The one issue that unifies both sides in remote Indigenous community

For generations in Cherbourg, only one voice ever mattered.

The white superintendent ruled the Aboriginal families in this Queensland reserve’s crowded dormitories. He decided who could see who and where they would be sent for someone else’s cheap labour.

Only in the 1970s was the dormitory system phased into extinction.

The descendants of people who were forcibly removed from their lands to be “protected” trickled into the Cherbourg hall on Saturday to vote on a new Voice to parliament.

Its purpose has divided community opinion and fanned disquiet in neighbouring majority-white towns.

Cherbourg, about 250 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, is a Labor-voting drop in a vast sea of Liberal National Party blue.

No one doubts that Murgon, a few minutes drive up the road, will fall heavily on the side of No. But Cherbourg, long troubled by disadvantage and dysfunction, is a more difficult study.

“You’re not necessarily going to get someone from your own mob,” says Cherbourg No voter Takani Warner, referring to who might ultimately be thrust into the proposed advisory body.

This – the notion of Indigenous individuals speaking for lands that are not their own – is a common concern in Cherbourg.

The community already has an elected Aboriginal council vouching for its needs. Mayor Elvie Sandow has been an outspoken supporter of No.

Despite the median age being 23, Warner, 27, was one of the few young people this masthead witnessed going into the voting booths over several hours on Saturday morning.

Many locals are disengaged. Some have taken their cues from social media. Others refuse to vote at all.

“I don’t want no part of it,” says one man who asked not to be identified. “Yes or No isn’t going to change anything. This is just to keep people quiet while they’re raping our land.”

From dozens of people canvassed at Cherbourg this week, the split between Yes and No appears to be about half and half.

Everyone recognises the community’s problems – the Australian Bureau of Statistics ranks it as the nation’s second-most disadvantaged local government area – but disagree about a Voice’s effectiveness.

A unifying view is that governments should listen harder to the advocacy already in place.

“Our mob has not been able to have a voice – and even if they do, they’re ignored,” says Max Conlon, a Cherbourg Baptist minister and proud Yes voter.

“You can categorise our [No voting] mob – you’ve got the views of Lidia Thorpe and Warren Mundine. [Those two] don’t need a Voice. They’re able to be successful on their own, and I admire them, but they can’t take away the Voice from others.”

In both Cherbourg and the mainstream community of Murgon, people say the politics, mistruths and oftentimes nastiness of the debate have drawn out simmering racial tensions.

According to one source, the local LNP leadership decided not to send No volunteers to either polling booth on Saturday for this reason.

At Murgon, a booth that last year went for the LNP’s Llew O’Brien by more than 40 percentage points, Norma Davis and Tina Phillips were trying their best to hand out Yes pamphlets.

“We’ve just come from the pre-polls at Kingaroy, and some of the comments,” Davis says.

“It’s a competition at the moment to see who can say the stupidest thing.”

Davis says at the moment, that honour remains with a woman who believed she was going to be forced to change her Christian name to an Aboriginal name.“She wondered why I laughed at her.”

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