Australia's black, red and yellow Aboriginal flag (left) flies beside Australia's national flag over the Harbour Bridge in Sydney on July 11, 2022. (PHOTO / AFP)
SYDNEY – Two key Australian Indigenous leaders opposed to a proposal to constitutionally recognize the country's Aboriginal and Torres Island people joined forces on Thursday in an effort to strengthen their campaign ahead of a referendum later this year.
A group led by Warren Mundine, a former Labor Party national president who is Indigenous, and a group backed by shadow Indigenous Minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, will pool their resources together for the joint "No" campaign to be called "Australians for Unity".
"It makes sense to merge as it makes our message sharper and more crisp," Mundine told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"It also gives us a great chance to raise more funds and to focus our funds in right direction," he added.
Australians will be asked to vote, likely between October and December, if they want to change the constitution to include a "Voice to Parliament", a committee that can advise lawmakers on matters that affect the lives of Indigenous people
Australians will be asked to vote, likely between October and December, if they want to change the constitution to include a "Voice to Parliament", a committee that can advise lawmakers on matters that affect the lives of Indigenous people.
Making up about 3.2 percent of Australia's 26 million population, the Aboriginal people were marginalized by British colonial rulers and are not mentioned in the 122-year-old constitution.
While a majority of Indigenous people support the Voice, others, like Mundine and Price, argue it is a distraction from achieving practical and positive outcomes, and that it would not fully resolve the issues affecting them.
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Mundine said setting up an Indigenous body in parliament will only add another layer of bureaucracy.
"It's not going to fix some of the issues affecting the community. We need to deal with the underlying issues," he said.
A YouGov poll out last month showed 83 percent of Indigenous Australians would vote for the constitutional change. A wider poll by the Guardian newspaper found that 60 percent of Australians would support it.
Any constitutional amendment requires a national referendum.
To succeed, a referendum requires a majority of votes nationally, as well as a majority of votes in at least four of the six states.
The most recent one was in 1977.
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The conservative Liberal-National opposition coalition will oppose the national vote.