Disability group backs yes push

AS the referendum on an Indigenous voice to Parliament approaches, more community organisations are seeking to make their position on the vote public.

One such local group is the Rights, Information, and Advocacy Centre, or RIAC, an organisation that seeks to provides advocacy, access, and other support services to people with disabilities, with leadership recently declaring their backing of the yes campaign.

RIAC CEO Sandy Ross said the pledge was crucial to the organisation’s commitment to developing a more inclusive community that allows Indigenous peoples a meaningful way to contribute to decisions affecting them.

“We want Australia to be a better place, and we want for groups of people that are disadvantaged, that are excluded in many ways from being able to participate in society, to be able to access services and their human rights,” said Mr Ross.

“For those people to have structures and systems that will actually change that, that will help them with addressing those things.

“We’re better in a stronger community if we include people and all the people in our community have their rights respected.

“We believe strongly that the Voice will provide a pathway to address historical injustice, but also empower indigenous communities.

“It’s about enabling and strengthening the capacity of people to access and have their rights respected and upheld.

“So for us, that’s fundamental to the work we do as advocates for people with disabilities in particular.

“And we see that in our First Nations clients, but we also see that more broadly as an issue for First Nations communities [that] we want to support.”

Established in Shepparton in 1948, RIAC now offers services in 22 local government areas in regional Victoria and New South Wales with offices in Bendigo, Mildura and Geelong.