Ultra-marathon runner Pat Farmer has been in Murray Bridge as part of his ‘Run for The Voice’ around the country.
Best known as the only man who has run continuously from the North Pole to the South Pole, Farmer is on a 14,400km run around Australia over 6 months to raise awareness, support and engagement for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.
Stopping into our studios yesterday, he told ARN’s Chris Guscott that he is passionate about the cause.
“The question is simply, ‘do we think that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be recognised in our Constitution’ and from my point of view that’s an absolutely ‘yes’, and the second thing is, ‘should they be recognised through a Voice directly through Parliament on issues that concern them’, and I haven’t found one person out there throughout the whole of Australia that agrees the system at the moment works, that the system that’s been in place for 100 years works,” Pat Farmer said.
The former Liberal politician says he believes the change would help address the diverse needs of individual Australian communities rather than continuing to attempt a one-size fits all approach.
“To empower our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to make decisions for themselves and to tell Canberra what they really need instead of getting an Olympic swimming pool when what they really need is a filtration system on bore water so they’re not drinking bore water,” Farmer said, as an example.
He is heading to Adelaide today, Tuesday, ahead of his final leg to Alice Springs.
Find out more about his campaign via https://www.patfarmer.com/.
