Are Dr Shireen Morris & Professor Megan Davis Just Making Stuff Up?
Do Australians need to be worried about Misinformation, Disinformation and even No-information during the Voice Referendum campaign?
The Albanese Labor government appears to be concerned enough about the potential of what it calls ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ to introduce an exposure draft on their new legislation for discussion that they believe will combat it (See Peta Credlin on Skynews).
In our opinion at Dark Emu Exposed, we believe that Australians should just take most pronouncements regarding the Voice, from any party, with a grain-of-salt, but particularly be wary of those from government as to what is, or isn’t, mis- or dis-information. The days of inherently trusting government pronouncements are over, if indeed they ever really existed.
Instead, we encourage all Australians to use their own common-sense and a bit of ‘googling’ to critique any claims made during the Voice Referendum debates.
To this end, in this post we will look at a couple of examples of claims and statements made in the Voice debate, which we critique ourselves to see if they constitute ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’, or indeed are best described as ‘no information’.
1. Disinformation - “false information deliberately spread to deceive people”
In a recent article in The Australian, YES-Campaigner, Dr Shireen Morris made a claim that leads people to believe that the passing of the The Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902, disenfranchised ‘aboriginal natives’ by not allowing them to be entitled to be on ‘an electoral roll.’
“… Take voting rights. The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 provided that “aboriginal natives” of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Pacific Islands were not entitled to be on an electoral roll.”
- Dr Shireen Morris, Indigenous voice to parliament:Migrant groups support the yes vote in referendum, The Australian, 8 June 2023 (Full article here)
To our mind this appears to be ‘disinformation’ on the part of Dr Morris, who surprisingly is a qualified academic in Constitutional Law and should know her subject very well.
We allege that her statement constitutes the more serious description of being ‘disinformation’, because we cannot believe that an academic of Dr Morris’s qualification and experience could have misquoted this section of the 1902 Act unintentionally. If she had made in an inadvertent error in her quotation, that would more fairly be described as ‘misinformation’, given that it was unintentional.
We allege however, that she appears to have deliberately misquoted the Act so as to suit her argument that Aboriginal people were not allowed to vote and were treated much more unfairly than other migrant Australians [see also Note 1 below].
As evidence for our claim that she appears to be spreading ‘disinformation’, we provide below a copy of the original 1902 Act that she claims to have quoted from (see Figures 1A, B & C).
Readers will clearly see that Dr Morris appears to have, on purpose, omitted the last few words of sentence to which she refers in Section 4 (Page 3 in Figure 1C below). She paraphrases Section 4 of the Act by claiming,
‘ …“aboriginal natives” of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Pacific Islands were not entitled to be on an electoral roll.” ,
but she deliberately leaves off,
“…unless so entitled under section forty-one of the Constitution.”
Figures 1A (B & C) - Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 (page 1) Source
Figure 1B (Page 2)
Figure 1C (page 3)
Her statement quoted in The Australian is clearly disinformation on Dr Morris’s part - She wants her readers to believe that the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 meant that “aboriginal natives” of Australia, were not entitled to be on an electoral roll. That is, any electoral roll. Period.
Her wording implies that there were no electoral rolls in Australia after 1902 where Aboriginal people were allowed to be registered voters.
By purposely omitting the final qualifying words of Section 4 of the 1902 Act, “…unless so entitled under section forty-one of the Constitution”, she completely ignores the fact that this qualification enabled any Aboriginal person who was ‘entitled’ under Section 41 of the Constitution to vote, was actually entitled to vote in Commonwealth Federal elections.
These Aboriginal voters who satisfied Section 41 were not prevented from voting by the Franchise Act of 1902 as Dr Morris claims.
Section 41 of the Constitution states (Figure 2),
Figure 2 - Section 41 of Australia’s Constitution. Source : Australia’s Constitution, Pocket Edition, Commonwealth of Australia 2023
That is, if any Aboriginal person had the right, or acquired a right, to vote in any state’s election, they “shall, while the right continues, [not] be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth [e.g the Franchise Act of 1902] from voting” in Commonwealth federal elections.
A result of this Section 41 was to not prevent Aboriginal voters, in those progressive states where they had been given the franchise, from voting in Commonwealth elections by catching them under the Franchise Act of 1902.
Dr Morris is being very disingenuous in her selective quoting, which appears to be another case, a la Bruce Pascoe, of an academic ‘just making stuff up‘ to suit a particular, political narrative.
As evidence that Dr Morris is wrong to claim that the 1902 Franchise Act ensured that, “aboriginal natives” of Australia … were not entitled to be on an electoral roll.” , consider the case of the Aboriginal man John Franklin and his sons.
John Franklin was an Aboriginal man (b1847 - d1921) who was in fact the 2X great grandfather of Victorian Aboriginal activist and Voice Referendum Steering Committee member, Marcus Stewart [see Note 2].
Marcus Stewart in ‘civies’
Marcus Stewart in ‘costume’
A search of the records shows that John Franklin’s name appears on ‘an electoral roll’ after the passing of the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902, contrary to what constitutional law lecturer Dr Shireen Morris would have us believe.
We found John Franklin’s name (along with the names of his white wife, Harriet and some of their Aboriginal sons and daughters) on the Victorian electoral roll of 1903 in the district of Yea. Their names also appeared on the 1912 electoral roll. (Figures 3 and 4).
Figure 3 - Excerpt of the Victorian Electoral Roll 1903 listing Aboriginal man John Franklin and some of his Aboriginal sons and daughters.
Figure 4 - Excerpt of the Victorian Electoral Roll 1912 listing Aboriginal man John Franklin and some of his Aboriginal sons and daughters.
These records show that Aboriginal people were in fact entitled to be ‘on an electoral roll’, despite the enactment of the Franchise Act of 1902. This is due to the qualifying words of the 1902 Act, “…unless so entitled under section forty-one of the Constitution”, which Dr Morris conveniently omitted from her article.
We have subsequently found that Dr Morris has spread this disinformation via a number of publications, besides The Australian on 8 June 2023. She also caused it to be published in The Guardian on 2 Feb 2023 and at Macquarie University on 20 Feb 2023.
2. Mis-information?
It was recently reported in The Australian newspapaer and on Skynews that,
Indigenous Senator Kerrynne Liddle says a group of elders whose names appear as signatories to the Uluru Statement From the Heart are unhappy they have been associated with a push for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice the Parliament.
Speaking in the Senate on Friday night the South Australian Liberal Senator, who grew up in Alice Springs, said she met four men on a recent trip to Uluru who expressed their disappointment they had been associated with a movement they do not support.
“Mr Murray George, Mr Clem Toby, Mr Owen Burton and Mr Trevor Adamson have thought deeply about the local and national implications of going so public,” Ms Liddle told the Senate.
Professor Megan Davis has labelled this Skynews report and the original article by Sarah Ison in The Australian (read here and watch here) as ‘misinformation.’
Figure 5 - Source The Australian
We have prepared a video clip below of Professor Davis’s critique of what she calls misinformation and we have offered a suggestion on how the Professor could rectify the situation by providing the Referendum voters with all the information. As detailed below in Point 3 No-information, we were unable to obtain the list of signatories in question.
In our opinion, it is a hollow charge by Professor Davis to accuse the No-Campaign of ‘misinformation’ when it is fact the Yes-Campaign, as represented by the Professor, who possesses the relevant information, in this case the list of signatories to the Uluru Statement, which they fail to release.
The only way for us Referendum voters to decide if Senator Liddle is promoting ‘misinformation’ by claiming that these four Aboriginal elders signed the Uluru Statement is for Professor Davis to release the names of the all the signatories so we can check the accuracy of Senator Liddle’s claim.
So at this stage we have ‘no-information’ rather than proven ‘misinformation’ !
3. No Information?
Who Actually Signed the Uluru Statement from the Heart?
Prime Minister Albanese has said that, “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a generous offer.”
As members of the voting public we are being asked to accept this ‘generous offer', amend our constitution as advised, and thus agree to the final, as yet unseen, detailed terms being offered by the 250-odd signatories of the Uluru Statement from The Heart.
But who are these 250 people making this ‘generous offer’?
To our mind it seems only right and proper for the other 26 million, or so, of us Australians, who are not signatories to the Uluru Statement, to at least know who is offering us this Constitutionally-enshrined ‘generous offer’.
The media just tell us that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was,
‘… endorsed with a standing ovation by a gathering of 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders on May 26, 2017, following a four-day First Nations National Constitutional Convention held at Uluru.’ (SMH, 27 May 2019)
A series of ‘dialogues engaged 1200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates – an average of 100 delegates from each Dialogue – out of a population of approximately 600,000 [Aboriginal] people nationally’ prior to selecting the 250 final delegates at Uluru ( Source - Megan Davis, Griffith Review No. 60 ).
Figure 6. Noel Pearson examines the signed canvas prior to artwork and statement inclusion.
Some might think that this looks like a signed ‘blank-cheque’. Did the signatories really know what they were signing?
Figure 7. Artwork being added to the signed canvas, sans Uluru Statement from the Heart final wording - a signed blank cheque with artwork?
Figure 8. The final signed canvas with artwork and final inclusion of written Uluru Statement from the Heart, so signatories can at last read what the signed up for.
Surrounding the statement are signatures of more than 250 delegates who came to historic consensus at Uluru. Many signatories also wrote the name of the nation they belonged to, so over 100 different first nations are represented on the artwork.
‘No Campaigner’ Warren Mundine has stated that he believes that the signatories were not representative of a broader Indigenous constituency and in fact, lacked ‘groundswell support.’
‘The Uluru Statement was adopted at a convention at a Yulara resort, 25km from Uluru. I and others have spoken to Aṉangu elders angry it was named for their country because it’s not their culture. The convention was attended by 250 delegates, hand-picked from about a dozen community ‘Dialogues’ (at which attendance was capped at 100, only 60 reserved for First Nations groups, and was by invitation only to “ensure” consensus was reached). And, still, a minority of convention delegates rejected it and walked out. Hardly groundswell support.
- Warren Mundine, 10 things to know about the Voice proposal, Daily Telegraph, 17 April 2023
In an effort to find out who these 250 signatories were, one of our collaborators, Robert, sent an email to the Hon Linda Burney, Minister for Indigenous Australians, on 3 May 2022 seeking information as to, '‘who wrote the Uluru Statement from the Heart and who signed it.”
Robert’s thinking was that if this ‘generous offer’ of the Uluru Statement was being given to us, the Australian people, in effect as a binding contract for us to alter our Constitution, it was only proper for us to know who these people were and who had prepared the ‘Uluru contract’.
Robert quite sensibly spoke of the analogy that one wouldn’t sign any contract unless one knew who the counter-party was and who was behind the creation of the contract.
A response from the minister was finally recieved some 13 months later on 13 June 2023 - see Figure 9 [We know ministerial offices are incredibly busy but this 13 month response time does seem a little tardy for a modern nation state such as Australia. Ed].
Unfortunately, we are none the wiser as the Minister seems to be invoking Privacy Laws by advising us that the ‘majority of the signatories were private citizens’, although someone in her office (or the Minister herself?) did attempt to reinforce the powerfulness of the Statement by handwriting on the typed letter, “Many hundreds of people signed the Statement”.
Figure 9 - Response by the Minister for a request on who “who wrote the Uluru Statement from the Heart and who signed it.”
Perhaps this is one reason why the support for the YES-case is faltering - Australian voters are not really being told who these 250 signatories are, and why we should believe that they are representative of the 600,000 Indigenous people in Australia - or indeed why their views are given so much weight compared to the other 26 million of us; why didn’t we have an opportunity to send our delegates from mainstream Australia for our own Constitutional Convention at Uluru?
Australians are not in the habit of signing contracts and accepting ‘generous offers’ from people that they don’t know.
Further Reading 1
Labor’s Proposed Misinformation Bill - Draft Exposure Legislation Excerpts on Definitions
Figures 10 - Definition excerpts for ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘harm’ from the proposed Bill. Source here
Further Reading 2 and Notes
Note 1: We are not the first to notice this ‘disinformation’ by Dr Shireen Morris - see David Flint in The Spectator, 17 June 2023 here.
Note 2: We know John Franklin was an Aboriginal man as it was common knowledge in the Yea area of Victoria and reported in the Alexandria and Yea Standard of 25 Mar 1887. John Franklin was Marcus Stewart’s 2X great-grandfather, evidence for which will be published on this website shortly. The Stewart family themselves acknowledge John Franklin as their apical Aboriginal ancestor. [Note: the most commonly published birthdate for John Franklin is 1837. This is incorrect. We have uncovered the evidence to confirm that 1847 is the correct year, which we will publish shortly. Ed.]
Figure 11 - Excerpt from a newspaper report of a government official’s visit to the Yea area of Victoria confirming John Franklin’s Aboriginality. (Source: Alexandra and Yea Standard, Fri 25 Mar 1887, p3)
Note 3 - Comments on Aboriginal Suffrage
Dr Shireen Morris appears to be not much different to Bruce Pascoe in her practice of selectively quoting from the records to slant the narrative as she attempts to put Australia in a bad light with regard to the status of Aboriginal people.
It is naive in the extreme to expect that Aboriginal people could have been treated exactly like the British settlers from Day 1 in 1788. On the one hand, commentators like Dr Morris criticize Australia for discriminating against and treating Aboriginal people differently with regard to, for example, voting rights. On the other hand she also criticizes Australia for not letting Aboriginal people express their own agency in self-determination, which in tribal situations would be not to partake in ‘democratic elections’ by the all the tribe’s adult members, given that traditional tribes were instead gerontocracies.
Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people has been a progression from, no voting rights in 1788 (like all the other British subjects who were settled here), through acceptance as British subjects some fifty years after everyone else (ca1836), to limited franchise in the late 1800s and early 1900s, to citizenship in 1948 along with all other Australians, to complete, nation-wide voting and citizenship rights by 1962-67.
In general, it is true that during this progression Aboriginal people were disadvantaged compared to whites, but there were also times when some Aboriginal people had more voting rights than other white Australians, such as female Aboriginal suffrage in SA and WA (1895 & 1899 resp.) and Aboriginal male suffrage in some other states (NSW, Tas, Qld & Vic) ahead of white females (See Figure 12).
Figure 12 - Female Suffrage at the State level in Australia (Source: Wikipedia)
This preference of giving Aboriginal men voting rights ahead of white women very much upset some of the leading white Suffragettes at the time of Federation, so much so that they appeared to have no shame in producing, what we would call today ‘racist’, posters depicting drunken Aboriginal men having more voting rights than sober, intelligent, middle-class white women [The “Teals” of their day?] (see Figure 13).
Figure 13 - “The Australian Women’s Sphere was a journal published by Australian suffragette Vida Goldstein between 1900 and 1904. This cover from 1900 suggests that women were more deserving of voting rights than many men. [Note that the cartoon shows some racist images that would not be acceptable today.]” (Source)
Dr Morris wants us to vote YES on the logic that Aboriginal people in 2023 need an enshrined Chapter within our Constitution because they were “ignored” by the drafters of the Constitution and had “no” voting rights compared to other Australians at the time, including some immigrants of Indian descent as she claims.
So, by this logic of hers, should we also consider giving women a Chapter within the Constitution? - women are “special” and were similarly “specifically un-recognized” in the Constitution’s drafting. They also had “no” (depending in which colony) voting rights at Federation. Food for thought by the Prime Minister’s Office for Women perhaps?
Note 4 - Further reading/watching on the adverse consequences of groups who proclaim to be ‘fact-checking’ on misinformation and disinformation - see the experience of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) here.
