OCTOBER this year saw both the 12-month anniversary of the failed ‘Voice’ referendum held on October 14, 2023 and the four-yearly Merri-bek City Councilelections.
Referendum results in the municipality’s 35 voting booths showed that the same communities that elect Merri-bek councillors also contributed to the federal electorate of Wills returning one of the highest Yes votes in Australia.
Consequently community network Merri-bek Residents for Reconciliation Action (MRRA) surveyed all candidates prior to the 2024 local government elections to gauge their support for the council’s 2021 Statement of Commitment to First Nations People and the role of the First Nations Advisory Committee.
MRRA was formed in 2022 and is an informal network of diverse Merri-bek people united in the view that councils, as democracies closest to the people, are important in changing our understanding and connection to the issues important to First Nations people and to the nation.
The MRRA candidate survey returned an overwhelmingly positive response and was distributed to voters via networks.
Brunswick Voice attributed the high referendum Yes vote in Brunswick to ‘the area’s tradition of progressive politics and a highly organised grassroots campaign’. In that article Wills voters were reported as national leaders in their support for the Voice whereas the mainstream media disparaged the same voters as ’white well-off inner-city intellectuals’ disconnected from the issues of ordinary Australians. This was part of the political commentary that focused on electorate tallies and led many to conclude that the No vote was so emphatic that it closed the gate for progressing the package of Voice, Treaty and Truth. It encouraged Australians to vanish the Voice to ’back of mind’ and move on with their daily lives.
In fact, a close look at polling place results in regional, rural and majority Aboriginal communities show that a significant number were similar to Merri-bek booths in that they returned a strong Yes vote. It was their electorates that produced a majority No. These hyperlocal results were not recognised in most media reporting.
Instead of retreating from the referendum results we need to understand and appreciate the importance of interactions within and between local communities, rather than entire electorates of 120,000 random individuals.
When bipartisan support for the Voice disappeared, it doomed the referendum to failure. The positive story is that it also stimulated a nationwide movement of non-Indigenous Australians seeking justice for First Nations people.
As identified by Brunswick Voice, this grassroots movement was shown at its strongest in Merri-bek.
As a result of colonisation, First Nations people are only 1% of the population in Victoria. They need Victoria’s 46% of Yes voters alongside them in their struggle for self-determination through the pursuit of Truth and Treaty. None of this requires a Voice in the Constitution but it does need the local support that Merri-bek residents demonstrated in 2023.
The council election has now been officially declared, after which the MRRA looks forward to working positively with all councillors to continue acting on Merri-bek’s 2021 Statement of Commitment to advancing Reconciliation.
Rodney Spark is a Brunswick resident and co-founder of Merri-bek Residents for Reconciliation Action.
Read more:
More than 80% of Brunswick voters support the Voice to Parliament.
More than 80% of Brunswick voters support the Voice to Parliament.