Australian music legend John Farnham has given permission for his iconic song “You’re the Voice”, Australia’s “unofficial anthem”, to be used for the Voice to Parliament “Yes” campaign.
Farnham and his management team have “fiercely protected” the song since its release in 1986. It is understood this is the first time Farnham has allowed the song to be used for a commercial.
In a statement, Farnham expressed his solidarity with Australia’s First Nations peoples by granting permission for the Uluru Statement From the Heart to use the song in its latest advertising campaign.
“This song changed my life,” Farnham said.
“I can only hope that now it might help, in some small way, to change the lives of our First Nations Peoples for the better.”
On Sunday night, Australian singer-song writer Mitch Tambo stepped in for Farnham, who is currently recovering from cancer, to launch the song for the Yes campaign. Tambo performed a bilingual version of You’re The Voice, in Gamilaraay and in English.
Cobble Cobble woman and co-chair of the Uluru Statement From The Heart Professor Megan Davis said the song has an “empowering message” for all Australians.
Since the Uluru Statement was released in 2017, the number one question she is asked has been: “Have you thought of Johnny Farnham and ‘You’re The Voice’?”
“I was in primary school when it was released and, as a young girl, instantaneously felt the power of its message about the agency and walking together,” she said.
“History isn’t just something we witness and observe, but something we ourselves can influence. And now we all have a voice in what happens at this critical moment, and we must use it.”
The advertisement with Farnham’s hit song features an Australian family watching a range of watershed moments in Australia’s political history play out on television, including the 1967 referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Census as citizens of Australia.
Other moments include Bob Hawke’s government handing Uluru back to traditional owners in 1985, Cathy Freeman’s 2000 OIympic gold medal, Kevin Rudd’s apology speech in 2008 and the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite, among others.
Professor Daivs said throughout all these moments, although there are “fears for the worst”, Australia has come together and been on the right side of history.
“Throughout Australia’s history, we as a nation have debated and discussed major change on the grounds of fear and uncertainty,” she said.
“But time and time again, history has proven those fears were unfounded and we believe it will be the same with the Voice.”
John Farnham is the latest Australian music legend to stand with the Yes campaign. Last week, Paul Kelly released a new single called ‘If Not Now’ in support of the Voice referendum and the “reckoning that’s due”.
“If not now, then when? If not us, then who?” he sings.
Later lyrics of the song read: “It’s a simple proposition to join the new and old/A change to make our country larger in its soul/It’s an invitation to set our course anew.”
Leader of the opposition Peter Dutton, who has sided with the No campaign against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, said there is “irony” of using You’re the Voice in the Yes campaign.
“In a sense, it’s the appropriate theme song for the Yes campaign, because remember that the key line in the lyrics there is, you know, ‘you’re the voice, try to understand it,’” he told Sky News on Sunday.
“I honestly don’t think most Australians understand it. And they want to be informed.”
Shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash told Channel 9 on Monday morning Dutton was “dead right” to highlight “the irony”.
“People want the details… so you try and understand this Voice, but guess what – you can’t,” she said.
The Indigenous Voice to Parliament is one of three pillars that constitute the Uluru Statement from the Heart, written in 2017 by more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates of the National First Nations Constitutional Convention.
Should the referendum end in a Yes vote, the Voice in Parliament, an independent and permanent parliamentary body, would be selected by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from local communities.
It is the first step of the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart: voice, treaty and truth. Following the Voice, Makarrata, meaning “the coming together after a struggle”, will allow for treaty and truth-telling processes for Australia’s history.
All the information about the Statement and what a Voice in Parliament means is available on the Uluru Statement’s website and social media accounts.