Politics can meander down some strange paths sometimes, particularly when conflict is not the means to an end but an end in itself. Marcia Langton, one of the key architects of the voice to parliament proposal, found herself at the centre of a fracas midweek when comments she’d made last Sunday during a public forum at Edith Cowan University appeared on the Australian newspaper’s website shortly before question time on Tuesday.
Langton had responded (as she explained later) to a query from a woman who was “clearly considering voting no” on 14 October. Referencing messaging from the no campaign, Langton told the woman: “See, ‘Aborigines are bludgers, Aborigines steal everything, Aborigines aren’t entitled to the compensation that everybody else gets because they’re lying’. Do you see my point? 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.”
