Run for The Voice: Ultra-marathon runner Pat Farmer talks exclusively to Neos Kosmos
Source: NEOS KOSMOS
Dorothy Hatzopoulou, talked to ultramarathon runner and former federal politician Pat Farmer AM, about his latest campaign to Run for the Voice to Parliament, and how Greece inspired him. Farmer’s Run for the Voice is a 14,400 km run around Australia over six months aimed at raising awareness, support and engagement for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.
THE VISIT TO GREECE
Pat visited Greece in 2022 – to discuss with the Greek government a run for the Return of the Marbles in Athens, but he could not find a sponsor in the time frame he had so the idea did not materialise. The trip gave Pat an opportunity to visit Greece, and especially Marathon, where it all started for him. “Greece it is the country of the marathon and if it wasn’t for the Greek history the Marathon wouldn’t even exist and the legacy it leaves behind us and that continued with people like Yiannis Kouros with the Sydney-Melbourne run that we had here in Australia and the Greek Spartathlon.
“I feel proud that I travelled to Greece and saw the Marathon and the amazing places of Greece, they are just beautiful. I visited Kalymnos and Meteora as well and I was stunned with the beauty and the history. It’s a shame that the idea we had to run a campaign for the return of the Marbles didn’t come to fruition as no sponsor was found at the time I was available, but you never know what can happen in the future,” Farmer said.
PAT FARMER AM
If Farmer’s story were a movie, we’d call it far-fetched. For more than 30 years he has been running ultramarathons for charity. Crazy, long runs – the length and breadth of entire nations. Continents. Even the globe.
Among his epic runs, Farmer has covered the length of India and Vietnam. He has run from Lebanon to Jordan. He has run twice across the continental US from end to end, finishing second in 1993 and fourth two years later in the Trans America Road Race. In 1999, a year before he entered politics, he ran 14,662 kilometers around Australia in an impressive 191 days during the Centenary of Federation Run which started and finished in Canberra.
He holds the record for crossing the Simpson Desert and set the record for the vertical run – the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest – in 24 hours. And – believe it or not, he has run from the North Pole to the South Pole. Over 20,000 km – an average of 80 km per day for over 10 months.
In his race from the Arctic to the Antarctic, he faced blizzards, got lost in the sun-scorched deserts of Peru, avoided polar bears, snakes, crocodiles, armed gangs and rogue militias, and was almost killed by a truck. But the worst were in Antarctica. The tent he slept in was never warm enough to melt the ice on his clothes. Some days the temperature was 45 degrees below zero. Farmer admits he may never fully recover from the ordeal. What keeps him going, he says, is the idea that “whatever I’m going through, what people in the Third World are going through is much worse.”
In between all these incredible feats he found time to spend nine years in Canberra as a federal MP. He served as a Liberal MP, with three years as parliamentary secretary for education, science and training. He is an Australia Day Ambassador and was named Achiever of the Year at the Australian of the Year Awards in 2000. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2010 but resigned when he became convinced that his special gift was running ultramarathons for noble causes . “Here in Parliament you can do some things to raise issues, but I’m a very empirical person,” he said in his farewell speech.
RUN FOR THE VOICE
Farmer’s new epic adventure will start in Tasmania for a new mission. He will run 14,000km across Australia to campaign for the Indigenous Voice to parliament.
The bill recently passed by the Government in Parliament will allow a Referendum to be held for each Australian to decide whether to amend the Constitution to recognize Australia’s First Peoples by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Islander Voice in parliament. The referendum is scheduled to be held between October and December this year.
Farmer will complete almost two marathons a day for six months to drum up support for the ‘yes’ campaign.
“There will be no days off,” says. He will be welcomed with mayoral honours in every major city across the country. At every opportunity, Farmer will speak in support of The Voice. This is an undertaking of epic proportions in the hope that it will inspire Australians to take a stand – not just with a vote, but with a stand for Australia’s leadership and intent on human rights and equality.
“I know Neos Kosmos is supporting the Voice campaign and congratulations for that. For all Greek Australians my message is simple: They know how difficult it was for them when they first came to Australia and tried to make a life here for themselves and their families, to build a community, to have a home, to provide an education to their children. And that is what we want for the Aboriginal people of the country.” Pat Farmer ultramarathon runner
His run will be on a tight schedule, starting with a round of Tasmania on April 17, before flying to Perth and completing the tour of the country, symbolically finishing at Uluru in October.
Farmer has been training for this campaign since the middle of last year. His training consists of running a marathon a day, seven days a week, followed by gym sessions most afternoons. On Sunday morning when we spoke to him, he had just returned from running a full marathon….just to warm up.
We asked him what prompted him to run for Indigenous Voice to Parliament and he replied that the inspiration came from his daughter when she reminded him that he had run for Australia’s Centenary in the past and that maybe he could wake the world up now with a big campaign for The Voice.
“It made me realise that everyone under thirty knows and understands how important it is for Indigenous Australians to have a Voice in Parliament and for the youth it’s clear and they wonder why we even have to vote on this issue when it’s a no-brainer” he tells us and goes on to say “we are lucky that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want to be part of our already existing legal and parliamentary system.
“They could very easily turn their backs, but instead all they are asking is for their voices to be heard so that equality can come in the fields of education, housing, health. As we all have equal rights in society and try to address the issues of racial inequality, it is very important to address this issue as well. These are the first Australians and it is very important to look after them,” Farner said.
Farmer was a member of parliament when the Apology to the Stolen Generations was bitterly debated. The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia’s history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies, from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. The children were often raised by religious groups, most never saw their parents again, and all that because governments and certain Christian groups, believed that this will be good for the children to be indoctrinated in religion so – as they said – to be ‘protected’ from their own culture.
“I will never forget, I was a member of the parliament and the government and all the lawyers were saying that we should not say sorry because that will bring massive damages that will bankrupt the country and we cannot afford this kind of litigation. We lost the election in 2007, the new prime minister Kevin Rudd, as soon as he took office, the first thing he did was to apologise. And although this changed nothing in substance, there were no great reparations to be given, but it was a very important step on the road to reconciliation and healing that someone finally took responsibility for the deeds done in the early days and the Stolen Generations,” Farmer said.
Farmer remembers how the current opposition leader Peter Dutton said he was wrong not to attend the Apology ceremony then, but that he now regrets it.
“I hope he doesn’t regret it again now that Indigenous people are given the opportunity to have a voice and he will be one of those who opposes that.
“I personally don’t think he will, Peter is a compassionate man and understands the mistakes of the past and I honestly think the opposition should let people have their say on this matter and when people vote YES and go to Parliament, they can discuss the institutional framework and what shape that will take, then.”
For now the best thing for politicians to do is to get out of the way, not impose their opinion on the public and let the people choose whether Aboriginal people should have a Voice in Parliament.”
Asked about the amendment to the Constitution Pat tells us that “We should bear in mind that the Constitution was made at a time when women did not have the right to vote, there was no racial equality, there was no equality for Aboriginal people.
TIME TO MAKE CHANGE
But times have changed and we have moved on and it is very important that rules, regulations, laws and legislation move on too. If we are going to stay with the same constitution until eternity then we don’t need politicians. “Times change and there are greater needs around housing, education, health and that is why we have politicians who can make the necessary changes in the laws of this country to reflect the needs of today’s times and this is exactly what we ask them to do now,” Farmer said.
Pat leaves Sydney for Hobart with his crew on April 14 and the campaign starts officially on April 17. Prime minister Anthony Albanese, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, the mayor of Hobart will attend the ceremony along with sports celebrities. Many people who will run alongside Farmer, for the first few kilometres. After running all of Tasmania Farmer will fly to Perth where he will run two marathons a day across Australia until October.
His daily adventures, the people he comes across, photos and videos will be uploaded daily by his crew on the website and blog runforthevoice.com.au
People’s support is the most important thing
“People can support me in two ways,” he tells us. “The first is to help with the cost and support of the run by choosing to donate on the website. Secondly and more importantly to come and run with me, they can run a kilometer or five kilometers or as long as they want. But by doing this they are actually showing their support through actions and not just words, their support for the VOICE and for this referendum to pass.” The calendar of dates and all the locations during the run across Australia is also on the website and people can register to run with him.
PAT FARMER’S MESSAGE TO AUSTRALIAN-GREEKS
“I know Neos Kosmos is supporting the Voice campaign and congratulations for that. For all Greek Australians my message is simple: They know how difficult it was for them when they first came to Australia and tried to make a life here for themselves and their families, to build a community, to have a home, to provide an education to their children. And that is what we want for the Aboriginal people of the country.”
“I appeal to all Greek Australians – whose country I have seen the beauty and the history – to come and run with me and support me in any way they can because I think that anyone who loves this country, who loves Australia and who loves the freedoms that we enjoy, will certainly support this cause.”
To follow the progress of this epic campaign, run with Pat Farmer or donate visit: www.runforthevoice.com.au
The original article: belongs to NEOS KOSMOS .
