AUSIT National Council Statement on the Voice referendum

The Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT) is the peak professional body for Australian translators and interpreters, and the author of the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct in place in this sector. Our membership includes practitioners who work with Indigenous languages.

As an association, AUSIT represents professionals whose work inherently entails assisting any members of Australia’s many culturally and linguistically diverse communities who are disempowered by a lack of proficiency in English. As such, AUSIT understands and respects the importance of providing mechanisms and processes that enable disempowered peoples to make their voices, both individually and collectively, heard.

The National Council of AUSIT therefore welcomes the aspirations and principles embodied in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and accepts the invitation in that Statement to walk together towards a better future for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and communities in this country.

The National Council acknowledges that the Uluru Statement’s call to enshrine an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution arises out of generations of personal and community struggle by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for justice and political recognition in Australia.

The National Council recognises that there are diverse views – among both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities, and non-Indigenous people and communities – about the current plans, based on the Uluru Statement, to constitutionally enshrine a Voice. However, the National Council also recognises that constitutional recognition, and processes for truth-telling and reconciliation, are long overdue.

The National Council of AUSIT therefore urges that all Australians voting in the forthcoming referendum do so with a commitment to redressing injustices, affording constitutional recognition, and bringing about much-needed beneficial change for the First Nations peoples of Australia.