Anthony Albanese’s Garma speech: A word is missing from Prime Minister’s keynote address at annual Indigenous cultural festival

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered his long-awaited keynote address at the annual Garma Festival, but has significantly avoided any mention of one word: treaty.

The prime minister was in the remote northeast of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory on Saturday for the Garma festival, the country’s largest indigenous gathering.

Mr Albanese, who struggled to contain his emotions on several occasions during the impassioned speech, used it as a call for Australians to vote yes in the referendum to enshrine an Indigenous vote in parliament.

He said the Voice referendum will be a choice between Australians withdrawing into themselves or having the courage to move forward.

Mr Albanese reiterated the Labor Party’s commitment to wholeheartedly support the Uluru statement, but declined to mention a treaty, which is part of the proposal.

The statement, drafted in 2017, calls for Voice, Treaty, Truth – a First Nations Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata Commission to oversee a process of making agreements and telling the truth.

“My government wholeheartedly supports the Uluru Declaration and its call for a voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in our Constitution, which will be the subject of the upcoming referendum, a vehicle for real and practical progress,” Mr Albanese said.

‘When you walk around this festival, you can see for yourself how much can be achieved when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are heard and empowered.’

Mr Albanese reiterated his pledge to hold the referendum this year despite calls for it to be postponed due to waning support for the ‘yes’ vote.

“There will be no postponement or postponement of this referendum,” he said.

“We will not deny the urgency of this moment. We will not trample the can on the road, we will not give up content for symbolism or retreat into platitudes at the expense of progress’.

The prime minister warned that voting ‘no’ in the upcoming referendum would mean ‘more of the same’.

“Just as we will continue to be clear about what voting yes will achieve, Australian people need to be equally clear about what voting no means. It’s more of the same. Not just rejecting the possibility of doing better, but accepting that what we have is somehow good enough,” he said.

Mr. Albanese invoked the spirit and vision of the late Yolngu elder Yunupingu to promote the “meeting of two worlds.”

He said that when he announced the referendum in Garma last year, he made a personal promise to Yunupingu.

“In Yunupingu’s words, the reason why a voice is needed in the constitution is to ensure that the content of the recognition has the stability to achieve lasting unity,” he said.

“Yes, we can make history, but more importantly, we can shape the future.

‘Vote yes in the spirit of unity, optimism and hope’.

Mr Albanese has supported the idea of ​​a treaty with Australia’s First Nations people for nearly four decades, but has in recent times pushed himself to distance himself from his long-held views.

In an interview on ABC Radio National on Wednesday, he was asked by journalist Patricia Karvelas if he supported a treaty.

“Look, what awaits the Australian people is a referendum on the vote, the first part of the Uluru statement from the heart,” Mr Albanese replied, without answering the question.

When Karvelas pressed him again, he said “no…because that’s what happens to the states,” before repeating his line about the upcoming referendum.

The ABC host tried again, asking, “Are you still committed to the Commonwealth’s negotiating treaties?”

But Mr Albanese did not answer the question.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton will not be attending the Garma festival, but senior Liberal Angus Taylor said the opposition leader had already visited Arnhem Land and Alice Springs twice, as well as a number of other communities.

“Here’s where you find out what’s really going on — in and between those communities,” Taylor said.

‘I don’t think a festival is the time to see the real problems at play.’

While it is an important occasion, Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley agreed that more than one festival was needed to address the issue.

“Reconciliation and Indigenous Policy is about more than one festival and one day,” she said.

Recent polls for The Voice show that support for the referendum has declined in recent months, but Mr Albanese said the trend did not worry him.

“We will not give up content for symbolism or retreat into platitudes at the expense of progress,” he said.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been clear. The form of constitutional recognition they seek is a voice.”

The referendum takes place between October and December to enshrine the vote in the constitution.