We Speak to the Thoughts of Professor Marcia Langton AO
Our roving reporter, Ron Waffle, caught up with the thoughts of Professor Marcia Langton AO in Canberra, at the opening night of her favourite show, Les Misérables, to talk about her take on how The Voice debate is going.
[RW] - Good evening Professor Langton, thankyou for giving us some your time. Who are you wearing on the red carpet tonight?
[ML] - Oh, I’m wearing one of Noel Pearson’s more feminine creations, from his 2002 women’s collection called, ‘be-seen but don’t dare put your hand up’. Rather nice don’t you think?
It speaks to the female lateral violence of Les Mis perfectly, something Aboriginal women are only too aware of unfortunately. It’s a lovely, ‘French peasant with an Indigenous twist’ look - but I just hope the seats inside aren’t too narrow [laughter]
Real Credit:Untitled (Marcia Langton)(2002) from the Blak's Palace series, Christian Thompson. NGV
[RW] - Lovely; we will come back to Mr Pearson’s feminine touch a little later. But first, it’s been quite a week with the National Party’s leader David Littleproud and his spokesperson, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, both putting up a spirited and coherent rejection of the government’s Voice referendum proposal.
Many people I’ve spoken to suggest that the Nationals are very concerned about the racial basis of the Voice - that the Voice will put ‘race ‘ into our Constitution and that the Voice itself is a ‘racist’ proposal. Many think that the general public will be swayed by these sentiments, which could be the killer blow that sinks the Yes campaign. What’s your response?
[ML] - There are lot of issues here, but firstly let me say that I stand by my comments as reported in The Australian this week where I was quoted as saying,
The University of Melbourne professor said it would be “terribly unfortunate” if the issue sank into a “nasty, eugenicist, 19th-century style of debate” and said the notion of “race” didn’t exist at all.
“I have to say as a member of the faculty of medicine at the University of Melbourne (race) does not exist, we are one species; there are no races,” she told the ABC.
[RW] - Let’s unpack that a little if we may, the ‘notion of race’. Could you explain what you mean by, ‘the notion of race' not existing at all?
If one checks the definition of the word, ‘notion’, it means, ‘a conception of, or belief about, something’.
Are you suggesting that we as community only have a ‘belief in the existence of race’, but that it actually doesn’t exist at all?
[ML] - Exactly. I have been quoted on this many times before, such as in July 2022,
Professor Langton ‘said for far too long Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had to tolerate “a type of structural racism that treats us as a race”. “All arguments against the Voice are based on the concept that we’re a race of people and that no race should have more recognition than another. That is complete furphy,” she said. “We’re not a race – we’re over 600 cultural groups … This was our land until 1788. We’re not a race, we’re the peoples of this land. We ask for decency, a rightful place in the nation.”’
I first started enunciating these ideas some ten years ago. For example, in 2012, the ABC published an interview based on my major speech at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, where I was quoted as being in support of a social security and wider policy system based only on economic need, and not Aboriginality,
‘The Constitution and scores of Parliamentary acts at the federal and state level define Aboriginal people as a race," she said. "If we dispense with that definition of Aboriginal people and treat Aboriginal people as First Peoples - that is, our status derives from us being here before settlement - not on the basis of race but an historical argument, then Aboriginal people become citizens with an attribute that is political, not racial.
"And if we make that the definition of being Aboriginal ... then a lot of rubbish in the policy world falls away. "It's not possible then for Aboriginal people to argue that perverted sense of entitlement to government largesse on the basis of race. "They should only be able to argue for that kind of largesse on the basis of need, in other words economic disadvantage - actual economic disadvantage."
I expanded this idea in more detail in 2013 (p19)
‘Our status as the first peoples would be a simple acknowledgement of historical fact and our aspiration for cultural maintenance an unarguably reasonable one. Other Australians would feel secure in their status as another kind of Australian — descendants of those who came after 26 January 1788. The burden of history would then be resolved in its proper domain, as Australia’s history with its attendant social problems of winners and losers, the advantaged and disadvantaged — and the irresolvable question of guilt — would no longer be the issue.
The question of how to ameliorate the conditions of the disadvantaged would be the issue, not because of their presumed racial difference, but because of their inheritance of intergenerational historical conditions … When you think about it, our historians and intellectuals should have reached this realisation without the trauma of the ‘culture wars’. I hope we can put this idiocy behind us and define human beings in ways that does not involve outdated and unscientific concepts [such as race] and the prejudices that have grown up around them.
[RW] - So what you’re saying is, let’s dispense with the ‘notion of race’ to define Aboriginal Australians, but instead adopt the descriptor, ‘First Peoples’, or more commonly now, First Nations people, which reflects a new classification based on, ‘we were here first.’
Let me play Devil’s advocate here - are you saying that, as a nation, we adopt a new political classification of Australians by ‘drawing a time-line in the sand’ at 26 January 1788 - then we tell one, smaller group of say, 900,000 Aboriginal Australians, to move back into the past, onto one side of the line, leaving the rest of the other 24 million of us ‘migrant’ Australians, in the sand representing the time after 26 January 1788?
Each of these groups would then further subdivide into groupings and political parties at an individual level as they see fit, but the primary division within Australia going forward would be based on when your ancestors arrived here?
Visually our ‘New Nation’ might look something like artist, Spencer Tunick’s, installation at Bondi Beach this year, an allegory for Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788 - a small number of First Nations Aboriginal people, up on the beach observing and containing the arrival of, might we say, Second Nations people as they step off their boats on to the beach.
Would that be a way for the general public to understand and visualize your proposal?
Thousands of bodies at sunrise for photographic artist Spencer Tunick’s Bondi Beach installation. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
[ML] - Hmmm, that’s an interesting way to describe the scenario I’m proposing, but in essence that is correct. It speaks to my idea that,
‘we do not see ourselves as Australians, but rather that we are Australian and, as well, indigenous … [whose] ancestors were here many tens of thousands of years before Arthur Phillip … [we speak Aboriginal] languages … [and have] inherited cultural and linguistic wealth, customary rights to land and waters, along with customary responsibilities, all of which [we] fulfill intelligently while also participating fully in the modern nation [of Australia].’
‘…there are thousands of Aboriginal people who are the members of distinct groups (such as clans or tribes, not "races") whose occupation of the continent and islands long predates by tens of thousands of years the British and any other ethnic group residing here now. The ancestors of indigenous people created the country, in the way described in magnificent detail by Bill Gammage in The Biggest Estate on Earth, and also in far more subtle ways.’
So yes, this is the thrust of my argument - let’s stop talking about ‘races’ and starting thinking, ‘First Peoples.’
[RW] - Do you think then, that if we no longer speak of ‘race’, then by definition racism will disappear from daily discourse?
I mean, if there is no such thing as ‘race’ how can you have ‘racism’? Can you have veganism without vegans? If a society doesn’t have capital doesn’t it cease to have any prospect of capitalism? Maybe you are onto something, Professor?
[ML, with a crafty glint in her eye] - That’s the plan. Once we have First Nations Peoples enshrined in the Constitution, I don’t need to play the ‘race-card’ anymore, which will be a relief not only to me, but those Bogan tradies with their Eskies, those old Leftie academics and their racism, as well as any sundry person who gets a bit too uppity in defending ‘white’ culture, their own mob, or disparaging of our Grand Plan for The Voice. ‘Race-baiting’ has been very effective, but it is morally corrosive for me as well as my targets, and hard work to boot!
[RW] - So let’s assume, Professor Langton, that the Referendum passes; The Voice is enshrined in the Constitution and the classification of Aboriginal Australians as a ‘race’ fades away due to the emergent of the new descriptor of, First Nations people.
Are you concerned that over time, as ‘racism’ recedes, ‘sectarianism’ rises to take its place as the new point of contention between competing political groups within our society? As you are aware, Protestant versus Catholic sectarianism was very big in Australia’s past - Australians can do sectarianism very well if they put their minds to it!
[ML] - Sectarianism? What do you mean?
[RW] - Well, let just go back to your idea of a ‘timeline in the sand’; your idea to separate Australians by the date on their arrival-cards.
By drawing a line in the sand that sets a date that classifies those people who arrived before as you call them, First Nations peoples, then, by definition, that must mean that those people that arrived after that date are necessarily, Second Nation peoples. Isn’t that so?
You can’t really have only a ‘First’ of anything - there always has to be at least a ‘Second’ in the same series, often followed by a Third, Fourth, etc to make sense of something being ‘First’.
Technically, I even suppose Torres Strait Islanders won’t be First Nations people anymore, given that they did not join Australia until 1879, several generations after the arrival of the Second Nation peoples. So, won’t this dividing us into numbered nations thus give rise to sectarianism in Australia?
As a people we will be defined by when we arrived, which I would have thought would be repugnant to most Australians who have been brought up on the democratic, liberal ideal that we are all equal citizens, no matter whether our ancestors arrived 50,000 years ago, on the First Fleet, in 1879, or on a plane in recent times.
[ML] - I don’t think that follows. Non-indigenous Australians are sensible enough to understand the New Order of things that is coming into existence . They will be able to recognise the value of, and justification for, their new place, relative to First Nations peoples in our society going forward. I don’t think it will be an issue. We have a large campaign planned that will explain the part they can each play in securing social justice for First Nations peoples. We are also planning a big media campaign in the ABC to ameliorate the hurt any non-indigenous Australians might suffer when they realise our country necessarily has to be divided this way.
I believe that Australians will vote for The Voice, as there will really be no other option available to the dissenters. As the past week has shown, the social opprobrium that a ‘Voice denier’ will attract will ensure that non-Indigenous Australians will fall in behind our proposal for the Voice. No one wants to have to live with the ‘racist’ stain if they are found to have voted No.
[RW] - So you’re not worried that those Australians who arrived after 26 January 1788 won’t think, ‘thank God we don’t have to worry about First Nations people in a collective sense anymore - they are doing their own thing now; they have their own Voice to Parliament, customs, language, culture and 63% of the land mass of Australia under Native Title?
Won’t a large segment of non-Indigenous Australians now think, ‘we Second Nations peoples can take a leaf out their book and go onto developing our own unique culture and polity founded in our year zero - 26 January 1788. Our new society will be based around the inclusion and diversity of a huge number peoples of Anglo-Celtic, European, Asian, American, Middle Eastern and African ethnicity - vibrant migrants and refugees who have, and will continue to, stimulate and produce one of the premier, Second Nation societies in the world. Thank God, some people might say, no need to feel guilty about the Gap - it’s not our problem anymore.
[ML] - That’s fanciful - I don’t see any issue there. First Nations people in my experience will be happy to get on with their own lives now that they have real control and a say in the affairs that affect them. You watch, they will suddenly blossom and, within 5 years, the young Indigenous graduates coming from universities such as mine, will create an Indigenous Great Leap Forward that will eradicate poverty in regional and remote communities and close all The Gap parameters.
[RW - with a skeptical face, like that of the steward at the Bird Man Rally ] - Are you sure First Nations people can make that leap by themselves without falling flat on their faces? You’re not concerned that such a tight franchse for First Nations people - the need to have ancestors that were here before 26 January 1788 - won’t cause problems with regard to diversity and inclusion? How will First Nations people develop economically, culturally and intellectually without the new, cross-cultural infusions, ideas and experience that comes from accepting new migrants into one’s community?
[ML - smiling] - We survived here quite well for 60,000 years, as the longest continuous culture in the world. I’m not sure we need any extra input from some Johnney Come Latelys, thank you very much!
[RW] - Touché Professor! - in case you don’t know, that’s a word from our Second Nation people’s culture, originally derived from one our French tribes - It’s an Acknowledgement of Intellect of your clever point that you just made at my expense! [I’m starting to get the hang of this Dual Nation scenario!]
But perhaps I might be able to score a point or two now in return. You do know that your ‘timeline in the sand’ is a little problematic? If you draw the line at 26 January 1788, that means the members of the First Fleet will be classified as First Nations people - I’m sure that is not what you had in mind - as the First Fleet’s eleven ships actually arrived into Botany Bay from the 18th to the 20th of January 1788, the week before the 26th.
The 26th of January refers the date by which time Governor Phillip had decided that Sydney Cove was to be the place of settlement, which he marked with a small celebration. The formal ‘signing, sealing and delivery’ of the new colony of New South Wales actually took place on 7th of February, by which time all personnel had been landed. So you really need to set the Year Zero for your First Nation peoples on 18 January 1788.
[ML] - I will take that on notice and get my people to check, because, as you know, I go and hide each 26th of January and so I don’t know what’s actually happening out there, on The Day [listen here from 03:30]
[RW] - OK, a Question on Notice - a phrase I suspect we are going to hear a lot more often as the 24 members of the Voice come under the pump to peruse all the tabled Federal Bills with regard to their impact on First Nations people. I understand there are some 70 Bills tabled at the present time, each of which has to be analysed as to its impact on First Nations people.
Let’s turn now to dissent within the polity of First Nations people with regard to The Voice proposal. Do you think it was fair, or even politically wise to come down so aggressively on Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, just because she is politically opposed to The Voice proposal as it now stands?
[ML] - As I was quoted in The Australian this week,
‘It would be terribly unfortunate if the issue sank into a “nasty, eugenicist, 19th-century style of debate.” The notion of “race” didn’t exist at all. “I have to say as a member of the faculty of medicine at the University of Melbourne (race) does not exist, we are one species; there are no races,”
[RW] - Let me just interrupt you there if I may Professor. Wasn’t your Faculty of Medicine at Melbourne University a leading centre of eugenics itself in the 1920s and 30s? Don’t you find it somewhat hypocritical to attempt to link the National Party, and Senator Price in particular, with eugenics, when in fact you are the first person so far in this debate to raise this topic - the Nationals and Senator Price never mentioned it - and you are in the employ of a medical faculty that was avowedly eugenicist itself last century?
[ML] - that’s nothing to do with me - before my time.
[RW] - You don’t feel ethically and morally obliged to transfer to another university, one where the professors don’t have a history of lobbing for "sterilisation, segregation and the lethal chamber" for Aboriginal people, as well as homosexuals, poor people and prostitutes?
[ML] - No, I’m employed as a professor. Now, if I was the netball coach, that might be different. I would perhaps need to make an ethical stand. But I’m not sporty at all.
But let’s get back on topic, now some people might accuse me of ‘race-baiting.’ They quote me as using phrases such as,
“… It would be terribly unfortunate for all Australians if the debate sinks into a nasty, eugenicist, 19th-century style of debate … and I have to say I’m terribly disappointed a Celtic Warlpiri person – has kicked this off,”
Well I’m not ‘race-baiting.’ And listen to Jacinta’s follow-up jibe, accusing me of,
“pitting Aboriginal people against Aboriginal people” and “If she understood cultural protocol she would know she hasn’t the authority to speak on behalf of Warlpiri,” “I certainly don’t follow up with Yiman or Bidjara descendants in an attempt to speak on behalf of them. “Ms Langton is the only person making links to eugenics which demonstrates her line of thinking, certainly not mine. “It’s a desperate and cheap attempt at drawing links to Nazis. “It will be interesting seeing the variety of ways Ms Langton and (Indigenous leader Noel) Pearson will utilise their vast knowledge of the English language to smear ‘No’ campaign supporters as racist in the lead-up to the referendum.”
How cheeky is that? I think Jacinta and I both know Aboriginal politics can be brutal at times - this is our culture and the way we go at each other with our ‘verbal digging sticks’. Our ancestors have been doing it for 60,000 years. You Second Nation people just don’t understand Aboriginal politics, but this is the way we debate and resolve our differences.
[RW] - Ok then, but Noel Pearson also has strongly criticised Senator Price for being caught in a, “tragic redneck celebrity vortex” and compared her to One Nation senator Pauline Hanson.
[ML] - Oh, that’s just Noel showing off his skill as a wordsmith - I know a lot of women were taken aback by what they perceived to be misogynistic bullying by Noel against Jacinta - lateral violence some might call it - but that is just par-for-the-course in Aboriginal politics. Though, I had to agree that the ‘optics’ didn’t look good - I’ve also written about the Big Bunga politics of Aboriginal men - but once the Voice is passed and locked into the Constitution we don’t need to worry about dissent anymore between First Nations people. The 24 members of the Voice will speak as one, Noel and I are sure of that.
The proposed selection structure of the Voice will ensure that First Nations people from Queensland will have significant influence over the 24 members of the Voice members - Noel will thus have great influence and he will keep the dissenters in their place. And I might add, I totally reject suggestions by Chris Merritt of The Australian that the voting structure of The Voice will be a ‘gerrymander.’ Merritt is just scare-mongering.
[RW] - Finally Professor, you spoke of Adam Goodes and ‘compared the Nationals’ position on the Voice to the “Adam Goodes saga”, which ended in the AFL eventually apologising to the former Swans star for failing to adequately call out the racism he faced.’
[ML] - Yes I did, and that was a nice segue I thought to promote Adam’s new, award winning, children’s book, Somebody's Land: Welcome to Our Country.
[RW] - As a matter of fact, I have a copy of the book here, and I must say that it does appear somewhat indoctrinating for young children. For example, many of the pages on the left side show different scenes of happy, pre-1788, Aboriginal family life, each page with different, lively text. Nothing wrong in that - it’s a cute story for children. But then, each of the matching, right-hand pages has the same, and what I personally find to be ‘racist’, text repeated on each page,
When the white people came,
they called the land Terra Nullius.
They said it was nobody’s land.
But it was somebody’s land
[RW - cont.] - Now Professor, I’m just going to quote back to you something you said this week with regard to these racial aspects of the Voice debate. You said, that,
‘ …I’m seeing this now as a bit like the Adam Goodes saga, which is terribly unfortunate,” [referring to racism experienced by the Sydney Swans star during his playing career]
We have to take these matters seriously. This is too important to play nasty electoral politics about … it would be terribly unfortunate for all Australians if the debate sinks into a nasty, eugenicist, 19th century-style of debate about the superior race versus the inferior race. (Source)
I’ve highlighted this quote of yours Professor, because when I read Adam Goodes’ children’s book I’m struck by the fact that it seems to me that our children are being exposed to, as you say, ‘nasty electoral politics, and 19th century-style of debate about the superior race versus the inferior race’.
I say this because, in the parlance of today as a ‘proud white man of settler descent’, I’m struck by the political topic of Aboriginal sovereignty and the racial topics of skin colour and segregation being included in a book for small children.
For example, on the left side of the pages of Goodes’ book, the Australians are described understandably as, Aboriginal Australians, whereas their counterparts, or even one might say, protagonists, in the right hand side pages are described as ‘white’. This seems to be at odds with your desire to end racism in Australia. Why do you think Goodes refers to the settlers as ‘whites’? Would it not be more appropriate, and historically correct, for his sentences to read, ‘When the British people came …’?
For actually, there were ‘black’ people in the First Fleet, at least eleven if I recall correctly. Or perhaps Goodes could have referred to the Aboriginal people as ‘blacks’, as was the practice in colonial times, which would then have evened up his book in terms of race - it was socially acceptable at that time to refer to pre-federation Australians as ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’.
And in the depiction of Farm Cove, there don’t seem to be any families of Australians of British, European, or Asian descent despite that fact that these groups are the largest groups by population ethnicity in Australia.
A ‘deconstructionist’ would note that the authors of the book are depicted there with their kids as well as two women of the Muslim faith and a happy Aboriginal family. There is an elderly British/European couple but no young, non-Indigenous Australian families. Our hypothetical deconstructionist might be wondering if there is a political message of indoctrination being subtly portrayed to our young readers here, so well enunciated in Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s anthology, After Australia, which imagines a ‘post-white’ Australia, poignantly illustrated by the book’s cover - the defacement or ‘scrubbing out of the white people’. Do you think perhaps Goodes’ book might be channeling this thought, by suggesting white people are elderly and their influence is dying out in Australia?
[ML] - I’m not sure I see your point? How Adam Goodes and his writers describe their book’s characters is up to them, I would have thought. Plus I don’t see the problem with this narrative - the British were white, they arrived, cleared the land and swept away the First Nations peoples without offering treaty. First Nations people today say that they didn’t cede sovereignty, so Australia always was and always will be Aboriginal land. That’s the whole point of the Uluru Statement of the Heart.
[ML continuing] - You need to understand that I have been in this ‘game’ a long time, since as a teenager; this political struggle for Aboriginal people to overcome inherent racism and take back control of Country and establish our true place as sovereign peoples in the modern world. What the racists of Australia need to understand is that they will prove to be on the wrong side of history - I mean, just look at the speed of progress - The Albanese government has announced that we will have our first Ambassador for First Nations People and the selection process has begun. Who would have thought that possible even 5 years ago?
No, I think white people are overwhelmingly Conservative in their philosophy - they think they have ‘arrived’ and all their society needs every now and then is a little bit of tinkering with around the edges. Instead, we progressives have caught them asleep at the wheel, cosy in their little segregated world - they didn’t understand the deep resentment held by politically-minded Aboriginal people. For political effectiveness, we decided to couch it in terms of ‘racism’, but really it is the last 50 years of bottled up activist resentment and envy. Aboriginal peoples have been living 60,000 years in ‘Family Feud’ and so we are the masters of ‘payback’ - and the ‘payback’ for colonisation is now underway. And don’t I laugh to myself sometimes when I consider that some of our best ideas for strategy came from white people themselves. For example, I’ve written about how I recognised, in that master politician John Howard, one element of his tried and true propaganda strategy,
For ideologically powerful ideas to work, they must be ambiguous; they must be neither too simple nor too complicated. It is the art of political war and rhetoric to get the balance right. Suspending disbelief may be more important than belief itself.
And, as a strategy, it works, just like it will work again with The Voice proposals. You see how the government won’t fund separate Yes and No cases, or even provide for the usual referendum pamphlet with an equally argued Yes and No case? This is despite the Voice being the most ambitious referendum since Federation. But Albanese knows the strategy - keep it neither too simple nor too complicated - appeal to the fuzzy higher ethical ideals of social justice, but ensure voters suspend any disbelief on how it might work.
We just need the suspension of disbelief to last 12 months - long enough to get it across the line in a Yes vote. Then, they can all just go back to the beach and let the experts get on with implementing the Voice. This strategy worked with Native Title, it’s working now with Parks Australia in returning Country to Aboriginal people and it will work with The Voice.
And we don’t need people like the Nationals upsetting our ideological apple-cart by crying wolf to shake the voter out of his ‘suspension of disbelief’!
[RW] - Let’s turn now Professor to discussing the techniques used to win in the everyday, hurley-burley of Aboriginal politics. Our researchers have spent a little bit of time extracting from the records examples of your technique when dealing with political opponents. With the greatest respect Professor, it does seem, from what we have found, that your critics are correct when they claim that you have a preference for ‘playing the (wo)man’ rather than the issue. Do you see it that way?
[ML - with a wave of the hand] - Oh, they would say that wouldn’t they. Something Noel and I discovered many years ago was that we needed to be aware of debating techniques that work, then adopt them and hone them further, and to use them in our own political battles..
For example, I’m not sure if you remember Noel back in his hatless, friendly and softly spoken days - the non-assertive Lutheran-boy-made-good persona, loved by all sides of politics. Well, that was good up to a point, but not much political progress was made by being ‘Mister Nice Guy’. Then one day Noel was deeply rattled by an Aboriginal heckler as he gave a speech. Many believe that was the day that Noel decide that the ‘verbal attack’ and ‘playing the man’ might be a better way to get the outcome one was seeking. I still remember the words of the heckler as if it was yesterday. He suddenly stood up, and screamed at Noel,
‘… this is bulls**t man, you're talking sh*t, you don't support me or my family where I come from, and your standing here talking up ideas to put all black people in this country [?]. you do not … you don't speak for me and my family … and you’re standing there in front of all theses people speaking like you are the chosen voice … you are not the chosen voice … [Pearson: I’ve never claimed to speak on behalf of anyone but myself…] You do! every time you open your mouth you speak…you are chosen by white people who are sitting in this audience, and in power, to speak on behalf of black people… you’ve got no right to do that – standing there like a big strong black man…you’re not a strong black man…’
To scream at someone, ‘you don’t speak for me’ or ‘you don’t represent my people’ is a very effective weapon. Soft-skinned opponents just withdraw below the parapet when accused like that.
Ever since that time I believe, Noel decided to start donning his little detective’s hat and take on a much more inquisitional and confrontational style. And did he let anyone who got in his way get a good serve! He seemed to have a penchant for a certain part of the female anatomy when abusing his critics - I remember reading about some Minister in Queensland who claimed that he had called her a, ‘fucking white c**t, and then some nurse in Cape York alleged that the same had happened to her.
And before long, reports were popping everywhere in Canberra that he was on a four-letter word rampage. It was even alleged that he called Malcolm Turnbull, when he was PM, a "white c***", Indigenous Minister Ken Wyatt a "black c***" and Indigenous Labor senator Pat Dodson a "f***ing black c***".
[RW interjecting] - Down at the newsroom we call him the ‘Gyno from Cape York’ after he lamented one day to one of our reporters that he had to spend so much time dealing with c**ts.
[ML just managing a Mona Lisa smile] - But the point is that this sort of forceful negotiation technique seems to work. The progress of the Uluru Statement has come ahead in leaps and bounds as our opponents cower in the path of, who did you call him, the Gyno from Cape York? I must tell him that next time I see him!
[RW] - So you think intimidation, or one could even say bullying, is acceptable in Aboriginal politics, or indeed in Australia today?
[ML] - We prefer to describe it as robust negotiation. And I make no apologies. The stakes are just too high and the prizes too great to be a shrinking violet at this stage as we approach the do-or-die end-game of getting the Voice irrevocably enshrined in the Constitution. And on a personal level, Aboriginal politics can be brutal as each of us jockey for position to be recognised as the most senior, Aboriginal political elder.
You need to remember, that it’s only eight years since I appeared at the National Press Club in unity with both Jacinta and Josephine Cashman in my capacity as the acknowledged Elder of the group. Me and two young Aboriginal women, who I thought might become my loyal proteges.
Fast forward to today and Noel and I find that Jacinta has done some smart political moves and now sits in the Senate! I suspect that grates on Noel’s nerves a bit - he always did fancy a successful political career for himself in parliament. It would have been a wonderful stage for his oratory. But that’s life, he who dares wins, and he didn’t, so now he is just a country gyno sniping from the sidelines, I suppose.
[RW] - Is this why some observers might think that both you and Noel Pearson, based on the recent public comments by both of you, might see Senator Price as a threat to your future political goals?
[ML] - What makes you say that?
[RW] - Well, in Noel Pearson’s case, he unleashed what many people saw as an act of misogynistic bullying when he labelled Senator Price as being akin to ‘a tragic redneck celebrity.’ Even veteran reporter Michelle Grattan called Pearson’s ‘attack on Price, whom he essentially labelled a puppet of right-wing think tanks, as both disrespectful and unhelpful’.
And you yourself Professor seemed to have had some vendetta against Jacinta Price’s rise up the political ladder when, for example, you penned an essay for The Saturday Paper in 2018 titled, The folly of Jacinta Price. In the initial paragraphs of your essay you juxtapose visions ‘of the alt-right or neo-Nazis in our body politic’ with ‘an aspiring Aboriginal candidate for the House of Representatives’ Jacinta Price, who you then disparage as just a ‘children’s entertainer, “Yamba the Honey Ant”, and then a ‘darling of the Country Liberal Party and the federal Coalition with a ‘bizarre political agenda’.
And in your other recents statements, Senator Price made the accusation that,
“Ms Langton is the only person making links to eugenics which demonstrates her line of thinking, certainly not mine. “It’s a desperate and cheap attempt at drawing links to Nazis. “It will be interesting seeing the variety of ways Ms Langton and (Indigenous leader Noel) Pearson will utilise their vast knowledge of the English language to smear ‘No’ campaign supporters as racist in the lead-up to the referendum.”
Do you admit Professor that this slanging match, ostensibly brought on by the National’s deciding they would not support The Voice referendum, is uncivil and likely to cause much division in our community?
[ML] - I’m not sure you have been listening - this is the last ‘putsch.’ I’m afraid that if the referendum does not pass now, it won’t in my lifetime and probably won’t be attempted again for another two generations. A Yes vote would be the crowning of my career.
Like I said before, it’s all or nothing now. And yes, Aboriginal politics is brutal, but then again, all is fair in love and war.
And, off the record, Jacinta is a problem for our cause because she won’t be intimidated by the tactics of the ‘Gyno from Cape York’ and she just keeps turning up with a really big digging stick. Perhaps she really was my protege, and listened carefully to what I used to say, ‘the world is run by those that show up.’ ?
[RW] - On that poignant note Professor, we thank you for allowing us to interview your thoughts and I hope you enjoy Les Miserable tonight.
