GARY Cattanach is Aboriginal teacher and artist at Nambucca High School. He is currently performing his latest song at a diverse range of venues.

Called ‘Raise Your Hands’ the song is pure positivity about the ‘yes’ vote for Australians.

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With guitar in hand, Gary was a guest performer at the Yes23 campaign launch on 4 July, in Sydney’s Surry Hills, attended by about 4,000 people and; on stage at the NSW Teachers Federation annual conference in Darling Harbour on 5 July; and Nambucca Heads High School where the students waved their raised hands in the air.

A long-time campaigner for constitutional change, Gary is finding his song an engaging way to encourage the concept of raising awareness for constitutional change for Aboriginal people.

Chatting with News Of The Area, Gary shared some background about creating the song.

Every line in the song is important but some have a deeper meaning for their author, which he delights in sharing.

The line, ‘my mother once told me, about the old green frog, she said, sometimes he takes a giant leap of faith’, takes Gary back to his childhood.

“My mother did tell me that and it’s true,” he said.

“The conservatism of Australia can hold people back, they need to take that giant leap of faith and look forward to a new beginning,” said Gary.

The last verse, ‘take this chance to raise your hands, take this chance raise your hands, take this chance raise your hands, for the first Australians’, is a powerful ending that Gary is finding he can replay several times as audiences have by this time been singing along, waving their arms in the air and in song flow.

“It comes from a big blue-sky approach and people can feel the optimism,” he said.

“We make our reality and as the song says: ‘a yes vote for my people in the great law of this land, a yes vote for my people, try to understand, a yes vote for my people will treat us all as equals . . . take this chance, raise your hands’.

“I’m confident people will align themselves with the positivity of ‘yes’.”

Performing at the Sydney Yes23 launch was a bit nerve-wracking, said Gary, but he grounded himself and took his own leap of faith and was blown away with the audience response.

“My grandchildren were there; the song is for my grandchildren’s future.

“It was big and it was important . . . it went really well,” he said, with glee.

The following day he delivered ‘Raise Your Hands’ to the 500 attendees of the NSW Teachers Federation annual conference.

And then it was back to school at Nambucca Heads High singing to, and with, the kids.

Gary refers to the song as “an anthem for the times we live in.

“It’s an assessment of how we feel about ourselves as a country.

“It’s the conscience of Australia.

“Do we want to live in fear and pessimism? Or do we want to look at the blue sky, which is the real Australian outlook?

“When I think of fear I want to run,” he said.

“I don’t want that for my grandchildren.

“I want them to be proud of pop (me) and nan (Jenny, my wife) and importantly our country.”

Gary performed at Yes23 at the request of Charline Emzin-Boyd, Yes23 Northern NSW organiser.

“I chose Gary because I knew he would deliver,” Charline told NOTA.

“I’ve worked with him for over 20 years, and he has always displayed such an infectiously positive passion about where First Nation Australians stand; the song encapsulates what this is all about.”

By Andrea FERRARI