Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, after six months and covering more than fourteen thousand
grueling kilometers, Pat Farmers run for the Voice yesterday reached ularue. Now,
when the ultra marathon runner and former Liberal MPs started
the run, we know that support for the Voice was
at fifty eight percent. That number has dropped substantially as
we head to the polls on Saturday. Now, Pat Farmer
(00:21):
joins me on the line right now, Good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Pat, Hi, Katie, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm good. How are the legs? Mate?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Let me tell you they're a little bit sore and tired,
and there's been better days that you know. I got
the job done. With what I've gotten, I'm pleased to
have been able to complete it.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I am absolutely in awe of the fact that you've
managed to cover those kinds of kilometers. Pat. I've run
one marathon in my life and I'd tell you what
it took me about a week to recover. So I
don't know how long you're going to need after all
that running.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, I think that's see, Katie, been able to back
up day after day. You know, I have to be
honest with you. At the end of almost every single
day out of the last six months, I've been just
completely exhausted and completely wiped out, and I've looked at
my legs and a swollen and then you know, I
get a night's sleep and the next morning I was
ready to go again. I just think that it's pretty
(01:19):
incredible the human body, what it's capable of.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It absolutely is. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
In fact, I mean, what was it like though getting
out of bed each morning after covering all those kilometers?
Did you have to sort of remind yourself quite often
why you were doing it?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I know that was firmly implanted in my mind. I
put six months worth of planning into this journey before
I started, so I was absolutely committed to the cause,
and so there was never any doubt that in my
mind that I wouldn't complete the journey. It was a
matter of trying to complete it on time. I made
(01:56):
my mind if I had to crawl to the finish line,
I would I would do that. But but I havn't
said that. You know that haven't purpose as you describe
by wrong at the marathon. When you've got a purpose
in the finish line insight, even if it's a long
long way away, so long as you can visualize it
(02:16):
and clearly seed in your mind, you can achieve it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's the power of the mind as well of the
as well as the body, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, Once or two come together, we're a powerful force.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, no doubt now, Pat, when you started on this journey,
though the support for the voice was around fifty eight percent.
That support has declined and it's looking like it may
not get up on Saturday. How are you feeling about that?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I have to be honest with you, I haven't
had much of a chance to see the media during
the course of the journey. In a lot of cases,
we've had poor reception and haven't been able to even
use a phone line, so we relied on a starlink
for that from time to time. But I've been able
to live as far as that's concerned. But what I
have been doing is I've been pressed in the flesh
(03:04):
with real people on the ground in communities right around Australia.
The four corners of the country are both indigenous communities
with truck drivers, with people in caravan parks, you name it.
And I have to say I disagree with the poles.
I think I think that there's more of a flavor
for support for this, and God knows the world needs
(03:27):
is something positive at the moment. Australia needs to hear
some positive news at the moment, you know, with everything
that's happening around the globe, it's so important that we
have we have something positive and we can move forward
together on into the future.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Pat, what are some of the things that people were
telling you on the ground? As you said, you know,
you've run through all sorts of places. I'd imagine you've
spoken to plenty of indigenous people as well. What are
some of the things that people said to you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Look, in a lot of the communities, of the indigenous communities,
they felt almost a sense of helplessness that they've heard
a lot of etoric in the past about how things
will be better and how things will improve and how
this will get over the line. But they've been let
down so many times in the past. And this has
been something that indigenous communities have been working on for
(04:19):
a long long time. In fact, they started to come
together in Ularu on twenty seventeen and been working on
this every year since then. Towards the moment when they
put it forward to the government, or cutos to the
government for putting it on the agenda. Now it's up
to the Australian people to support those to support those
leaders and those people in those communities so that we
(04:41):
can make a difference on the ground. Because what they've
been saying to me is this, you know that, and
I saw firsthand a lot of these places have eighteen
people from various generations living under one roof. And that's
not just a one off or two off sort of thing.
It's like a whole community is living like that. There
is not enough hours, and they're drinking ball water and
(05:03):
ending up on dialysis machines because a simple simply don't
have filtration systems and they don't have decent, clean drinking
water and sanitary conditions. You know, there's so many the
gap is so wide at this point in time that
things need to change. And even the NO voters have
(05:24):
said to me, you know, when I've asked them the
question and said, well, do you think that the system
is working the way it is at the moment, they're not.
And so everybody around the country agrees with that. So
a step in, a step forward, a step in the
right direction, is to quite simply look at changing the
system and driving suggestions from the ground up instead of
(05:44):
from Canberra down. We all know that Camber likes to
put everybody into a pigeonhole, into a box and say okay,
a one size it's all. But my journey around the
country really proved to everybody the diversity of this nation.
That the top end of the Western show is completely
different to the southern end of Victoria and completely different
(06:05):
to other parts of the country. So it's most important
that decisions are driven from the ground up to Canberra
and that we get it right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I mean, there's a lot of people who listen to
this show, pat some of them have absolutely voted yes.
There's a lot of them I know who've messaged to
tell me that they've voted no, and they've said that
the reason for that is that they really don't think
that it's going to make a difference to the issues
that we face here in the territory. But one of
the arguments, and you've touched on this, that I don't
know has been successfully sort of executed by the federal
(06:36):
government is the fact that you know, with every change
of government, it means that it's a change of policy
and at the you know, at the stroke of a
pen in some instances, and those changes can have an
enormous impact on territory ends and on those living in
remote communities. So all these policy changes that you see
over the years and the impact that that then has
(06:57):
in those remote communities, I would hope that if we
do have a voice operating in Australia and that we
have representatives that are really strong representatives from the Northern territory,
that that will change.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Okay, you're one hundred percent correct, and your listeners are
writing feeling that way. But I you know, once again
I say this to them that to vote know is
to vote no to any any support or any change whatsoever,
and to accept the inadequacies of the system that we
have in place at the moment as just that's good enough,
(07:32):
and it's not. It's certainly not. So you know, to
vote yes gives us a chance to change things, to
change things, and to work things from the ground back
up instead of from the top down. So it's about
having a strong foundation. The other point with it all
is and that I've been in a unique position to
be able to advocate the cases that when you only
(07:55):
have legislation on an issue. What happens is another another
government will come in and they can just change things
around to suit you. As you said, And the best
way I explained is that people with so many people
are aware of the fact that railway systems or roads
who are going to get built by one government. Then
they spend millions of dollars on a feasibility study, they
(08:18):
get the process started, and then a new government comes
in they say we want to spend our money on
a football stadium, or we want to spend our money
on a hospital or something else, so they cut that,
They cut that system. They say we're not doing that,
and they move on to something else and nothing gets
completed because they're short terms. If it goes into the Constitution,
(08:39):
then the politicians have to pay attention to what is
being put forward to them and they have to answer
in writing why they are not why they're not doing that,
and it holds the politicians accountable, and I think that's
a good thing. At the end of the day. This
referendum is about empowering the Australian people, all people, all
people in this country to be able to tell the
(09:01):
politicians that we want something done, and we want it.
We want it to move forward. We want the whole
country move forward, not to have this continuous chop and
change of ideas with a change of government.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Pat, we are going to have to get ready to
wrap up. But I do want to ask you, I mean,
what do you think the implications are going to be
on Sunday if.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
The no vote gets up?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Do you hope that at the very least this means
that we have now really seen the spotlight shine on
some of the issues that we've got right around Australia,
but particularly for us here in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, yeah, it certainly, it certainly has put a spotlight
on it. But you would know better than me that
the media quickly move on to something else and Australian
people will soon forget and move back in the same
position that we're in before, so nothing will have changed.
And on the world stage, could you imagine how we're
perceived by the world if the no vote gets up
(09:56):
and they turn around and they say, well, the Indigenous
people of Australia original on Tire State island of people
asked to be part of the constitution. Just a very
simple question to be part of the same constitution everybody
else is part of in Australia, and the Australian people said, no,
that's embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Pat.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Before I let you go, I know that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You know there will be other people listening this morning
who are saying to themselves, if it was just as
simple as that, if it was just as simple as
recognition in the Constitution, you know, I would vote yes.
But what I'm worried about is that we don't know
all the ins and outs of how it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I've been explaining this to people around the country, the
politicians alone, when they say that they don't know the
ins and outs.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Of all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Because every single portfolio has an advisory body to it.
Whether it's an infrastructure, whether it's helf, whether it's education,
has a body to it. It has a board of
approximately ten people. They sit around, they put suggestions forward
to the minister. The minister takes those suggestions on board.
Some time policy gets put in place, and then you know,
(11:04):
both the Government and the opposition argue it backwards and forwards.
It goes up to the Senate, comes back down to
the House of Representatives and finally gets through and gets passed.
This law. They know that because they do that every
single day of the week. That's what they are employed
to do as politicians. So when they say that they
don't have detail, they're lines is they know they are
the ones that create the detail. But the most important
(11:26):
thing is that we have to give them permission to
have that in place so that they can create that
detail so that we can move forward with this peace
of legislation. And in order to do that, the austrain
people need to vote yes on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Well, Pat Farmer, it's been good to speak with you
this morning.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Before I let you go, Hey, going to celebrate and
maybe rest those legs over the next couple of days.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, I'm actually going down to Adelaide. I'll fly straight
down Adelaide in a short while from Milaru and I'll
spend my time down there campaigning with Nova. Perish that
both of us are going to be working on the
polling boosts both today and and pre polling and tomorrow
and of course on Saturday. So you know this is
(12:12):
not over for me until the vote vote finally comes
in on the Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So until then, I can't risk Well, Pat, when you're
talking to Nova, I saw it at the track last
Thursday and she got chased by some plovers.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So tell her to stay away from those plovers. Okay,
you bet, I will, I will. Thanks so much for
your time this morning. Much appreciated, absolute pleasure. Thank you,
Well, after six months and covering more than fourteen thousand
grueling kilometers, Pat Farmers run for the Voice yesterday reached ularue. Now,
when the ultra marathon runner and former Liberal MPs started
the run, we know that support for the Voice was
at fifty eight percent. That number has dropped substantially as
we head to the polls on Saturday. Now, Pat Farmer
(00:21):
joins me on the line right now, Good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Pat, Hi, Katie, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm good. How are the legs? Mate?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Let me tell you they're a little bit sore and tired,
and there's been better days that you know. I got
the job done. With what I've gotten, I'm pleased to
have been able to complete it.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I am absolutely in awe of the fact that you've
managed to cover those kinds of kilometers. Pat. I've run
one marathon in my life and I'd tell you what
it took me about a week to recover. So I
don't know how long you're going to need after all
that running.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, I think that's see, Katie, been able to back
up day after day. You know, I have to be
honest with you. At the end of almost every single
day out of the last six months, I've been just
completely exhausted and completely wiped out, and I've looked at
my legs and a swollen and then you know, I
get a night's sleep and the next morning I was
ready to go again. I just think that it's pretty
(01:19):
incredible the human body, what it's capable of.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It absolutely is. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
In fact, I mean, what was it like though getting
out of bed each morning after covering all those kilometers?
Did you have to sort of remind yourself quite often
why you were doing it?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I know that was firmly implanted in my mind. I
put six months worth of planning into this journey before
I started, so I was absolutely committed to the cause,
and so there was never any doubt that in my
mind that I wouldn't complete the journey. It was a
matter of trying to complete it on time. I made
(01:56):
my mind if I had to crawl to the finish line,
I would I would do that. But but I havn't
said that. You know that haven't purpose as you describe
by wrong at the marathon. When you've got a purpose
in the finish line insight, even if it's a long
long way away, so long as you can visualize it
(02:16):
and clearly seed in your mind, you can achieve it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's the power of the mind as well of the
as well as the body, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, Once or two come together, we're a powerful force.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, no doubt now, Pat, when you started on this journey,
though the support for the voice was around fifty eight percent.
That support has declined and it's looking like it may
not get up on Saturday. How are you feeling about that?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I have to be honest with you, I haven't
had much of a chance to see the media during
the course of the journey. In a lot of cases,
we've had poor reception and haven't been able to even
use a phone line, so we relied on a starlink
for that from time to time. But I've been able
to live as far as that's concerned. But what I
have been doing is I've been pressed in the flesh
(03:04):
with real people on the ground in communities right around Australia.
The four corners of the country are both indigenous communities
with truck drivers, with people in caravan parks, you name it.
And I have to say I disagree with the poles.
I think I think that there's more of a flavor
for support for this, and God knows the world needs
(03:27):
is something positive at the moment. Australia needs to hear
some positive news at the moment, you know, with everything
that's happening around the globe, it's so important that we
have we have something positive and we can move forward
together on into the future.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Pat, what are some of the things that people were
telling you on the ground? As you said, you know,
you've run through all sorts of places. I'd imagine you've
spoken to plenty of indigenous people as well. What are
some of the things that people said to you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Look, in a lot of the communities, of the indigenous communities,
they felt almost a sense of helplessness that they've heard
a lot of etoric in the past about how things
will be better and how things will improve and how
this will get over the line. But they've been let
down so many times in the past. And this has
been something that indigenous communities have been working on for
(04:19):
a long long time. In fact, they started to come
together in Ularu on twenty seventeen and been working on
this every year since then. Towards the moment when they
put it forward to the government, or cutos to the
government for putting it on the agenda. Now it's up
to the Australian people to support those to support those
leaders and those people in those communities so that we
(04:41):
can make a difference on the ground. Because what they've
been saying to me is this, you know that, and
I saw firsthand a lot of these places have eighteen
people from various generations living under one roof. And that's
not just a one off or two off sort of thing.
It's like a whole community is living like that. There
is not enough hours, and they're drinking ball water and
(05:03):
ending up on dialysis machines because a simple simply don't
have filtration systems and they don't have decent, clean drinking
water and sanitary conditions. You know, there's so many the
gap is so wide at this point in time that
things need to change. And even the NO voters have
(05:24):
said to me, you know, when I've asked them the
question and said, well, do you think that the system
is working the way it is at the moment, they're not.
And so everybody around the country agrees with that. So
a step in, a step forward, a step in the
right direction, is to quite simply look at changing the
system and driving suggestions from the ground up instead of
(05:44):
from Canberra down. We all know that Camber likes to
put everybody into a pigeonhole, into a box and say okay,
a one size it's all. But my journey around the
country really proved to everybody the diversity of this nation.
That the top end of the Western show is completely
different to the southern end of Victoria and completely different
(06:05):
to other parts of the country. So it's most important
that decisions are driven from the ground up to Canberra
and that we get it right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I mean, there's a lot of people who listen to
this show, pat some of them have absolutely voted yes.
There's a lot of them I know who've messaged to
tell me that they've voted no, and they've said that
the reason for that is that they really don't think
that it's going to make a difference to the issues
that we face here in the territory. But one of
the arguments, and you've touched on this, that I don't
know has been successfully sort of executed by the federal
(06:36):
government is the fact that you know, with every change
of government, it means that it's a change of policy
and at the you know, at the stroke of a
pen in some instances, and those changes can have an
enormous impact on territory ends and on those living in
remote communities. So all these policy changes that you see
over the years and the impact that that then has
(06:57):
in those remote communities, I would hope that if we
do have a voice operating in Australia and that we
have representatives that are really strong representatives from the Northern territory,
that that will change.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Okay, you're one hundred percent correct, and your listeners are
writing feeling that way. But I you know, once again
I say this to them that to vote know is
to vote no to any any support or any change whatsoever,
and to accept the inadequacies of the system that we
have in place at the moment as just that's good enough,
(07:32):
and it's not. It's certainly not. So you know, to
vote yes gives us a chance to change things, to
change things, and to work things from the ground back
up instead of from the top down. So it's about
having a strong foundation. The other point with it all
is and that I've been in a unique position to
be able to advocate the cases that when you only
(07:55):
have legislation on an issue. What happens is another another
government will come in and they can just change things
around to suit you. As you said, And the best
way I explained is that people with so many people
are aware of the fact that railway systems or roads
who are going to get built by one government. Then
they spend millions of dollars on a feasibility study, they
(08:18):
get the process started, and then a new government comes
in they say we want to spend our money on
a football stadium, or we want to spend our money
on a hospital or something else, so they cut that,
They cut that system. They say we're not doing that,
and they move on to something else and nothing gets
completed because they're short terms. If it goes into the Constitution,
(08:39):
then the politicians have to pay attention to what is
being put forward to them and they have to answer
in writing why they are not why they're not doing that,
and it holds the politicians accountable, and I think that's
a good thing. At the end of the day. This
referendum is about empowering the Australian people, all people, all
people in this country to be able to tell the
(09:01):
politicians that we want something done, and we want it.
We want it to move forward. We want the whole
country move forward, not to have this continuous chop and
change of ideas with a change of government.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Pat, we are going to have to get ready to
wrap up. But I do want to ask you, I mean,
what do you think the implications are going to be
on Sunday if.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
The no vote gets up?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Do you hope that at the very least this means
that we have now really seen the spotlight shine on
some of the issues that we've got right around Australia,
but particularly for us here in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, yeah, it certainly, it certainly has put a spotlight
on it. But you would know better than me that
the media quickly move on to something else and Australian
people will soon forget and move back in the same
position that we're in before, so nothing will have changed.
And on the world stage, could you imagine how we're
perceived by the world if the no vote gets up
(09:56):
and they turn around and they say, well, the Indigenous
people of Australia original on Tire State island of people
asked to be part of the constitution. Just a very
simple question to be part of the same constitution everybody
else is part of in Australia, and the Australian people said, no,
that's embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Pat.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Before I let you go, I know that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You know there will be other people listening this morning
who are saying to themselves, if it was just as
simple as that, if it was just as simple as
recognition in the Constitution, you know, I would vote yes.
But what I'm worried about is that we don't know
all the ins and outs of how it's going to work.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I've been explaining this to people around the country, the
politicians alone, when they say that they don't know the
ins and outs.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Of all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Because every single portfolio has an advisory body to it.
Whether it's an infrastructure, whether it's helf, whether it's education,
has a body to it. It has a board of
approximately ten people. They sit around, they put suggestions forward
to the minister. The minister takes those suggestions on board.
Some time policy gets put in place, and then you know,
(11:04):
both the Government and the opposition argue it backwards and forwards.
It goes up to the Senate, comes back down to
the House of Representatives and finally gets through and gets passed.
This law. They know that because they do that every
single day of the week. That's what they are employed
to do as politicians. So when they say that they
don't have detail, they're lines is they know they are
the ones that create the detail. But the most important
(11:26):
thing is that we have to give them permission to
have that in place so that they can create that
detail so that we can move forward with this peace
of legislation. And in order to do that, the austrain
people need to vote yes on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Well, Pat Farmer, it's been good to speak with you
this morning.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Before I let you go, Hey, going to celebrate and
maybe rest those legs over the next couple of days.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, I'm actually going down to Adelaide. I'll fly straight
down Adelaide in a short while from Milaru and I'll
spend my time down there campaigning with Nova. Perish that
both of us are going to be working on the
polling boosts both today and and pre polling and tomorrow
and of course on Saturday. So you know this is
(12:12):
not over for me until the vote vote finally comes
in on the Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So until then, I can't risk Well, Pat, when you're
talking to Nova, I saw it at the track last
Thursday and she got chased by some plovers.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So tell her to stay away from those plovers. Okay,
you bet, I will, I will. Thanks so much for
your time this morning. Much appreciated, absolute pleasure. Thank you,
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