Referendum pre-polling opens in NSW
Abhranil Hazra from the Daily Advertiser speaks to early voters and campaigners for the voice to parliament referendum.
Transcript
00:00 My name is Aubrey L'Hardtra and I'm from The Daily Advertiser.
00:02 Right here in Wagga, we're going to be asking what people are voting for and why.
00:07 We've already got the Aboriginal community in Parliament and I feel like they're involved
00:12 enough.
00:13 You know, like we've got enough people there, it's not like they're being completely said
00:17 no.
00:18 If we add them to it, if there's too many of them, that could shake the country a bit
00:22 too much for other people's lives, you know.
00:25 If we're making policy about a certain group of people, they should have the opportunity
00:28 to influence that policy themselves.
00:31 Like it's one of the great things about Australian democracy, and you can actually get to look
00:36 at information from two different parties and say, "What do you want to do?"
00:40 And this one's really clear.
00:42 Do we want to progress as a country?
00:44 Or do we want to stay with a broken system?
00:45 I've never really been politically aware and didn't really care much for it until I started
00:55 to read about the fact that the Australian Aboriginals have never treated with the government
01:04 of the day, even at the very beginning.
01:07 They never treated.
01:08 So that means that they're still sovereign of the land.
01:11 I'm hoping that the no campaign will win.
01:14 I'm praying that the no campaign will win for the reasons that I'm standing with, and
01:18 that I'll participate.
01:21 If the yes campaign gets up, well, you know, I've got my popcorn and I'm a real enemy,
01:27 and I will watch to see what actually happens.
01:30 I really hope that the poor people in my village will get the popcorn.
01:34 The no campaign has been making a lot of noise and telling an awful lot of untruths.
01:40 So that's got me very, very worried.
01:42 It seems to have attracted a lot of media attention and sort of grabbed the headlines,
01:48 when in fact it's a very simple proposition to recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
01:55 Islanders as the first peoples of this land by establishing an advisory committee to parliament.
02:03 And I think advisory committee should have been used before the word 'voice', and that
02:09 would have made things a lot clearer to people, I think.
02:12 Because this morning, handing out, some people have said to me, "What does the voice mean?"
02:17 And I said, "It's not that, it's parliament."
02:19 Oh!
02:20 [laughter]
02:21 [BLANK_AUDIO]