. Grey residents voted overwhelmingly against the Voice, at 78 per cent, but that result was almost reversed on APY Lands.
At the 2021 Census there were 2,333 people living on APY Lands, 2,064 of them Indigenous, with about 1,564 residents eligible to vote.
On Monday, the Australian Electoral Commission’s tally room website showed just 523 citizens taking part in the referendum.
Where once there were cattle stations on the Lands, there is almost no agriculture, tourism is next to non-existent, and the potential for lucrative mining of minerals is still only being explored
The 11 polling places on the Lands, including in the townships of Pukatja, Amata, Mimili, Fregon (Kaltjiti), Indulkana and Umuwa returned a Yes vote of almost 77 per cent.
A similar pattern was seen in other remote community polling places with large Indigenous populations.
Lingiari, which covers most of the Northern Territory outside Darwin, has the largest Indigenous enrolment in the country and 55 per cent of citizens voted No.
But at remote polling booths in Arnhem Land, Kakadu and near Uluru, 73 per cent voted Yes.
Queensland’s electorate of Leichhardt, which takes in Cape York and Cairns, recorded a 35 per cent No vote but in Hope Vale where 88 per cent of population is Indigenous the Yes vote was 75 per cent.
In Durack, which covers a huge swathe of Western Australia north of Perth, the Yes vote was only 28 per cent but at Fitzroy Crossing, where about 60 per cent of citizens are Indigenous, 70 per cent voted Yes.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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