One of the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Megan Davis, has revealed she was open to the idea of not proceeding with the Voice referendum, once it became apparent it was very unlikely to get the public’s approval.
The constitutional law expert ruled out any support for symbolic recognition when speaking with the Insiders: On Background podcast, and said it would represent a broken election promise if the Albanese government didn’t deliver a Makarrata Commission.
Monday marks the anniversary of the failed referendum, and Ms Davis said it has been a tough week for many Indigenous Australians who are still “devastated” by the result.
Uluru Dialogue co-chairs Professor Megan Davis, left, and Pat Anderson signing the Uluru Statement in 2018. (Supplied)
She said when the polls showed the Yes campaign was unlikely to be successful, her mind turned to whether it was worth proceeding.
“If the prime minister and others had really definitive information that it was going to lose, we were concerned with why that would proceed, given that it was apparent we didn’t have enough time to prosecute the case,” she told the ABC’s David Speers.
“To educate the Australian people on what a Voice was, but more importantly, not so much about the Voice, but this decade-long advocacy, multi-partisan process for constitutional recognition.”
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Ms Davis said she didn’t have the kind of relationship with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that would have allowed her to ask him to stop the vote, but added she would have considered the move had it been raised with her.
“I would’ve been up for that discussion. Referendums, they can lapse — and I think there could’ve been better coordinated conversations about that,” she said.
“I know there were leaders deeply concerned about continuing on if … they had such definite information that it was going to fail.”
Ms Davis still firmly believes in what the Voice campaign was calling for, but says misinformation played an “acute” role in the referendum debate.
No Makarrata Commission would be ‘broken election promise’
The Uluru Statement called for a Voice to Parliament to be enshrined in the constitution, and then a Makarrata Commission to oversee “a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made an election commitment to implement the Makarrata Commission in full, but comments he made at this year’s Garma festival led to questions over that commitment.
He referred to Makarrata as a Yolngu word that means “coming together after a struggle”, but Dean Parkin, the director of the Yes campaign, said there is a clear difference between a “commitment to Makarrata vs commitment to a Makarrata Commission”.
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Ms Davis said she doesn’t know exactly where the government stands on the commission, but said establishing one remains Labor Party policy.
“The Makarrata Commission did go through their policy conference, and it was part of their election platform,” she said.
“So, you know, that would be a broken election promise.
“Presumably they’ve said they don’t think they can prosecute that with the current opposition, and that they’ll leave it to the next term.”
She said she remains committed to the commission, and opposed to any purely symbolic recognition.
“Time and time again, our people have said they don’t want symbolic or poetical recognition,” she said.
“It’s actually a super dangerous thing just to put some lines of poetry at the beginning of the constitution, just allow it to apply willy-nilly without any controls.”
Payman’s ‘Australia’s Voice’ party ‘extraordinarily insensitive’
Ms Davis also criticised the timing of Senator Fatima Payman’s launch of her new party, Australia’s Voice, this week, given the announcement’s proximity to the referendum anniversary.
“It’s a difficult time for our people, and I thought it was extraordinarily insensitive to announce that in the week leading up to a very difficult anniversary date for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and many Australians,” she said.
When questioned about the name, Senator Payman said she “doesn’t see why” she would need to apologise and that “the word ‘voice’ isn’t trademarked”.
Ms Davis said the senator’s comments were “a bit thoughtless”.
“The comment about ‘voice’ not being trademarked — I thought a lot of the discussion was a bit unseemly, when a really significant proportion of the Australian population is really hurting,” she said.