Prominent Indigenous Voice campaigner Thomas Mayo delivered a fiery speech to construction workers explaining why a yes vote would be the best thing for Australia.
Mayo, along with Aunt Violet Sheriden and MP Rachel Stephen-Smith, spoke to workers at the Canberra Hospital expansion site on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Construction, Forestry, and Forestry Union. Navy, Mines and Energy (CFMEU).
The former Darwin Port Authority crane operator has union experience, becoming deputy national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) before contributing to the creation of the Uluru Declaration of the Heart in 2017.
“If we didn’t have a voice, we would be exploited, ignored and degraded,” Mayo told the crowd.
“We would not be able to promote our interests and get better pay and conditions,” he said.
“We’d be screwed, wouldn’t we?” If you don’t have a voice, you’re screwed.
“That’s what we’re trying to do as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is to establish a voice where we can speak with some unity and coherence and influence the decisions that are made about us and achieve progress.” It’s as simple as that.
“These same assholes who hate workers went out there and spread misinformation and lies (about The Voice),” Mayo added.
“This is the best thing we can do for this country, to vote yes,” he said, directing the crowd toward the Yes23 website.
Mayo was born in the Larrakia region of Darwin and grew up learning to hunt for food with his father and island dance within the local Torres Strait Islander community of which he was a member.
Speaking at the Judicial College of Victoria earlier this year, Mayo said he was a “really quiet guy” who “never expected to do what I do”.
He said he was motivated by a “dislike of injustice” and had learned most of what he knew “about solidarity and collective action” during his nearly two decades on the dock.
“My mother and father were not involved in politics in any way,” he said. “My dad is the type who just wants to move on and say why we’re complaining.”
“It was older docks (that inspired me). I learned a lot from these union veterans.
Thomas Mayo is a former ‘wharf’ turned assistant union secretary and indigenous rights campaigner who contributed to the Uluru Statement from the heart.
Mayo told the crowd Wednesday that First Nations people could be “screwed” without the voice of Parliament.
Mayo argues that a voice in Parliament would strengthen national democracy and strengthen our social standing among the rest of the world.
Despite criticism from the right, Mayo said Aboriginal Australia “is not being heard at the moment… it’s not a priority because we don’t have any democratic traction.”
He argued that gaps in life expectancy and higher incarceration rates further prove his point.
“To me, that means justice,” he said. “It means recognizing what should have been recognized from the beginning, when Cook arrived.”
He helped create the Uluru Declaration from the heart, saying his people have “always put forward proposals to have political representation – a voice, essentially”.
“We worked hard. All this search for consensus, these debates, these passionate discussions to find compromises between us. The nature of consensus is never to get everything everyone wants.
In November 2022, Mayo called journalist Kerry O’Brien to ask if he would be interested in collaborating on her next book.
The recently published book is said to be a “guide” to Voice in Parliament, designed to answer questions from the general public and filter out unnecessary political infighting.
O’Brien told the SWF audience that he had never done anything like this, but it didn’t take him long to agree.
He said there was no doubt that much of the Australian public wanted to see the referendum succeed.
If not, he says, “it will be about confusion and fear – which is the whole strategy.”
“How obscene that some people would descend to the lowest of the lowest to claim that indigenous peoples will use their voices to feather their nest,” he said.
“Look at the character of the people having these conversations to determine who is telling the truth and who is not…who do you believe?
In March, Mayo stood alongside a tearful Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as the official wording of the referendum question was announced in March.
His career began as a humble ‘dockman’, first as a marine trainee at the Darwin Port Authority, followed by 14 years as a crane operator before working for the maritime union.
Uluru Youth Dialogue co-chair Bridget Cama on Wednesday drew parallels between First Nations people and other rural Australians who feel their voices are ignored by urban politicians.
“What we want to do is live in the country to raise our families and contribute to the solutions,” Ms Cama said at the Regional Australia Institute national summit in Canberra on Wednesday.
“We want to build our cities and communities in partnership with all Australians.
“In many ways our concerns that led to the proposed voice are the same as those of some regional Australians.”
Ms Cama said many Indigenous people were calling on Australians to support the voice on behalf of the next generation, in the same way that regional communities were pushing for better health, education and opportunities.
“What we want is a better quality of life for the masses in regional and remote areas of Australia,” she said.
“We want our children and young people to see a future for themselves, where they live in community. Indigenous people don’t want to have to move to Canberra or a big city to make their voices heard.
Former shadow attorney general Julian Leeser, who resigned from his post to support the vote and oppose the Liberals’ ‘no’ vote, used a speech in Parliament to highlight the economic opportunity of closing the gap.
He attacked the argument that politicians should not focus on Indigenous reconciliation during a cost of living crisis, suggesting that voice would directly ease pressure on the budget.
“This is an opportunity to ensure better use of taxpayers’ money spent on indigenous affairs, where we have too little to show for all our efforts,” he told parliament on Wednesday.
“I want to invite all Australians to look up and, despite their own challenges, see the gap that is not being closed.”
Australians will vote on October 14, with recent polls showing support for the Yes side is declining.
Mr Leeser said he was “concerned as a liberal” that Indigenous Australians were not being given the chance to share in the nation’s opportunities.
He highlighted that almost one in two Indigenous Australians were living on the poverty line, with an Indigenous employment rate of 49 per cent, compared to 75 per cent among non-Indigenous Australians.
“These are the opportunities that come from growing up in a peaceful, secure home, where the taps work, there is food in the kitchen, and there is no alcohol abuse or violence,” she said. he declared.
“To be able to concentrate at school because you have good hearing and good eyesight, and you’re not hungry and you’re not sleepy because you were on the street because home didn’t feel safe.”
Continuing his latest scathing attack on his party’s position, Mr Leeser said the idea that the vote was dividing the country in two was irrelevant.
“The voice is not about special treatment or privileges, it’s just about trying to get Indigenous Australians to the same starting line as other Australians,” he said.
The referendum will take place on October 14.
