Thank you to everyone who has already contributed to this year’s Fighting Fund. The success of this appeal will mean we can keep up our vital work of forming Australians for the future and the Common Good of our fair land. We have done this work and we will continue to do so for many decades to come, God willing. The official Fighting Fund appeal will be posted out to our supporters this week – we appreciate your support.
After the isolation of the lockdown years, The Movement has refocused on running in-person events. These events allow us to bring our community back together, to share our experiences, and to consider the big issues facing our country and our society.
NCC Events
Patrick Byrne, my immediate predecessor in this role and now a member of our key Senior Advisory Council, spoke recently at two dinners in Queensland. The first was held in Australia’s largest inland city of Toowoomba on July 25. This was followed the next day by a dinner on the Gold Coast.
Good crowds were met on both occasions, with audiences keen to hear about the threats to the freedom of faith-based schools, Australian defence preparedness, and Labor’s proposal on the Voice. Guests were keen to hear more, get involved, and give in support of our work.
As one guest put it: “I want to make a difference to this country after it’s been trashed by incompetents with no loyalty to its citizens.”
Also in Queensland, we were honoured to have Paul Santamaria KC as guest speaker for our Brisbane dinner on August 3, speaking on the Voice. The dinner sold out, showing how keen people are to get involved in their democracy in an informed and respectful way.
This leads us to the over 350-person strong event the NCC held in Albury-Wodonga. Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO spoke on “Will the Voice Work?” and joined a panel with NCC Victorian president Tony O’Brien and Patrick Byrne to discuss the ins and outs of this contentious proposal from the perspective and lived experience of Australia’s Indigenous communities.
This event also led to the NCC gaining national mainstream media coverage as a supporter of the “Yes” campaign attempted to tar us as an “extreme” group. This absurd attack, while seemingly aimed at the NCC, was really an ad hominem swipe at our speaker, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, being an attempt to smear him by association. This is because Mundine has been an effective and credible “voice” for the “No” campaign, as the crowd’s response to his words at Albury-Wodonga demonstrated (see pages 15-19 in this issue).
Using Our Voice
For our own part, the fact is that The Movement has been at the forefront of civil-rights legislation in this country. We opposed the “White Australia Policy” before any other group did, and our friends in the Democratic Labour Party were the first political party to call for the end of this racist and anti-democratic policy. We also advocated in favour of Indigenous rights in the 1967 Referendum for similar reasons. We have further criticised the indiscriminate removal of Aboriginal children from their homes and cultures. It is worth adding, incidentally, that Nyunggai Warren’s father was an admirer of B.A. Santamaria, The Movement’s founder.
We are proud that our Movement is a Movement for all Australians regardless of their history, ethnicity, or political affiliation. We believe in democracy and the dignity of the human person and we have upheld these principles throughout our history.
The work of continually building a better world is work we are all involved in. This work requires respect and decency and the free exchange of ideas. Please help us continue this work.
