Yes campaigner Marcia Langton’s heated comments resurface after branding No campaign ‘racist’

Newly resurfaced comments by Marcia Langton show the prominent Voice campaigner accusing “hard No” voters “spewing racism” and wishing “death” on Mark Latham.

A series of newly resurfaced comments by Marcia Langton show the prominent Voice campaigner accusing “hard No” voters of “spewing racism”, labelling conservatives Jacinta Price and her mother as “coloured help”, and wishing a “slow, painful death” on Mark Latham.

It comes after Professor Langton sparked controversy over the weekend by suggesting No voters were motivated by “racism” and “stupidity”, with opponents of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament seizing on the remarks as a campaign turning point.

Prof Langton has denied that was her meaning and said her words were being twisted, telling The Sydney Morning Herald that she was referring to the claims being made by the No case “appealing to Australians to frighten them into adopting highly racist and stupid beliefs”.

As both sides of the political aisle weighed in on Wednesday, previous videos and social media posts emerged of the Aboriginal leader making similarly charged remarks.

Clips shared by Sky News showed Prof Langton at a University of Queensland event in July where she described all “hard No” voters as racist. “The surge of racist nonsense is confined to a minority of Australians,” she said.

“Ordinary Australians are thinking Yes, of course I am voting for the Voice and that would be 48-49 per cent. Then there is hard No voters and I am hoping they are about 20 per cent and they are the ones spewing racism.”

Professor Marcia Langton at Parliament house in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

She linked this group to Opposition leader Peter Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud as they had “committed their parties to advocating a hard No case for the question”.

“Moreover their arguments are [specious],” she added. “Appealing to their racist base with claims that the proposal will racially divide the nation.”

At the same event, she took aim at “racist” social workers and police.

“Families have been broken apart by social workers who are, by and large, white and racist,” she said. “We need a radical culture change to stop the police from criminalising more and more people. Simply because the police are racist, because they get brownie points [for] rounding people up.”

Meanwhile, The Australian on Thursday highlighted an article published in The Saturday Paper in 2018, in which Prof Langton took aim at Senator Price, now the Coalition‘s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman, and her mother Bess Price — a former member of Northern Territory parliament.

Prof Langton described the pair as “coloured help” for conservative think tanks.

“Leaving aside appearances on mainstream television, many of Bess Price’s speaking engagements have been at the invitation of the right wing think tanks,” she wrote.

“It is important to communicate with all Australians on this issue, as I have a number of times myself, but speaking at the Bennelong Society or the Centre for Independent Studies to the exclusion of other organisations raises the suspicion that Bess and Jacinta have become the useful coloured help in rescuing the racist image of these conservative outfits.”

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Emily Olle

She added that Senator Price “legitimises racist views by speaking them against her own people”.

Also in 2018, Prof Langton had a heated exchange with Mr Latham on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which she wished death on the controversial politician.

“You so deserve a slow, painful death and humiliating obituaries e.g. ‘Australia celebrates as white supremacist, homophobic, far right wing arsehole finally dies’, ‘Australians look forward to a life without hate’,” she wrote in the post, unearthed by The Daily Mail.

Her comment was in response to an article in The Guardian stating organisers of a Bankstown poetry slam had been forced to hire security guards after Mr Latham described it as “Islamic political ranting”.

Mr Latham, who recently quit as NSW leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to serve as an independent in state parliament after he sparked widespread backlash with a graphic sexual comment about parliamentary colleague Alex Greenwich, hit back at Prof Langton at the time.

He described her as “the voice of leftist compassion in Australia — Indigenous, university employed, dripping with identity”.

“Political leaders say they are campaigning against online vilification, especially in education system,” Mr Latham said.

“But this is guaranteed: nothing will happen to Professor Marcia Langton at Melbourne University for saying I ‘deserve a slow, painful death and humiliating obituaries’. If a white man said it about her, they would throw the book at him. One rule for the elites, a different rule for everyone else.”

NSW MP Mark Latham. Picture: Simon Bullard/NCA NewsWire

According to The Daily Mail, Prof Langton had been a prolific poster on Twitter where she had amassed more than 30,000 followers, when she suddenly closed down her account in early 2023.

Speaking at an event in Bunbury, Western Australia on Sunday, Prof Langton said that “every time the No cases raise their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism — I’m sorry to say that’s where it lands — or sheer stupidity”.

The comments, which were posted on Facebook in a since-deleted video, were quickly picked up by multiple media outlets suggesting she was attacking No voters as “stupid and racist”.

Prof Langton strongly denied this characterisation of her remarks and suggested she was leaving the door open to legal action. “The media reporting is a very deliberate tactic to make me look like a racist when I’m not,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“I am not a racist, and I don’t believe that the majority of Australians are racist. I do believe that the No campaigners are using racist tactics.”

It comes after a poll by RedBridge Group released over the weekend found the Yes vote is in “free fall” and tracking at below 40 per cent in every state except Victoria.

And on Monday, a survey by Resolve Strategic published in The Sydney Morning Herald showed the overall No vote had grown to 57 per cent.