‘People shook my hand’: the Indigenous man who spoke his mind at Liberal MP’s voice forum

Phil Dotti says he's spent his life being told to be quiet. But the Gumbayngirr-Dhungutti man says that only strengthened his resolve to stand up for what he believes in.

So after listening to non-Indigenous people talk about the Indigenous voice to parliament for an hour and 40 minutes at a public forum, Dotti decided it was time to speak up.

Wednesday night's event in Sydney's south was hosted by the Liberal MP Jenny Ware and featured former prime minister Tony Abbott on the no side and News Corp journalist Joe Hildebrand on the yes side.

The discussion was streamed live on Ware's social media page. As it was ending, an audience member asked: "Can we please hear from a First Nations person before we go?"

Ware said there was "simply no time" and had moved on to her concluding remarks when Dotti walked down the aisle and stepped on the stage, causing a stir as he began to speak. The livestream ended soon afterwards. Dotti says there were people who got up and walked out.

Dotti says he listened to the panel, the questions from the non-Indigenous audience, and the answers. He had his hand up but was not called on to ask a question.

He says he went on the stage to speak his mind because "people needed to see someone with strength and character" - qualities his mother and grandfather instilled in him when growing up on the Burnt Bridge mission in Kempsey, New South Wales.

Dotti is a former NRL player and the first Aboriginal person to play for the Cronulla Sharks.

He says he moved to Sydney in the 1980s as a young man with $20 in his wallet and a "pocketful of influences" who taught him that community comes first. He was playing rugby league for a local club and working odd jobs when Jack Gibson, "probably the greatest coach of all", signed him to the Sharks in 1985.

"I knew, even back in those days, football was going to get me out of disadvantage and being underprivileged and poor," he says.

Dotti played for the Sharks before moving to the Wests Tigers in 1987. Injury ended his football career but not his determination to succeed.

"A lot of people have success and then they fail. I passed failure on the way to success," he says. "My failure was simply this: I wasn't given the right opportunities as a kid.

"We were living on rations. I remember waking up in the early hours of the morning at the age of six or seven years old with a just a pair of shorts on, jumping in the back of a white man's truck and going out to his farm and picking peas and beans and getting five cents or something.

"That's how it was. We lived in tin shacks. We didn't have lights or the luxuries of a microwave and fridge. My mother and father were very, very poor. So were other Aboriginal people around us."

He remembers his mother telling him to stand in a dish of water to get clean for when the welfare came. "If you're dirty, they're gonna take you," he says. "I remember mum saying to me: Listen! The police are coming, run down and hide at the back of the creek down there. But watch out for brown snakes."

He remembers walking with his mum to school at the age of five so she could vote in the 1967 referendum. He says his mum was a strong community person.

"Mum was a fighter," he says. "Aboriginal people had to help Aboriginal people. We've had the ball and chain, all our lives, around our ankles. That's got to change.

"I really wish Jenny Ware would come and front me. But I know they're scared because I might be an educated blackfella, and there's nothing more scary than that."

In a statement, Ware says the event was attended by about 130 people. She says the acknowledgement of Country was given by Aunty Gail Smith of the Gandangara Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Hildebrand and Abbott were respectful and thoughtful, Ware says, and attended on their own time.

"The event concluded after a series of moderated questions as well as questions from the audience. The event lasted for almost two hours. At the conclusion of the event, on the recommendation of the AFP, I left."

Abbott says he and Dotti "had a good discussion" after the event. "I can understand he wanted to have his say, and I'm glad we were able to shake hands and have a constructive and cordial discussion afterwards."

Dotti confirms he spoke briefly with Abbott. He says the reaction to his shortened speech has been mostly positive.

"Straight after, people came up, non-Aboriginal people, and shook my hand and said it was a great speech and we wanted to hear more. That was comforting.

"The people who got up and walked out ... were afraid of the truth. A few others got up and walked away because whitefellas had had their say and they didn't want to hear what a blackfella had to say.

"I spoke for my mother. I spoke for my grandfather. I spoke for the family. I spoke for the Aboriginal people. But I did it my way."