I would like express my feelings as a migrant of a minority group who took Australian citizenship 38 years ago and is patriotic and proud be a true blue Aussie.
I came to Australia as single mother of two children with no financial or family support except my education.
I worked hard, achieved further qualifications to the highest level, educated my children to the highest level, paid my taxes and remained true to my citizenship oath.
We have become a true multicultural society and I have seen how the nation has prospered with migrants forming the backbone of this great nation.
We migrants faced racism and contempt from some elite white Australians, yet we have succeeded in all walks of life and are proud of our country.
Now, we are being told by the same elite white Australians that we are racist if we vote No to the Voice referendum.
We believe in equality for all Australians and a fair go for everyone.
We trusted in our hard work, loyalty and values to become successful.
Why should it be any different for a certain group of Australians?
If the white elites have some imagined guilt to be purged, why don’t they go to the settlements and regional Australia to do some real change instead of spouting their wisdom in the media?
Why do they think they can dictate to immigrants what and how we should think?
If this country had such constitutional change before the multicultural migration, where we would not have rights to any land and our GDP would be forcefully portioned out to certain groups even if they didn’t contribute to it, none of us would have wished to come to this so-called lucky country.
These white Australians who show such contempt to others better think twice before forcing us to follow them like mindless sheep.
The media have to stay neutral and objective and not jump on the Prime Minister’s band wagon.
He only wants his name made in history and does not truly care about cost of living or other concerns the majority of us face now.
This has become just a distraction, (leading) away from focussing on major issues facing all Australians.
Email, Aug 13
Nalini Padmanabhan, Terrigal