The Coalition’s no campaign against the Indigenous voice to parliament will be in danger of running adjacent to racist views, a prominent member of the government’s referendum working group, Prof Marcia Langton, has said.
On Wednesday, the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, ended months of speculation by announcing he will actively campaign against the Indigenous voice referendum, and directing his frontbench to oppose the proposal. Backbenchers will be free to vote according to their conscience.
The Liberals have instead proposed symbolic recognition in the constitution and legislated regional and local voices. Both suggestions have long been rejected by Indigenous communities and the Uluru statement from the heart, and were subject to strong criticism on Thursday.
State Liberal leaders have publicly opposed the decision, and former Indigenous Australians minister, Yamatji man Ken Wyatt, quit the party on Thursday after Dutton’s announcement.
“I still believe in the Liberal party values but I don’t believe in what the Liberals have become,” Wyatt told the West Australian. “Aboriginal people are reaching out to be heard but the Liberals have rejected their invitation.”
Wyatt told Guardian Australia last week, before his resignation, that not backing the Indigenous voice to parliament could add to a “global perception” the Liberals are a “racist party”.
Federal MP Bridget Archer also admitted she had considered quitting, saying the party is “at a crossroads”. Archer told ABC Radio National that the Coalition’s no campaign would be in danger of campaigning “adjacent to racist views”.
Prof Langton, who co-authored a report for the previous Coalition government on how a voice to parliament could operate, said she held similar concerns.
Langton called on those who support the yes campaign to call out racism where they see it.
“This is the Australia we live in; it is racist. So this could be the political making of a whole lot of people who want to help us get this over the line and create a permanent system of empowerment for Indigenous people,” Langton said.
“If we want to mute racism, we have to raise our own voices. We have to make sure that we win this campaign, because if we don’t, then the racists will feel emboldened,” she said.
“We have to have a constitutionally enshrined voice that empowers our people, regionally and nationally, to make bureaucrats accountable, and respond to representations on all policy matters and legislative matters that affect us.
“If we can have a constitutionally enshrined voice that’s permanent, that makes us a formal part of the democratic architecture of Australia, that’s how we fight racism. That’s how we fight our disempowerment.”
On Thursday Dutton said “Indigenous elders” he had spoken to were not in favour of the voice, and quoted one as saying “we don’t want 24 academics – they’re not going to be our voice”.
Langton questioned those anonymous Indigenous sources of advice Dutton said he had received in reaching his decision.
“I’m really sick of people like him questioning our honesty and integrity and our commitment. We have put in many, many years of work. I am the co-author of at least three reports on this over the last 12 years. I’m on the public record for over 30 years on the empowerment of Indigenous people,” Langton said.
“And yes, I work at a university. But I grew up in a native camp and housing commission, and tents in Queensland. And I know the track record of the members of the referendum working group. Every one of them is an outstanding and honourable person,” she said.
13 regional Indigenous leaders from the Kimberley, Cape York, the NT, SA and NSW also questioned where Dutton’s advice had come from.
They said Dutton did not respond to their request to meet in Canberra, or to their invitation to visit their regions.
“We called for bipartisan support for the referendum, but political games are being played with our lives and futures, and the future of the entire nation,” Ian Trust, chair of the Empowered Communities group in Kununurra, said.
“Mr Dutton supports legislated local and regional voices as though that is some brilliant, original idea of the Liberal party. But we have operated at the local and regional level for nearly 10 years now, mostly under a Coalition government.
“We have experienced first-hand that our current system is broken, because decisions are made by politicians without our on-the-ground input.”
Local and regional voices must be linked to the national level to be effective, they said.
Langton said the report she prepared with Prof Tom Calma – which outlined how local and regional voices would feed into a national body – was the result of hundreds of consultations with Indigenous people.
“We’ve talked to thousands of Indigenous people. We’ve worked in Indigenous organisations. We’ve been the people who’ve tried hard for many years to create policy that works, policies that will actually close the gap.
“So, Australians can believe the shadow cabinet that gave them robodebt, a parliament in which a prime minister had to introduce a no-bonk policy, or they can believe us,” she said.
