Home Politics Australians don’t need YES23 to tell them how to vote. Instead, they should listen to why our most respected organisations believe the Voice is the way to defeat Aboriginal disadvantage, writes DEAN PARKIN

Australians don’t need YES23 to tell them how to vote. Instead, they should listen to why our most respected organisations believe the Voice is the way to defeat Aboriginal disadvantage, writes DEAN PARKIN

by Alexander
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Dean Parkin shares his final request with Daily Mail readers

What do the Salvos, Collingwood Football Club and the Royal College of Surgeons have in common?

They are united by one thing: they are all urging Australians to vote Yes on Saturday.

And they are just a fraction of the charities, doctors and sports clubs who work and play with Indigenous Australians every day and know that voting Yes is the right thing to do.

If you don’t believe me, Google ‘referendum’ and any organization you admire, and chances are you’ll see they’ll vote Yes.

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore was right when he said of the proposal: “There’s nothing that I find problematic… it’s not like indigenous Australians are suddenly going to have all these additional rights.”

Exactly. La Voz is an organization that will advise the Government on issues that affect indigenous peoples. That’s all. Nothing else.

Dean Parkin shares his final request with Daily Mail readers

It won’t make decisions, it won’t take over your backyard, and it won’t stop you from going to National Parks or any of the other wild conspiracy theories out there.

If The Voice rises on Saturday night, Sunday morning will be business as usual for the 97 per cent of Australia’s non-Indigenous population.

But for the three percent who are indigenous, the Voice will be transformative.

Finally being recognized in Australia’s 122-year-old constitution will be a huge step forward in uniting our society. Getting a voice to advise the government on the problems in our communities will be a great practical step in gradually addressing our problems and improving our lives.

That’s why all physician groups are voting yes.

These are not just surgeons, but also family doctors and pediatric doctors, ophthalmologists and maternal health doctors, mental health doctors and cardiologists.

And they say yes because they are tired of treating and burying indigenous children and their families with diseases that do not exist in the rest of the world, diseases like rheumatic heart disease.

Dean says: If the Voice rises on Saturday night, Sunday morning will be business as usual for the 97 per cent of Australia's non-Indigenous population.

Dean says: If the Voice rises on Saturday night, Sunday morning will be business as usual for the 97 per cent of Australia’s non-Indigenous population.

Rheumatic heart disease, which begins with an untreated sore throat, disappeared from the rest of Australia in the 1950s but still kills two indigenous people every week.

Doctors who spend their lives helping Indigenous communities are urging a Yes vote because they know it’s our best chance to finally do something about rheumatic heart disease and so many other health problems.

They know this is our best chance to stop Indigenous people dying almost 10 years earlier than the rest of the country and committing suicide at twice the rate of non-Indigenous Australians.

They know it’s the right thing to do. And they know that the alternative will be more of the same, more early burials.

The same goes for the Salvos.

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore was right when he said of the proposal:

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore was right when he said of the proposal: “There’s nothing that I find problematic… it’s not like indigenous Australians are suddenly going to have all these additional rights.”

With more outlets in Australia than McDonald’s, the Salvos spend their lives helping Australia’s most disadvantaged people, and a very disproportionate number of them are indigenous.

They know the problems, they see them every day, which is why they and other big charities like Vinnies and Anglicare believe that a Yes vote will lead to better policies, better laws and better living standards for the most disadvantaged group in the country.

Amid all the noise surrounding this referendum, it may be difficult to keep the issues clear.

But when you vote, it’s worth remembering a couple of things.

Recognizing indigenous peoples in the constitution with a voice is what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have asked for. There is overwhelming support from indigenous Australians for this.

This is a special and unifying opportunity to recognize Indigenous people as the first Australians in the Constitution – it is what Indigenous people have asked for.

Salvos spend their lives helping Australia's most disadvantaged people, and a very disproportionate number of them are indigenous.

Salvos spend their lives helping Australia’s most disadvantaged people, and a very disproportionate number of them are indigenous.

The Voice will be created by the government of the day and governments can change its composition and the way it operates in precisely the same way they can change all other laws.

La Voz will be an advisory body so that indigenous peoples can have a say in the development of policies that affect them. It will be up to the government of the day to accept or reject that advice.

And as you know from your own life experience, when you listen to the people who will be affected by new policies, you will get better policies.

The body, which will be called Voice, will focus on improving the living standards of indigenous communities in terms of health, education, housing and employment.

You may not have heard much about the referendum until recently, but work on this issue has been going on for 15 years under seven different prime ministers.

It has been a long wait for indigenous recognition and now is the time to say yes.

Saying no, doing nothing, will condemn Indigenous Australians to another generation where nothing will change.

It’s no wonder so many great Australian organisations, and the great Australians who support them, say yes.

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