Teela Reid, a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, lawyer and human rights activist who challenged then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his dismissive attitude towards a referendum on the Voice to Parliament on Q&A in December last year, writes in The Guardian. She says there’s no point pushing a republic that ignores First Nations peoples and that changing the Queen to an Australian Head of State only serves to fulfil an elitist (ie ‘minimalist’) agenda. Read her article on the link below [“An Australian Republic without a First Nations Voice is just tokenism”]. Teela was responding to an announcement by Labor to put $160m aside for a plebiscite on the Republic in its first term if elected in 2019. The next day, Lorena Allam, Indigenous Affairs editor for The Guardian, reported another Uluru Statement campaigner, Thomas Mayor, as saying that he would campaign against the republic if it is put ahead of Indigenous recognition in the constitutional voting queue. This is hotting up. It is not good enough for the ARM to say that the two issues are separate. They are fast on a collision course to deal with the elephant in the room: a reconciled Republic as the foundation of the modern Australian nation and new constitution. [“Labor’s republic plan described as ‘a slap in the face’ for Indigenous Australians” by Lorena Allam, The Guardian online, 15 November 2018]
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
