Opinion piece - The Daily Telegraph

This year all Australians have a chance to make history. To put our history in our Constitution and to recognise the fact that Australia didn't begin when Captain Cook arrived but that the Australian story—our story— goes back more than 60,000 years.

This year we have a chance to give that history a voice. Something that won’t affect 97 per cent of Australians but could change the lives of 3 percent.

Why are Indigenous Australians asking us for that voice?

To answer that question, imagine this: imagine a life where your brother or your sister dies a decade younger than they should.

Imagine a life where your children don't go to preschool and where they don’t finish high school.

Imagine a life where your children are more likely to go to jail than to university. Just imagine that for a second.

That's not a life that you would cop, but that's a life that a lot of Indigenous Australians live.

If you lived that life, you would know that this is about people, not parking tickets. It’s about changing lives not changing dates.

At the moment, 56 per cent of young children start kindy developmentally ready, but only 34 per cent of young Indigenous kids do. And that number's getting worse, not better. The gap is getting bigger, not smaller.

At the moment, Indigenous Australians are three times more likely to fall behind at school than the other kids in the classroom.

At the moment, 82 per cent of students finish high school in Australia, but only 57 per cent of Indigenous kids do.

Today, almost one in two young Australians in their 20s have a uni degree, but only seven per cent of young Indigenous Australians do.

We all want this to change. Everything that is good, fair, and decent in this country wants this to change. But if we want it to change, we have to change not just what we do but the way we do things.

That’s what the Voice is about. A different way of doing things that leads to better results and a better use of taxpayer’s money.

If that's not a reason to vote yes, then I don't know what is.