Former federal member of parliament and ultra-marathon runner, Pat Farmer, stopped by the Wimmera Mail-Times on Wednesday, September 13, to chat with Sheryl Lowe about Australia’s ‘Voice’ referendum.
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00:00 Well, I started on the 17th of April and the reason why I'm running is because I have the
00:06 ability to be able to get the word out to people on specific issues.
00:12 I've done this all my life, I've raced all over the world, raising money for clean water
00:17 projects, clean sanitary conditions, Lifeline, Diabetes Australia, girls education, all sorts
00:24 of different things.
00:26 So the reason why I'm doing this is because I feel absolutely passionate about the voice.
00:32 This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to be able to vote and move forward together
00:38 as one nation, one group of people together.
00:41 And also I see this as an opportunity for us to be able to finally address some of the
00:46 problems of the past and to work towards solutions together.
00:52 And those solutions being pushed from the ground up, that's the whole idea of voice.
00:57 Instead of Canberra pushing decisions on Indigenous communities around Australia, the questions
01:05 will come from the communities and go through to Canberra and then hopefully we'll end up
01:10 with better policy.
01:12 We talk about the Constitution and about changes to the Constitution.
01:16 Can you explain what that really means?
01:19 It's pretty simple.
01:20 The Constitution is basically our book of rules and it was set up and only the Australian
01:27 people, the vote of the Australian people on the whole can change it.
01:32 And that's why it's so significant with the voice to be able to have it put into the Constitution
01:36 because we've had things like ATSIC in the past and we've had all sorts of Indigenous
01:41 representative groups in the past but when you get a change of government they say, "Oh,
01:48 the other government put this in so we're going to wipe it.
01:50 We're going to get rid of it and we're going to cancel it."
01:52 And so if it's part of the Constitution they can't cancel it.
01:56 And the best way for me to explain that is so many people know what it's like when one
02:01 government's in place and they're going to build a road or a railway line, they get started
02:05 on it, they do the feasibility studies, they spend millions of dollars on all those sorts
02:10 of things and they get down the track a little way with it.
02:14 The election comes along, they get voted out and another government comes in and they say,
02:18 "Okay, we're not going to build that road, we're not going to build that rail system
02:21 any longer, we're going to do a hospital or a footy field or something else instead."
02:26 So when it's explained to people like that they understand the practicalities of it all
02:31 and the fact that governments change, they undoubtedly change all the time and when they
02:36 change so do the decisions.
02:39 And certain decisions like this that actually affect the Australian people should not be
02:45 in the hands of the politicians to just change at a whim like that.
02:49 [ Silence ]