Thomas Mayo is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander author, union leader and activist whose work has become indispensable to Australia’s reckoning with its colonial past. As a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a driving force behind the Yes 23 campaign, Mayo co-authored “The Voice to Parliament Handbook”— awarded multiple Australian Book Industry Awards in 2024 — and has since emerged as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples. Published in September 2024, his latest book, Always Was Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues, lays bare the slave-like conditions endured by generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and charts a forward path of structural reform and self-determination.
This month, Mayo brings his urgent message to the Sydney Writers’ Festival, as part of its Opening Night “In This Together” program, and later the “Past and Future of Indigenous Recognition” conversation panel. His appearance at the festival coincides with the Albanese government’s landslide federal election victory, in which Labor secured its highest-ever seat count, raising questions regarding the future of Indigenous affairs in Australia.
Mayo’s blend of historical truth-telling and practical recommendations offers a rallying cry for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to sustain the positive momentum generated by the Voice referendum debate, and to demand consistency in policy and political will.
J: In your recent book Always Was Always Will Be, you describe the slave conditions in which generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been forced to work to build the wealth of some of the most powerful companies and families in the country. Why is it important that non-indigenous people living in Australia understand this history?
TM: Because people need motivation to act, right? There has to be something that compels people to act. There are three parts to the book. The second part is about history, but not just history. I’m no academic. It’s key moments in history that lead people to understand why things are the way they are today. What I hoped for [the] middle part of the book is that it would make people angry. It would make them sad. It would compel them to do something.
Then the final part, the third part of the book is about action, and that’s where I mentioned what universities should do. It’s a powerful sort of blow-by-blow account that explains that there was slavery in this country, but then brings it all the way through to what is often highlighted by politicians who are seeking to use “tough on crime” as a political tool to try and win votes. Like the youth crime in Alice Springs. You can link from the massacres, to the enslavement, to the working for rations, to the kicking off Country because they had to pay equal wages when the Industrial Relations Commission ruled that way, to being forced onto welfare, to having those welfare dollars exploited, and the hopelessness in those communities exploited, selling alcohol to them, and then the social issues that follow from that and why people are disaffected and running amok in that young people are.
J: In your book you discuss the impact of “white opportunists” on vulnerable First Nations communities. For a long time, people have made lots of money not just from dispossession, theft, and exploitation, but from manipulating the flow of goods and services like alcohol to these vulnerable communities. How might this be addressed by the second-term Albanese government?
TM: I think structural reform is still vital to closing the gap. We still need to address that there is a race power, and that Indigenous people have been subjected to that race power in negative ways, and that all of the experts say that Indigenous people determining their own destiny, so self determination, is the key. Structural reform to guarantee that is still the most important thing we can do, and that Albanese, with his mandate now, should be able to do.
I think the coalition will continue to stay to the extreme right and will continue, as they have for a long time, certainly since Howard and the Northern Territory intervention, to try and use Indigenous Affairs as a battering ram to try and bash the other side if they mention anything about structural reform, or Indigenous rights and recognition. It would be a miscalculation for Albanese to think that he would lose votes by taking them on and continuing to have some vision, as he did in 2022 when he announced that he’d support the Uluru statement in full.
J: Can we meaningfully close the gap and implement necessary reforms, while harmful policies and attitudes that continue to traumatise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remain in place? If so, how do we overcome that ongoing trauma?
TM: There is this inconsistency. You can make some improvements, but then there can be a change in government, or the heads of bureaucracy, or just policy that then takes people backwards again, creating more trauma and more disaffection. I don’t think the trauma itself is the hindrance.
People power causes organisations to act and governments to make good policy. Good policy and acting organisations builds awareness and truth telling policies, for example. But, also start to make some headway, as we have from time to time. Then what’s always missing is the consistency. So you need all three of those things consistently. And then, even with that trauma, we can make some progress to closing the gap.
J: How did you feel after the referendum for the Voice to parliament, and has this election changed the way you feel looking ahead?
TM: I was devastated when the referendum failed. Absolutely shattered. But the way I recovered was by writing. I wrote an article for the Saturday paper that came out the Saturday after. I just spent the week writing. I didn’t allow myself to just dwell in the gloom sort-of-thing, and feel sorry for myself sort-of-thing. I just got writing, and I think through [writing]and deciding to write this book, [it] showed me that, while it could be easy to think that Australians are racist because they said no, the analysis helped me come to terms with what Australians themselves faced through that referendum campaign. They flood[ed] the zone with cheap tactics that were used here for the first time at the levels that we have seen in the United States. It was an imported campaign.
That’s what people faced when they voted. The statistics from the referendum helped me to understand that it’s not that people didn’t want progress in Indigenous Affairs. It’s not that they don’t want recognition for Indigenous people — I’m talking about the majority of Australians — but it was that doubt that was put in their minds by an effective ‘No’ campaign. The main factor, the reason why the referendum failed, was that the coalition decided to use it for their political ambitions instead of the national interest. Any reason was thrown out the window by them.
I think [the election result] confirmed what I was already thinking, actually. I didn’t think a majority of Australians were nasty, malicious people. They voted ‘No’ at Peter Dutton’s behest because they’re not very familiar with Indigenous people. That was one great weakness. [The Australian people] didn’t have any resilience, and I wrote about that in the book. They didn’t have much of a resilience to the disinformation they were exposed to. An election though, is very different. I think a lot of people regret that they voted ‘No’. Once they did learn more, I’ve had people come up to me and talk with me about that. In an election, Peter Dutton, the culmination of all of his attacks, punching down on minorities, came together when people were taking notice of him for the first time, instead of the focus being on this group of people that people didn’t know. That, combined with the empty policies, he had nothing of substance behind his election campaign, really confirmed that Australian people don’t want the level of nastiness that he was presenting.
J: Have there been any silver linings in light of the rejection of the referendum for a Voice to Parliament?
TM: Look, the only silver lining that I can take out of the referendum is that it was somewhat training for [many] young Indigenous activists to learn from the experience. I think a lot of young Indigenous people, once they got over the heartbreak, are going to be stronger for it in their advocacy. Likewise, the many thousands of Australians who got behind it and learnt a lot by volunteering and doing their bit. That’s the real silver lining. Probably a second one is knowing where we stand as well. We know where we stand in that at least 40% of the voting population of this country are certain that they support structural reform for Indigenous people and recognition. And further to that, from the analysis, many more Australians wanted to vote ‘Yes’, so many more Australians supported the same thing, but they were not assured at that moment.
Indigenous people certainly wanted a voice. So there was certainly a majority of Indigenous people, you only need to look at the majority of Indigenous booths and see how strong the ‘Yes’ votes were. But young people voted ‘Yes’ as well. Learning those things as a certainty from the referendum is a silver lining as well. It sets us in good stead for what we’ll try next. Whenever that moment comes.
J: In the lead up to the election, Liberal party members like Jane Hume and Peter Dutton demonstrated that they don’t understand the importance of protocols for commencing gatherings with an Acknowledgement of Country and inviting Traditional Owners to offer a Welcome to Country. Could you explain the importance of these protocols? Why do you think these people find it inappropriate?
TM: Well, firstly, I think they understand the protocols. Those two individuals that you mentioned, and Tony Abbott and whoever else [are] being racist. They can appreciate those protocols for many other things, such as the monarchy coming to the country or going to another country. But when it comes to Indigenous people, they’re just being racist. Just to put it plainly. That’s just ignorance. But the question was about the protocol. What I want to help people understand more widely is that, of course, we had such protocols. We were a society like any other human society with our laws, and our protocols, and our ceremonies, and territorial understandings, and quite advanced at that as well.
When you think about just how many First Nations there were, just how many unique languages there were, and how peaceful things would have had to have been for that to evolve that way. So many nations, so many languages: you need time. You need an understanding of what Country you belong to. It can’t be a conquering people, otherwise you end up with a language covering much larger swathes of a continent. I think those things are important to think about. But the point that I want to get to is, of course, our ceremonies and laws can evolve like any others as well, right?
Our ceremonies should be able to evolve as well. It’s like where those people are saying “Makarrata isn’t about peace it’s a spear in the leg”. Well yeah, it was over 200 years ago. But over 200 years ago Europeans were hanging people in the streets and chopping their heads off with guillotines. Our culture and our justice system should be able to evolve as well. That is just a racist view, as if we’re stuck in time where others don’t have to be.
J: The University of Sydney’s history includes effective collaborative action by students in supporting Indigenous campaigns for services, law and policy reform, such as the famous 1965 Freedom Ride led by Charlie Perkins and Gary Williams. What can today’s USYD students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, learn from that time?
TM: There was great change in this country because of students who were motivated to take action alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and leaders like Charlie Perkins. While it’s important to understand the racist history of the university, [like] the example of it taking over a century to have any Indigenous people attending the university, I also think it’s important to be proud of the university’s part in those changes, those actions against racism. There has been great progress, with the university being part of that great progress. Sadly, there is still a long way to go, and so I hope the students take from that history some inspiration to be bold and to do things that can take us those next steps forward.
Thomas Mayo will be speaking at the Sydney Writer’s Festival 2025.
