Senator Nova Peris Has Given A Brutal And Stirring Call To White Australia

Senator Nova Peris, Australia’s first female indigenous federal MP, has given an impassioned call-out for white Australia to take up the cause of Indigenous recognition in the constitution and to drag Indigenous issues from the margins into the national spotlight.

Speaking at the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land, Peris spoke passionately and candidly to a mostly-white audience about the need for white Australians to recognise the country’s long history of racial injustice, and work together with Indigenous people to shift the nation’s mindset. Footage of the speech was filmed by the ABC and placed online this morning.

“I have to refrain myself, at times, from saying the things I really want to say because of my political hat. So I’m going to take the political hat off for a moment”, Peris began.

Peris, whose mother was a member of the Stolen Generation, became a Senator in 2013 after being personally selected by then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard to head Labor’s ticket in the Northern Territory. Peris also appeared on an all-indigenous episode of Q&A last night which was held near the mining town of Nhulunbuy in a remote part of east Arnhem Land, as part of Garma.

“What we’re trying to do is get an entire country to recognise two percent of the population”, Peris said.

“White Australia think we get too much, but every single day we’re gonna need a helping hand because for too long we’ve been squashed from the earth we came from…Until we truly shift the mindset of white Australians and make you realise that everyone is here, you’ve all benefited from two hundred years of systemic injustices. This constitution is a whitefella rulebook.

“Within every single Aboriginal person is a spirit that needs to be awakened…We are the most resilient people on this planet, because we’re here. We’ve survived for that long…This movement can’t come from Aboriginal people who constantly don’t have a voice…This needs to come from whitefellas, because you need to realise that…Aboriginal people are prisoners in our own country. And until you realise that, we are literally just wasting our efforts.

“I don’t want to be an Aboriginal politician going out there…and begging whitefellas to recognise us. Because you’re killing us! You’re killing our spirit.

“Just because you know an Aboriginal person doesn’t mean you understand us, and I wake up and I don’t understand whitefellas at times. it’s a two-way street here, we can’t do this alone…We’ve been talking about this for decades and decades and decades, and it can’t fail. It simply can’t…If this about anything, it’s about Australia acknowledging and recognising the true history of this country.

“When we’ve got chronic disease, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, high incarceration, low education, literacy, numeracy — I could go on forever and ever. It can’t come from us, it’s gotta come from you, the non-Indigenous people who call this place home.”

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Feature image: ABC News.