With less than two weeks from voting day on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, it’s worth pausing to reread the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The statement stands out for its clarity and generosity, and is presented both as an invitation and an opportunity. Last week, leading No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine labelled it a “symbolic declaration of war against modern Australia”.
Mundine’s assertion (which he stands by) stood out for its characterisation of a form of words that have won the Sydney Peace Prize.
One of the biggest media stories to come out of this campaign will be the disinformation — let’s just call them lies — that has flooded the national discussion.
Seven weeks ago, on the cusp of kicking into the official campaign, Kalkadoon and Arrernte filmmaker and Yes23 co-chair Rachel Perkins wrote that the media would play a profound role in the Voice referendum, and asked: “Are they up to it?”
At Crikey, we’ve approached the referendum the same way we approach most stories: starting with an interest in how power works in this country. Our Northern Territory reporter, Julia Bergin, arrived in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) in April at the same time as the Dutton/Price caravan rolled into town, and she soon partnered with local outfit Indigenous Community Television (ICTV) to go beyond the Yes/No soundbites (they’re just back from visiting three remote communities, two on early-polling day, to find that many locals had no idea it was their day to vote).
As well as stories coming out of the NT, we’ve crunched the numbers on the No campaign’s finances and just who voted for Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, picked over the constitution, questioned the messaging of the Yes camp, examined the war on truth, tracked the rise of anti-Semitism, and reported on the intention of white supremacists to exploit the No vote. We’ve also published a fair amount of fact-checking.
We’ve interrogated the use of the term “elites”, asked what it means to be racist (and reported on how the label has been weaponised), examined the prime minister’s playbook, traced the fingerprints of the IPA’s talking points, asked whether sport should stay out of it, compared the CVs of the Yes and No camps, measured the effect of News Corp coverage and the media’s addiction to conflict, and sat in on yarning circles. We’ve also featured numerous case studies of what self-determination looks like, and what wouldn’t be considered consultation by any stretch.
Most crucially we’ve published writing by First Nations thinkers, academics and writers such as Celeste Liddle, Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Jeanine Leane, Amy McQuire, Benjamin Abbatangelo, Perkins, Latoya Rule, Thomas Mayo, Kieran Stewart-Assheton, and Claire G. Coleman, with views ranging from passionate Yes to hard No.
Today Tarneen Onus-Williams chronicles the personal cost to community on the path to constitutional change: “No matter our vote, we’re required to convince the non-Indigenous people of this country of our demands and values, forcing us into a Yes and No binary that is divisive for our peoples. And after the referendum has come and gone, we will be the ones left to pick up the broken pieces for many years to come.”
They also write of their trajectory from No to Yes, as a leader of the progressive Blak Sovereign movement and a community organiser for Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance.
When referencing Makarrata, “the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle”, the Uluru Statement explains: “It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.”
One lasting question for the media will be whether the words “fair and truthful” will characterise the conversation this country has engaged in.
Today we’re opening up our archive and bringing a curated selection of Voice coverage out from behind the paywall. And we have one final question for our readers: what more do you need to know?*
* (No, really, tell us below to help inform our coverage over the next 10 days.)
