With just under one month to go until Australian voters cast their votes on the Voice referendum, the last week has, at least for me, become a tale of two National Press Club addresses.
In the run-up to the referendum, the National Press Club has been running a series of Indigenous speakers of different persuasions on the Voice. Lidia Thorpe, for example, gave an address from the Indigenous sovereignty activist perspective on her 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago. The last two addresses, however, have featured an interesting pair: Marcia Langton speaking for the Voice, and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speaking against it.
Interesting to me because, as Price stated in the opening paragraphs of her speech, she and Langton previously appeared together on the stage, back in 2016 in a Centre for Independent Studies-badged event to speak about the violence faced by Aboriginal women. It was an important topic, but a controversial speech for many in the community, not least because the media ran with an idea stated in it that Aboriginal men hide behind culture to avoid penalty, while it also ignored any impacts of colonisation that may lead to inflated numbers.
It seems the relationship between the two women soured after this appearance together. A couple of years later, as Price was increasing her profile to run as the CLP candidate for Lingiari in the 2019 federal election, Langton was published in The Saturday Paper calling out Price’s proximity to alt-right and neo-Nazi support. There was truth to these claims — one of Price’s more well-known stunts was a truly bonkers campaign with Mark Latham to “save Australia Day”, for example — but it did leave some of us wondering just what had gone down between these two former collaborators to lead to such a takedown.
Fast-forward five years, and we see Price and Langton not only on opposing sides of the Voice debate, but delivering starkly different speeches on the same stage within a week of each other. Yet in some ways, these speeches weren’t so different. Both speeches, to different degrees, left the concept of “truth” at the door.
Taking her platform, Price proceeded to reel off some of the misleading talking points the No campaign has been utilising throughout this entire process, with a fair evocation of rank nationalism along the way. Her first point was to recycle the myth that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) had been a failure while pointing out that if a Voice goes in the constitution, it’s a permanent fixture that cannot be dismantled like ATSIC. This is blatantly incorrect as the third point of the proposed constitutional amendment states that the composition and powers of the Voice shall be determined by laws made by Parliament.
Price also repeated the claim that the Voice would insert race into the constitution. When this claim was challenged from the audience by NITV’s John Paul Janke on the basis that race already exists in multiple sections of the constitution, what followed was an artful dodge by Price, as if she were unaware of this fact.
Perhaps the biggest shock to me from Price’s speech was her claim that voters don’t have the detail of what the Voice will be. Last I checked, Price is a senator, the structure of the Voice will be decided by the Parliament, and as a member of Parliament, Price will indeed be one of the very people debating this proposed legislation and then voting on it. In other words, she is one of the very people who will be deciding what the Voice will look like in the future, despite her stating “we don’t know what it will look like in the future”. Finally, Price claimed that colonisation had had no ongoing impact on Indigenous peoples. This was said with a straight face.
Professor Langton’s speech, however, was not delivered with a straight face. It was, instead, delivered with a passionate, hopeful, and at times tormented face. Langton spoke directly about the impacts of colonisation and the Frontier Wars.
Yet straight off the bat, a claim Langton made stuck in my craw. When discussing what potential impacts the Voice could have, Langton appeared to intimate that legislations such as the Northern Territory Intervention and the BasicsCard rollout would not just simply be allowed to happen as they had in 2007. Firstly, this is incorrect. While the Voice would be able to make representations to Parliament on proposed legislation, there is nothing stating that Parliament must listen and act accordingly. Secondly, Langton notoriously supported both the rollout of the Intervention and the principles of welfare quarantining and put its many failures down to poor policy implementation.
What’s happened to Langton since her address has been nothing short of disgusting, as the media and people like Peter Dutton have sought to twist her delivered words into claims she called No voters “stupid”. Her Saturday Paper opinion piece has also resurfaced in an attempt to discredit points made in her address under the ridiculous guise of Price being a victim of Langton’s “racism”.
In this contorting, however, what falls by the wayside is that Langton was talking with hope on how the Voice “could” operate according to sentiments contained within the Uluru Statement, as well as the recommendations contained within the Voice co-design report she undertook with Tom Calma. None of these ideas are actualities set in stone as illustrated by the proposed constitutional amendments.
All this considered, I find myself again frustrated. Rather than Australians going to the booths considering the merits, or lack thereof, of a simple advisory body with no legislative power, we have instead been fed the politics of fear, or the politics of hope. We have no proof that the Voice will have any impacts on Australia’s systemic racism and build Indigenous community trust in the system (as claimed by Langton), nor is there any truth to claims that a successful referendum will lead to division (as claimed by Price).
As an undecided Indigenous voter, all I find myself wishing for is that the Australian public votes according to knowledge, rather than half-truths and apathy. In this tale of two speeches, I feel this wish may be a mere pipe dream.
“We have no proof that the Voice will have any impacts on Australia’s systemic racism and build Indigenous community trust in the system (as claimed by Langton)”
You can’t ever get proof because so much of it remains political. But if the Uluru process is to have any credibility then surely we need to trust that if that process believes it will help then why wouldn’t you say Yes?
We equally have no proof it wouldn’t have an impact………….
………..and unless we try, we never will.
What’s that old trope about only regretting things that you didn’t do?………….
I think you are spot on Jason. If those involved in producing the Uluru statement came up with this as a solution, then I believe that I must trust them and say Yes.
As opposed to think tanks in the US fossil fueled Koch network:
‘appeared together on the stage, back in 2016 in a Centre for Independent Studies-badged event to speak about the violence faced by Aboriginal women.’
Promoting the fact to the mainstream, as CIS, like the IPA in Koch’s global Atlas Network, draws upon some ‘colourful’ ideology from the US including what has been described as ‘segregation economics’ of the deep south; shocking, not.
As I have pointed out before, the main reason I am voting Yes is because, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community who was long denied the right to marry my (now) husband, the importance of being seen – legally in our case; Constitutionally in this case – cannot be overestimated.
The Voice is clearly not an end point, but it is a beginning and I hope will show the Indigenous Peoples of Australia that they are seen and acknowledged in way that has never happened before.
That in itself is of huge significance. It can make all the difference in the world as long as the Voice is NOT seen as a finishing point, but as a beginning.
It is up to us to make sure that is the case.
Well said. Every large change has to start with that first small step.
You cannot have 100% proof of anything really unless you give it a chance to actually happen.
Also, in today’s world you will never achieve 100% consensus on any proposed reform, and if 100% pre-agreement is to be the new benchmark before embarking on any sort of change; then nothing will ever get done. And the staus quo prevails (which, in effect, is just a vote for more of the same, which for a bunch of reasons suits some so-called progressives just fine as much as it satisfies conservatives, deniers of various stripes etc).
So, by all means strive for perfection, but a dose of pragmatism and reality doesn’t hurt.
I have listened closely to Liddle and other Indigenous undecided’s like her, and they are rightly sceptical.
The design of the Voice will be left to Parliament, and every Yes supporter (myself included) believes something at leadt moderately equitable like the Langton/Calma model of 24 or 32 reps will be implemented. And it probably will, initially. But Liddle is right to be wary. Did ATSIC fail, or was it the victim of a right-wing driven, media promoted, smear campaign? I’m not sure, but I do know it doesn’t matter. The public allowed, even welcomed the shutting down of ATSIC, because they believed it was riven with corruption.
The same could happen with the Voice.
If the LNP gets a decent leader, and forms govt in 5-8yrs time, they will decide the composition of the Voice. With the IPA and the like pushing an agenda that the Voice is fractured, incompetent, corrupt, unrepresentative, etc., all promoted by big media, public sentiment will allow a reshaping of the Voice. The Libs could turn it into a body of 3 hand picked stooges, and turn it into a proper sham.
This is what Liddle fears, and a big part of why she can’t get behind it.
It’s a reasonable fear, IMO.
Hopefully, by the time the LNP find a “decent leader” (probably about the turn of the century, at the current rate of progress), the “Voice” will have proved itself (one way or the other, and I don’t think anyone can second-guess which way it will go) and will either have become a useful institution, or will have faded from relevance.
A “decent leader” of the LNP would not wish to be seen neutering something that was working, and if it wasn’t where would be the point?
A fear of what might or might not happen at some unknown time in the future is not a valid reason for failing to try.
Remember the story of Drake and QE1?…………….
He fancied his chances with Liz, but couldn’t speak out loud, so in her presence he incised on a window:
“Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall………”
Liz put the hard word straight on him, by incising the next line to make a couplet:
“If thy heart fail thee, then climb not at all”.
They don’t make ’em like they used to…………………
RALEIGH, not Drake…………….
……..where’s that bloody edit button?
I hope you’re right Thucydides, but the point remains, faith is required.
FN peoples have lots of reasons to be very wary of governments (of both stripes) making decisions on their behalf. They’ve got it wrong pretty much every time.
This is what the Voice hopes to rectify, but the reality is we must have faith that the govt will not dismiss out of hand the advice the Voice delivers, nor make rules about its composition that render it a useless institution.
That’s a legit sticking point.
I will be voting Yes, and hoping that future govt’s do the right thing. But I understand that inability to believe in that.
Are you participating in the ‘Walk for Yes’ tomorrow?
I think it most likely that Labor will create a legit Voice, but equally that should the Barbarians be returned to power in the short-term, they would denature it…………….
They would probably also try to kill action on climate change with their Nucyular fantasy, but there is no point worrying about that either).
(At Lismore)
There will never again be a decent leader of the LNP. No decent person would make it to leadership and as a result they are dying out. Too slowly for my liking.
Raleigh was a chancer who was eventually executed. But Drake overcame hardship and mutiny and, in his belief in the future, sailed on to be the first to encompass the globe, along the way filling his ship with treasure for his queen, his backers and himself and his crew. Awesome grasp of opportunity, and courage.
If we were incapacitated by every reasonable fear we would never have achieved any progressive reform – no universal suffrage, no welfare system etc etc. And reactionary vested interests are always ready and waiting to manufacture every “reasonable” fear and doubt they can think of.
Thanks Celeste. I’m a yes voter in the hope and fear basket. Hopeful the Voice will be heard and heeded, fearful it will be completely ignored, terrified the misinformed Australian public will be far too busy patting themselves on the back for voting yes to notice.
Me too, Kathy.
It’s up to us to make sure the latter does not happen.
I watched Price’s despicable performance at the Press Club…………..
……….apart from confirming my utter contempt for Price, the LNP and all they stand for, the only surprise was that she did not whip out her banjo and treat us all to a rendition of “Camptown Races”.
Good luck with hoping that the Australian public “votes according to knowledge, rather than half-truths and apathy”…………..
…….faced with such a barrage of lies and arrant nonsense, what chance is there?
A small aside, Jacinta Price was very active in the community for quite a few years through music and Yamba’s playtime , a kids tv program .
until recently she was always known in town as Jacinta Price, even during her non productive years on the Town Council
The use of her aboriginal seems to have come about with her rise in politics…..
Same with Mundine…………..
…………..until he got the gig with the “No” campaign there was nary a sign that he even had an aboriginal name.
Those two will be alienated forever from the Aboriginal community for such a heinous betrayal
Price appears to be non accepting of her Aboriginal background wanting to be regarded as completely assimilated with the mainstream. Assimilation would herald the loss of so much of the culture, art and spirituality which epitomises the deeper culture Australia now uses to represent who we are across the world.
One is puzzled (not) as to why MPs and supporters of the LNP, NP, CLP etc. are not asked their views or interrogated vs. hiding behind media noise using indigenous people to front a very political campaign?
Seems like the LNP has been willingly ‘whipped’ into silence suggesting some fear of perceived authority?