ON OCTOBER 14th nearly 18m Australians will vote in a referendum on whether to give indigenous people a “Voice to Parliament”. They will decide whether to enshrine in their constitution the establishment of a group of First Nation Australians that would advise the legislature on issues that affect them. Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, has billed the referendum as “a once-in-a-generation chance to bring our country together”.
Ms Araluen mocks the kitsch, like cork hats and vegemite, that have come to represent Australia in the minds of non-Aboriginal people. She writes sardonically of Aboriginal culture “available for purchase in a wide range of hand-dyed linens”. Yet polemic is a stronger note than playfulness. In her poem “The Trope Speaks” Ms Araluen describes a nation with “a ghostly spectre haunting the land”, which is smothered with “fence and field and church”.