Stan Yarramunua Dryden: Indigenous man tells Sam Newman why he wants Voice referendum not to happen
An Indigenous artist says the Voice referendum is divisive in Australia.
Stan Yarramunua Dryden, a world-renowned indigenous artist and businessman, said he felt the Voice was being pushed by “social elites” out of touch with reality.
“All these people who are probably pushing Voice and everything else to keep their jobs and their own immediate families,” he told Sam Newman and Don Scott’s You Cannot Be Serious podcast.
“They don’t think about the people living in tin shacks in Alice Springs, Darwin and Broome.”
He added: “People have gotten into this, people with agendas, it’s a cottage industry of division and people are happy if they can create division because it gives them a sense of power and It gives them a source of income.”
Stan Yarramunua Dryden (pictured, left), a world-renowned Indigenous artist and businessman, told Sam Newman (pictured, right) and Don Scott’s You Cannot Be Serious podcast that he felt the Voice was pushed by out-of-touch “social elites.” ‘
Mr Dryden shared a racist encounter he recently experienced at his gallery in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, to illustrate his argument that The Voice was bringing out old divisions.
“It raises a lot of things in this Voice, it raises a lot of issues,” Mr. Dryden said.
“I had a 45-year-old guy and he stood outside my door with his dog and stuck his head in the door and said, ‘Are you an Abo?’ …and I say, ‘oh mate, I don’t think you should say that’ and he goes, ‘oh, you know what I mean, they’re all a bunch of losers and bums,’ said M .Dryden.
“And that’s what ignites: it causes racism.”
Mr Dryden urged all Australians to come together and “get over it”
Mr Dryden, who came from a very poor background with an alcoholic father before earning millions as an artist, said people should “get over it”.
‘I am Australian. Everything we talk about as Australians anyway, there’s something bigger than all of us,” he told the podcast.
“We should all start getting over it, because I think everyone is equal.”
Last week, Newman, 77, explosively called for footy fans to boo the welcome to country ceremony during the Grand Final this weekend.
There have since been calls for the broadcaster and former player to be kicked out of the AFL Hall of Fame.
