Politicians must face the truth: Indigenous Australia doesn’t accept symbolic recognition | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Fri, 21/07/2017 - 3:09pm

White leaders have always sought to simplify Indigenous responses to top-down propositions. Perhaps that’s why they don’t understand the Referendum Council’s recommendations for a voice in parliament

Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

There are many Indigenous Australias, multiple nations whose immediate country is as diverse as the tongues in which they speak.

Some politicians don’t understand that – never really have. Since colonial days they wanted to deal with a “chief” – or however else they might term a leader – who might strike a deal with them supposedly on behalf of all others. You know, vast tracts of land and water in exchange for axes, flour and tobacco?

I sense that the Australian people want to move ... towards a new settlement of this issue, and I share that desire, which is why I’m here tonight.

I announce that if I am re-elected, I will put to the Australian people within 18 months a referendum to formally recognise Indigenous Australians in our constitution, their history as the first inhabitants of our country, their unique heritage of language and culture, and their special, though not separate, place within a reconciled indivisible nation.