Tuesday12 September 2023

Why I am voting “yes” in the referendum: Barry Kuskopf

Justice & Advocacy

“Indigenous peoples have ancient cultures and ancient wisdom to share, including solutions from the grassroots to address the inter-generational impacts of children being stolen from their families. I am convinced that the Voice to Parliament will allow these solutions to be communicated in an effective way to enable healing,” says Barry Kuskopf from Christ Church, St Lucia

Barry Kuskopf

Tuesday 12 September 2023

Tuesday 12 September 2023

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For the nine years I went to primary school there was a display of Aboriginal artefacts on an outside veranda classroom wall, including woomeras, shields, spears and boomerangs. Nobody ever talked to us about the display and we never had a local Aboriginal person come and explain the artefacts to us.

The only time at school that I encountered any Aboriginal culture or history was in a reading book about an explorer who had a faithful Aboriginal tracker.

I was also completely unaware during the first 19 years of my marriage that Aboriginal children were being stolen from their families because of Government assimilation policies. It was much later after I found out about this that I then learned the Church was complicit in this stealing of children.

I look back now and think that this whole experience is a metaphor for how Australia viewed our Indigenous peoples — they were virtually non-existent and their Voices excluded.

The forthcoming referendum is our chance to finally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution as the First Peoples of Australia.

If we are going to be a forward thinking nation, we need to have stability, which means that we need to be compassionate, have faith in each other and constitutionally recognise that people walked these lands before Europeans arrived.

Indigenous peoples have ancient cultures and ancient wisdom to share, including solutions from the grassroots to address the inter-generational impacts of children being stolen from their families. I am convinced that the Voice to Parliament will allow these solutions to be communicated in an effective way to enable healing.

The Uluru Statement From the Heart says, “We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.” In 1967 we were invited to walk with Indigenous peoples and the successful referendum united the country.

I am voting “yes” again this year because I still have faith in our shared future.

Editor’s note: This anglican focus feature, written by The Ven. Geoff Hoyte, The Rev’d Michael Stalley and The Rev’d Rick Gummow, provides a timeline showing how the ACSQ came to its position on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution through a Voice to Parliament.