To the tens of thousands of allies set to fill the streets and stand in solidarity with our people, I hope you answer the call by voting yes
www.theguardian.com
We rode in on the e-bikes to the protest in Canberra, like many unaware that the group running it oppose the voice to parliament. We arrived at 9 like it said, people milled around for a while so I looked at Facey and someone I know posted about how this group opposes the voice, he has later posted the article above. I was annoyed, this group did not obviously say they were against a voice in their promotional material, and about 9:50 a bloke comes up and identifies himself as a local elder, and asks for donations to a "good cause" without saying who or what it was. I was struggling to understand what they actually want, looking back at the event on Facebook it was vague, other than not wanting a voice. Wife is standing there with her Voice, Treaty, Truth t-shirt, not feeling comfortable, we decided to bail.
We needed a toilet stop so went to the National Museum where there was a ceremony going on in the new Indigenous gardens at the front. Some local Aboriginal people did some songs, got all the kids up to play the clapping sticks and did a smoking ceremony. We had a bite to eat, watched the protest go over the bridge and wondered should we actually vote for a voice, was there not majority support in indigenous communities? One might think that from the event there wasn't, but the article above says it's not the case, 85% support among Indigenous people.
The shit thing is that The Greens are all over the place on this. Far as I can see they were very supportive and urging for it a few years ago, now it's a bit different and conditional on Truth and Treaty, which it should be, but it seemed the logical order to imlement the voice first to enable the others to be enacted into legislation.