Croakey is closed for summer holidays and will resume publishing in the week of 15 January 2024. In the meantime, we are re-publishing some of our top articles from 2023.
This article was first published on Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Introduction by Croakey: Scott Willis is a proud Palawa man from Burnie, who has lived and worked in northern lutruwita/Tasmania for more than 30 years. He is the first Indigenous National President of the Australian Physiotherapy Association and a former Clinical Council Member of Primary Health Tasmania.
Last night he participated in a #CroakeyLIVE webinar discussing the health implications of a constitutionally enshrined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. Below Willis explains why he will be talking about the reasons for his ‘Yes’ vote, right up until referendum day.
Scott Willis writes:
On 14 October, I will drive to my local polling station in northern Tasmania and vote ‘Yes’ to a proposed law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
I will vote with confidence in the knowledge that self-determination and cultural safety are determinants of health, and that a Voice, Truth and Treaties, will move this nation toward closing the gap and reconciliation.
I know this as a health practitioner, I know it as Palawa, and I know it as someone who has dug deep and waded through many other people’s opinions and arguments to form my own, very personal view.
Every day, in my clinic, I experience racism.
I often hear that ‘Indigenous people get everything for free and just want more and more’, or ‘we don’t want to work, and our priorities are not worthy of any more funding or power, as they will inevitably be abused’.
Most times, I change the subject. When you hear it constantly, you get worn down and so does your ability to fight back.
The barriers and prejudices that divide us, the inequities they lead to, will not stop on October 14. We will not wake up the next day and find that the one in three First Nations people who don’t access healthcare when they need to because of discrimination, suddenly trust the health system.
Recognition, consultation and the building of respectful dialogue and trust is how we get to better health outcomes for First Nations people in Australia. It’s the right direction, and we know it. If we don’t, we haven’t been listening.
Valuable lessons
In 2017, the same year the Uluru Statement from the Heart was generously gifted to the Government, the Government released, ‘My life my lead – opportunities for strengthening approaches to the social determinants and cultural determinants of Indigenous health.’
Four main themes emerged from the consultations:
- Culture is central to the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and needs to be an integral part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and mainstream services.
- Racism within health and other systems must be addressed to remove barriers and achieve better outcomes in health, education, and employment.
- The effects of trauma across generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must be acknowledged and addressed.
- Governments need to support long-term, coordinated, placed-based approaches that honour community priorities and embed participation.
This report is valuable. There have been many reports. What has been lacking is real movement toward what Noel Pearson calls ‘a more complete Commonwealth’.
Australia is a representative democracy; First Nations people comprise three per cent of the Australian population, as well as being its first custodians and the oldest continuous culture on earth.
In 1967, the referendum meant we were counted. In 2023, it is about being heard. It’s not just in the mechanism of the Voice, but through the act of respecting the extensive consultation and dialogues that came to the consensus of what ‘meaningful constitutional recognition’ is.
It enables First Nations representatives to weigh in on decisions that affect us, in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This body can give frank and fearless feedback, because it is constitutionally enshrined and not at the whim and pleasure of the government of the day.
Non-First Nations peoples don’t all agree on issues of social and health injustices or their remedies; neither do First Nations. The difference between first and second peoples is a voice to express that view.
A body that is representative of all First Nations people, such as that set out in the Final Report of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process, facilitated and secured through this referendum, would ensure that the right information gets to policy makers, rather than policy makers picking who they want to listen to because it suits the government’s agenda.
A fundamental principle
I have spent my career in health. I was the first of my family to attend university despite being told by teachers that I should aim lower because of who I am and where I come from.
As National President of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, I am proud that we work towards removing the barriers to Indigenous students becoming physiotherapists, partner to deliver cultural safety training and have an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Panel, which strengthens and enriches our decision making. Decisions made about us should not be made without us.
As a physio, I know if you don’t involve the patient in the evaluation, clinical reasoning, management planning and timelines, then patient outcomes suffer.
We see this principle on a larger scale with the projected devastating impact of COVID-19 on First Nations Australians and the death-defying, world-leading outcomes that eventuated because of First Nations’ designed and implemented COVID-19 emergency response plans.
I am hopeful about this next chapter in our nation’s history and the impact this foundational step will have for First Nations’ and the population as a whole.
In discussion with peers around this referendum, I find myself repeating, what is good for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is always good for all Australians.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart offers Australia a gift.
“We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. “
I will vote ‘Yes’ on October 14. Vote ‘No’, if that is the considered decision you have come to; it is your right to be heard and contribute to national decision-making. Don’t vote ‘No’ because you don’t know.
First Nations peoples have been so resilient over the past 65,000 years; I am not sure how much more we can take.
But, until I get in back into my car on October 14, democracy sausage in hand, I want to talk and share, listen and learn, and I don’t want to change the subject.
Previous Croakey articles by Scott Willis
- Building a collective wish list for health reform
- Speaking from personal experience, this physiotherapist urges better care for Long COVID
See Croakey’s portal on the Voice, providing a platform for health voices
