The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) says YES to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Sovereignty was never ceded and the Voice will promote First Peoples’ sovereignty. A Voice will help lead to Treaty. Truth telling has begun, but we have a long way to go as a colonial country.
AFSA has embraced listening as an act of solidarity with First Peoples, and until now chose not to publicly take a position on the referendum while we listened and promoted First Peoples’ voices.
Nothing about us without us is a foundational position of our movements, and the Voice will enshrine that right for First Peoples.
In recent months, we have become increasingly concerned with misinformation spruiked by far-right figures often funded by corporate and racist agendas encouraging people to vote No.
AFSA’s First Nations members are overwhelmingly in favour of the Voice to Parliament, and AFSA is its members. Food sovereignty and agroecology emphasise the importance of Indigenous Peoples and small-scale farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and farm workers having an active say in decisions which may have a material, cultural, or spiritual impact on their lives and livelihoods. We respect First Peoples’ right to vote Yes or No in the context of ongoing colonisation and mistrust and rejection of the machinery of the colonial state.
No matter the outcome of the referendum, we will continue the work to decolonise our food and agriculture systems and support the self-determination and sovereignty of First Peoples who have been living in mutual obligations with Country for over 60,000 years.
