Supporters of an Indigenous voice to parliament need to unify Australians in cities and towns, religions and ethnicities, finding the same courage as Vincent Lingiari did, leading activist Thomas Mayor says.
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The Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander man believes the 2023 referendum on a voice will be successful but proponents need to stop listening to naysayers.
"We cannot aim low. We must not dampen our aspirations for change. We must work hard," he said as he delivered the Vincent Lingiari Memorial lecture.
"Naysayers have told us to lower our sights and dampen our aspirations for change because of some lazy speculation that the Australian people won't support real change for our mob.
"I believe this is a miserable caricature of who the Australian people are."
Mr Mayor followed in the footsteps of former prime ministers and Indigenous leaders before him, delivering the speech late on Friday.
But for the first time it was given on Gurindji country, where Mr Lingiari and 200 other Aboriginal workers and their families staged the Wave Hill Walk-off in 1966.
Their seven-year strike for better wages and conditions at Wave Hill station sparked the Indigenous land rights movement.
Mr Whitlam poured a handful of soil into Mr Lingiari's hand in 1975 when handing back a portion of Gurindji land to the traditional owners, immortalised in a famous photo.
Mr Mayor said the need for a voice as unfinished business which can be traced back to the walk-out.
"We must work hard, as Lingiari did," Mr Mayor said.
"We must have courage, as Lingiari did."
Mr Mayor hit back at suggestions the voice is merely woke symbolism and will not lead to meaningful change.
"We need a voice where our representatives are not chosen in preselection processes run by the Greens, Labor or the Coalition," Mr Mayor said.
"We want a voice with representatives who are chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who will be responsible for holding our representatives to account.
"We want the rule book - the constitution - to guarantee that what we say will be listened to, transparently and with due respect."
Mr Mayor, the National Indigenous Officer at the Maritime Union of Australia, is an author and long time advocate for an Indigenous voice to parliament.
For more than a year he travelled around Australia carrying the Uluru Statement from the Heart canvas, in an effort to gain grassroots support for the campaign.
Mr Mayor said from the golden grass of Gurindji country, to the red dirt of WA's Pilbara, to a BBQ in Marrickville, from remote communities to big cities he heard a loud and resonant yes to a voice to parliament in the early years of the campaign.
The lecture was delivered as part of the Gurindji Freedom Day Festival at Kalkarindji, 460km south-west of Katherine.
Australian Associated Press
