CAN's Executive Producer and proud Yamatji woman Michelle White reflects on the significance of CAN's Place Names Melville project, amidst the polarising debate surrounding the Voice referendum.

Produced in partnership with Moodjar Consultancy and the City of Melville, Place Names Melville aims to decode the ancient meanings embedded in Noongar placenames within the City of Melville.

It was my great honour to be at one of the last of the place names decoding sessions for the Melville Place Names project.

These group workshops are so powerful, so enlightening, so culturally grounding and important, it’s hard to not get flowery with all the descriptions, but I truly felt like I’d witnessed history in the making.

I was in a room full of strong, empowered, passionate Elders and community leaders asserting their cultural authority, holding space and sharing knowledge, all with an open heart.

For the past 5 weeks, they have come together to unpack, or decode the meanings of 16 locations with Noongar names in the City of Melville.

What has happened in these workshops is even more profoundly moving given that we are doing this while trying to stay afloat in a sea of noise and outright racism generated by the upcoming referendum about the Voice to Parliament.

While the country debates whether to vote yes or no, the brutal fact is that it doesn’t matter what First Nations people think or want. We are the minority. Our fate is in the hands of 97% of the non-Indigenous population who, truth be told, won’t even be directly impacted by the result, whichever way it goes.

But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be.

We get to wake up on October 15 and find out what our fellow Australians really think of us.

Let that sit with you for a moment if you’re not First Nations.

If the Yes vote gets up, we will, after 132 years, be finally recognised in the Constitution as the First people of this country… and with that recognition, we will be given a constitutional right to have a say in matters that directly affect us.

If the no vote gets up, then what?

How do we, as a nation, reconcile that decision and move forward?

How do we tell the world that the 97% majority of this country, decided to refuse to acknowledge or listen to the other 3% – the traditional owners of the land whose sovereignty was never ceded.

The polarising debates, the outright lies and latent racism during this campaign have been traumatic. We’re tired of fighting for voice and space. We’re tired of being treated like a problem or a threat, or even worse, not even worthy of any consideration. The No campaign's slogan “If you don’t know, vote no”... Wow. Really? We’re not even worth a quick Google search?

Reclaiming Noongar placenames is not about replacing or the total erasure of colonial place naming (although there is a pretty strong argument about removing the names of mass murderers). This is about Noongar culture being respected, being seen and being heard.

A bit like the Voice.

Top: These decoding workshops are so powerful, so enlightening, so culturally grounding and important. Diana Ponton // credit Hugh Sando