"I voted yes," a local man told ABC reporter Gerald Stone at the time.

"I'd like to see the Blacks have a go."

On May 27, 1967 Australians voted to alter the constitution to include First Nations people in the census and for the Commonwealth to take control of Aboriginal affairs.

Although the country returned a yes vote of almost 92 per cent, the ABC reported at the time the referendum revealed: "What could be interpreted as some pockets of racial intolerance."

"You can't trust a bloody Blackfella no matter where he is, he gets on the plonk and he won't work," another Bowraville local said.

"They get handouts and we can't and we got to work hard.

"I voted no."

The federal electorate of Cowper, which includes the cities of Port Macquarie & Coffs Harbour and the town of Bowraville, recorded heavy opposition to what was known at the time as the "Aboriginal question".

More than 18% of Cowper voters were against including First Nations people in the census, making it one of the heaviest no regions in Australia after Kalgoorlie in WA and Penong in South Australia.   

Living through the '67 referendum:

The 1967 attitudes on the streets of Bowraville are more than just historical archives for Gumbaynggirr elder Aunty Bea Ballangarry.  

Born in Bowraville in 1943, she experienced these sentiments for the first six years of her life when she lived on the fringes of town — a driver, she says, for voting Yes in the coming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.  

"It felt like hatred and it's … division," she said.

"For me, Bowraville hasn't changed. I feel Cowper hasn't changed. I still feel it's so conservative. It's like a straitjacket."

Aunty Bea is sitting in her Coffs Harbour home, about an hour's drive north of Bowraville.

Family pictures and framed accolades pepper the walls of her cosy living room as she watches the ABC's 1967 referendum report on her hometown.

"That is stereotyping. That's assumptions," she said of the recorded comments from the past.

"I remember a lot of stuff like that. Recent stuff like that."

Aunty Bea recalls one evening, when she was three years old, she had a pain in her belly because her appendix was about to burst.

She said that Aboriginal people were not allowed in town after 6pm, but her parents ran her to the old Bowraville Hospital.

"What they were faced with was a staff member from the hospital saying to mum and dad that they couldn't take me in because there was a policy to prevent me going into that building," Aunty Bea recalls.

"Mum held me in her arms and she said, 'well, I'm going to stand here on this verandah and if you don't take us in … if anything happens to her it's going to happen here on the front verandah with me holding my daughter in my arms.'

"When I think about that today, I ache for them [my parents] for what I had to go through."

Staff at Bowraville Hospital decided to treat Aunty Bea that night but other experiences of exclusion and racism followed her throughout her life.

"So that's my personal reasons and rationale into my decision," she said of her reasoning behind voting Yes for a Voice to Parliament this year.

"I felt like [the 1967 referendum], that was a bit of a half job," she said.

"It wasn't completed."

But even among those closest to her, there are fiercely different viewpoints.

"It's a hard thing to hear a family member think the right vote is No but I'm not about to challenge that either.

"I think it's really healthy for people to have different ideas."

One family, many perspectives:

Meet Aunty Bea's cousins Uncle Trevor Ballangarry and Uncle Martin Ballangarry OAM — they both live down the highway in Bowraville.

Martin and Trevor grew up like brothers but that doesn't mean they always vote the same.

"You see families split because of disagreements, at the end of the day, your thoughts are your own," explains Uncle Trevor, who will vote Yes for a Voice but has some questions about how those in the advisory body will be selected.

"You don't try to dominate somebody else and that's what the old culture is about.

"I will be voting Yes because I was around when they did the 67 vote, that gave us one foot in the door.

"But I believe they [the Voice] need to be people on the ground, not the politicians or academics."

As an artist, local councillor and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) recipient for his work with Indigenous youth, Uncle Martin has been encouraging locals to have a yarn about the Voice referendum at his community event at the Bowraville Community Centre.

"I came with the intention of being a thorn in everybody's side by saying 'No'," he said with a cheeky smile.

"I thought about the No Vote — it's OK. And the Yes vote is OK."

In between cups of tea, a few slices of cake and discussions about how the Voice to Parliament might or might not work, Uncle Martin slips onto the piano and starts belting out his tune 'Gumbaynggirr Warrior'.

There's a Vote Yes sign hanging on the piano and a Yes poster on the wall behind him.

"It's still early days, I still haven't got the information that I'm seeking," he said.

"Our trust has been torn from limb to post you know, because [government] not coming up with the goods to service our people."

Closing the gap is one of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's key arguments advocating for the Voice, but Martin Ballangarry's struggling to believe in the government's ability to deliver to communities at the coalface of disadvantage.

He's recently lost three adult children.

"Their habits took em. Drug and alcohol, ya know," he shares.

"Drugs and alcohol remove a lot of our people."

Martin Ballangarry is questioning what the Voice would do to help close the health and life expectancy gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Although he said "the government of Australia has not impressed" him yet, he has been considering moving to the Yes camp — a move inspired by his hopes for his grandchildren's future.

"I think if the future holds some hope for my people and my great-grandkids, I just got to vote Yes," he mused.

"I want them to have a say in their destiny."

Voice not inclusive enough:

Gumbaynggirr man Jimmy Cutmore has joined his Uncle Martin for a smoking ceremony to close his referendum information event.

As he helps Uncle Martin make fire outside the community centre, Jimmy, who grew up in Bowraville, explains the word Bowra comes from the Gumbaynggirr place name Bawrrung.

Although the town has historically been involved with charges of racial discrimination, he's proud he can practice culture on the main street, but he concedes the Voice is not for him.

"I won't be votin'," he said "Because it does not represent my views and I feel like it does not represent my people.

"The first thing I would like is a Treaty. Because that's been well overdue."

Treaty is the second step to the sequence of reforms proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart: Voice, Treaty, Truth. But many First Nations Australians are calling for Treaty to be first.

It's Jimmy's view the Voice is probably not the most inclusive mechanism to advocate for every Indigenous person across the breadth and depth of Australia.

"We do need to have that control and that say of what we do and how we do it," he said.

"We just need to talk a little bit more about that and come together a little bit more."

Keep the yarns coming:

Coming together for more talks and connection is a strategy Aunty Bea has implemented her whole life.

Aunty Bea holds yarning circles, an activity where people can speak their truth in a safe space and listen to others share their stories without interruption or judgement.

"It's [the referendum] made a lot of division all over the place," she said.

"Sometimes I struggle with that when it's to do with my family who go into a No vote and they feel really comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable with it, but that's my story.

"But it would be good to talk about it," Aunty Bea added, because there's a very important decision ahead of all Australians and "There's a little bit of a worry about whether we're going to make the right decision or not."

Original Story By | Carly Williams