Last Wednesday, Professor Marcia Langton addressed the National Press Club with a stark warning: Don’t imagine that there’s another opportunity around the corner, don’t think your No vote goes into a different pile marked “next time”. At one point, her voice audibly wavering with emotion, she implored the media to “not participate in pile-ons”.
One week later, comments she’d made at a forum hosted by Edith Cowan University were taken out of context and quickly dominated News Corp headlines. It didn’t take long for her then to become the key attack figure of Coalition talking points and social media posts.
Crikey lays out a chronology of the pile-on of Professor Langton.
Wednesday, September 6, 2023: Professor Marcia Langton, a prominent advocate for the Yes vote in the upcoming referendum concerning the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, addresses the National Press Club in Canberra. During her address, she calls on the media to “lift their game” and to “not participate in pile-ons on persons who are good and decent people”.
Sunday, September 10: Addressing a forum in Bunbury, 175 kms south of Perth, Langton says the following about the arguments of the No campaign: “Every time the No case raises one of their arguments, if you start pulling it apart, you get down to base racism. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s where it lands — or just sheer stupidity.”
Tuesday, September 12: The Bunbury Herald, a free weekly paper published by Seven West Media, puts Langton’s comments on its front page under the headline “RACIST OR JUST STUPID”. The opening paragraph reads: “Voice to Parliament No voters are siding with either ‘racism’ or ‘stupidity’, Professor Marcia Langton told a referendum forum in Bunbury on Sunday.”
At time of writing, the story remains online, under the headline “Professor Marcia Langton AO says No Voice to Parliament voters are siding with ‘racism’ or ‘stupidity’”.
The story is picked up by The Australian‘s national affairs editor Joe Kelly, and run online under the headline “No voters branded ‘racist and stupid’ by prominent Yes campaigner”.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton incorporates the headline into a social media post, featuring an image of Langton with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Dutton calls on Albanese to condemn Langton:
The Australian’s piece is published just before Tuesday’s question time and dominates the opposition’s questions to the government. Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley asks Indigenous Minister Linda Burney:
Moments before question time, The Australian and the Bunbury Herald reported Professor Marcia Langton has accused No voters of opposing the referendum because of ‘base racism or sheer stupidity’. Will the minister for Indigenous Australians condemn Professor Langton’s comments?
This is the final sitting week before the October 14 vote on the Voice.
Sky News runs “exclusive” footage of Langton’s comments.
Nine papers’ chief political correspondent David Crowe tweets “I’ve listened to the audio of Marcia Langton in WA and she does *not* call voters racist or stupid”. He writes a follow-up piece under the headline “Marcia Langton denies calling No voters racist“.
Sometime on Tuesday afternoon, The Australian alters the headline of its original article to “Claims made by No Campaign based on racism, stupidity: Marcia Langton”.
Wednesday, September 13: Langton appears on ABC RN and says she has been misrepresented, claiming Kelly didn’t approach her for comment before running the piece.
The Australian dedicates its front page to Langton. Under the headline “‘Base racism’: Yes leader in no-holds-barred call”, the Oz writes that “Linda Burney has been forced to intervene and call for care and respect from both sides” after Langton’s comments. It goes on to state that after the comments, “race became a central feature of the campaign” on Tuesday.
Also on the front page is commentary from political editor Simon Benson arguing the saga represented a test of Albanese’s character:
… as one of the more prominent advocates, Langton’s comments inevitably will be conflated with an argument that this is a view implicitly shared by the government. Albanese will need to distance himself from this suggestion.
Further, there is a pointer to a relatively sympathetic piece from Indigenous Affairs correspondent Paige Taylor:
Professor Langton’s life’s work has been a public service yet she is sometimes written off as an elite. It is lazy, easy politicking but Professor Langton lives in a capital city and has a big job title with letters after her name.
This is a gift for those who hate what she stands for.
Professor Langton says the majority of Australians are not racist. But after decades in the public square, she is confident she recognises racism when she sees it.
Sky News runs footage, from July of this year, of Langton describing a portion of the “hard No vote” as “spewing racism”. Her full comment is:
The surge of racist nonsense is confined to a minority of Australians. Ordinary Australians are thinking Yes. Of course I am voting for the Voice and that would be 48-49%. Then there is hard No voters and I am hoping they are about 20% and they are the ones spewing racism.
Thursday, September 14: In a piece marked “exclusive” and headlined “Langton has form in ‘racism’ attacks“, the Oz reprints sections of a 2018 piece from The Saturday Paper that Langton penned on No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and her mother, Bess, also a politician, particularly highlighting the following passage:
It is important to communicate with all Australians on this issue, as I have a number of times myself, but speaking at the Bennelong Society or the Centre for Independent Studies to the exclusion of other organisations raises the suspicion that Bess and Jacinta have become the useful coloured help in rescuing the racist image of these conservative outfits.
The piece restates her Bunbury comments, and references the “20% spewing racism” figure from the earlier Sky News story. Next to the piece is a graphic with a series of quotes from Langton in which she has referred to various groups or systems as racist:
Friday, September 15: Sussan Ley appears on Sunrise, alongside Labor’s Education Minister Jason Clare, and repeats the 20% figure, now narrowed to 22%:
In fact, Marcia Langton, a co-architect of the Voice, part of the Referendum Working Group, has called 22% of Australia’s deeply racist … Unfortunately, neither the Prime Minister nor the [Indigenous Affairs] minister stepped back from those claims and I think they really should have removed Marcia Langton from that group in the interest of us coming together.
But that’s why this Voice is so divisive. Led by a prime minister who has a rushed timeline, insisted that everyone has to vote Yes, is surrounded by people who he is backing in that are saying that Australians are racist and that at the heart of the arguments for No is racism [and] stupidity.
That’s why we got so angry this week. But I absolutely know that when we go into our communities, we will find Australians desperate for the detail.And I want to know, Jason, do you think that 22% of Australians are deeply racist?
Clare replies, “No, of course I don’t. I don’t at all. I think Australians are good, honest and fair.”
At the time of writing, Dutton’s post remains up, unaltered.
Has Marcia Langton been unfairly targeted? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
This reads like a standard case of “Is it true, or did you see it in one of Rupert’s papers?”.
I think that a good percentage of Australians are racist, especially older people who grew up in the less enlightened environment modern generations are enjoying. I have to watch myself from time to time but on this issue I acknowledge the problems caused by colonization and will be voting YES as a significant step in the right direction.
Yes, your phrase ‘significant step in the right direction’ sums up why I am voting yes.
Will the Voice solve every problem? NO, and those who say that it has to or else they will vote no are deluded.
Will the Voice eliminate systemic advantage overnight? Of course not, but it is not as if the status quo is working brilliantly.
As you said, a step in the right direction; and we will go forward from there.
Right-wing pale stale males never cease their attacks on women with intellect. Their insecurities are profound. Nothing will stop them from attempting to violate our democratic processes…as we are currently witnessing.
Actually, there is no shortage of conservative females who are loudly on board with conservative media. From Ms Hanson, to Senator Price, various LNP members in the current parliament and various other Sky After Dark types (some of whom are not white). A most unholy alliance. These women often make for good shop window spokespersons who can successfully tap into a certain segment of suburbia and the regions.
Australians thrive on this sort of stuff, otherwise the collective conservative media wouldn’t keep serving it up. Nothing like a good pile on even if it has no basis in fact. And with a tinge of race involved, we’ll print more copies.
When all this boils down to October 14, I’m with Patrick Dodson. In encouraging the PM to go with a referendum this year, Dodson maintained that was time to find out where the nation stood, for better or for worse, on Indigenous matters. It is time to be held accountable for who we are.
And we are about to find out that we are nowhere near as generous, tolerant or inclusive as we like to think we are. And that’s a good thing, because the lie that we live will be exposed for what it truely is.
When offered a chance to do something that the most disadvantaged group in the country think will be good for them, any semblance of threat, real or otherwise, to our self interest or comfort will win out.
When this is all done with, many will lament the new Australia that has emerged. They will seek to blame Albonese for dividing the country.
This is a furphy, as what will be uncovered is who we truely are.
It may well be uncomfortable, but it will be the truth.
Unfortunately, many will refuse to acknowledge the truth. They have so far and they’re not about to stop. It’s not like the truth has been hidden. It’s obvious to anyone who cares to look. But many Australians have a real problem with having a good hard look at themselves. They’ve been fed the fairytale of being great and special by the mere virtue of being Australian (which is somehow so much better than being any other nationality) and they’ll hold on to it come what may.
As a fairly recent arrival to this country I’d say Australians are no more welcoming, friendly or helpful than others. They’re certainly not more fair or generous. But they’re more arrogant and full of themselves than some other nationalities I dealt with in the past. They lack the ability and willingness to self-criticism.
Our defining characteristic is our finely-honed instinct for pissing away our every advantage and finding the worst outcome.
Both hands are busy patting ourselves on the back while having a w4nk, both feet are busy kicking down, and the nose? The nose is brown.
So very brown, when the proposition that Turd-dock is a bad guy is controversial.
But somehow we’re egalitarian larrikins, MATE
Yes, the truth will out and Truth will have the last say. And that, I hazard will involve the revelations of the real reasons and fundamental racism that does lie behind the No campaign, and its advancing. For the No campaigners are playing politics with what can be (or could have been) real positive outcomes for others’ lives. Morally they have failed. Even in our so-called post-Truth world, such syllogistic B/S will eventually be turned around and we shall see. Good comment Graeme.
Stupid and racist is as stupid and racist does, and Dutton, Susan Ley, and most of the Moloch media are lining up behind them.
Nailed it!