Stan Yarramunua Dryden: Indigenous man explains to Sam Newman why he wishes the Voice referendum wasn’t taking place

An Indigenous artist has argued the Voice referendum is sowing division in Australia. 

Stan Yarramunua Dryden, a world-renowned Aboriginal artist and businessman, said he felt the Voice was being pushed by out-of-touch ‘social elites’.

‘All these people that are probably pushing the Voice and all the rest of it to keep themselves in jobs and their own immediate families,’ he told Sam Newman and Don Scott’s podcast You Cannot Be Serious.

‘They’re not thinking about the people living in tin shacks in Alice Springs and Darwin and Broome.’

He added: ‘People have jumped onto it, the people with agendas, it’s a cottage industry of division and people get delighted if they can create division because it gives them a sense of power and it gives them a source of income.’ 

Mr Dryden shared a racist encounter he had experienced at his gallery in Queensland’s Burleigh Heads recently to illustrate his point that the Voice was dredging up old divisions. 

‘It’s flaring a lot of stuff up this Voice, it’s bringing a lot of issues,’ Mr Dryden said.

‘I had a guy who’s 45 years old and he stood in front of my door with his dog and put his head in the door and said, ‘are you an Abo?’ … and I go, ‘oh mate I don’t think you should be saying that’ and he goes, ‘oh, you know what I mean, they’re all a bunch of losers and bums’,’ Mr Dryden said.

‘And this is what’s flaring up – it’s causing racism.’

Mr Dryden urged all Australians to come together and ‘get over it’

Mr Dryden, who came from a deeply impoverished background with an alcoholic father before making millions as an artist, said people should ‘get over it’. 

‘I’m Australian. All the stuff we’re all talking about as Australians, there’s something bigger than all of us anyway,’ he told the podcast.

‘We should all start getting over it, because I think everyone is equal.’

Last week, Newman, 77, explosively called on footy fans to boo the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Grand Final this weekend. 

There have since been calls for the broadcaster and former player to be booted out of the AFL Hall of Fame.