While studying Australian Poetry at Uni
I came across Aboriginal Australian author
Kevin Gilbert. I was impressed with his
writing and included him in an anthology
I compiled on anti- war poetry.

Anyhow now years later - I've come across
a poem of his that I think is apt to this
discussion. Here it is:

"Australia oh Australia
You could stand proud and free
We weep in bitter anguish
At your hate and tyranny

The scarred black bodies writhing
Humanity locked in chains
Land theft and racial murder
You boast on of your gains

In woodchip and uranium
The anguished death you spread
Will leave the children of the land
A heritage that's dead

Australia oh Australia
You could stand proud and free
We weep in bitter anguish
At your hate and tyranny."

Australia now has a chance to make things right.
Why does it persist in continuing to fight?

It was Benny Goodman talking about music, who said:

"It takes the black keys and the white keys both,
to make perfect harmony.

To be one nation - we need each other.

Hi Foxy,

Thanks for your sane input to this thread, its up to 60 plus pages and the vitriol and hateful bile still continues from the Usual Suspects advocating for a 'NO' vote.

One of the undesired consequences, should there be a resounding 'No' vote, will be the political fall-out across the Pacific. Since coming to government Albanese and Wong has been working hard to repair relationships in the Pacific. The Noalition in government treated our Pacific neighbours with a contemptible, patronising attitude, privately believing them to be "unintelligent coconuts". A resounding 'NO' vote and China will have a field day.

BTW; My Fijian "family", a couple have been asking me "Why do Australians hate the black people so much?" They are getting that message from the news in Fiji about what's going on with The Voice in Australia. I tell them the vast majority of white people here, don't hate our black brothers and sisters, but it will be hard to convince them otherwise if we give 'The Voice' a big NO! NO!

Was Kevin Gilbert an aboriginal or a distressed English individual?
Kevin John Gilbert (1933–1993), First Nations human rights defender, poet, playwright, and artist, was born on 10 July 1933 to the Wiradjuri Nation on the banks of the Kalara (Lachlan) river near Condobolin, New South Wales, youngest of eight children of New South Wales-born parents John Joseph Gilbert, labourer, and his wife Rachel Elizabeth, née Naden. His father’s ancestry was English and Irish, and his mother was of Aboriginal and Irish descent.
ONE QUARTER ABORIGINAL - He should feel disposessed of the land- he is of English / Irish heritage.

So, we now must impress the Fijians with a Yes Vote. Look at how they treated the Indian population, fitting example.

http://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/gilbert-kevin-john-18569
Quote,"When he was seven his father killed his mother then himself; he and his siblings then moved between relatives and the child welfare system. He ended up in an orphanage where, after several attempts, he escaped and lived once more with extended family at the Murie camp, Condobolin. With them he travelled within the Wiradjuri Nation in central New South Wales as they made their living as fruit-pickers and bush-workers. For a time, he was a station manager on local landholdings. On 12 June 1954 he married Goma Scott, a domestic, at the Condobolin Court House.

In 1957, aged twenty-four, Gilbert was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his first wife. He spent fourteen years in the most notorious prisons in New South Wales. By his own testimony this was a brutal and dehumanising experience with extended periods in solitary confinement. With little formal education, up to fifth class, he spent much of his time in prison educating himself on a wide range of subjects and read dictionaries from cover to cover."

This was Kevin Gilbert.

This is Kevin Gilbert:

http://austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A33538