Key voice architect Megan Davis criticises media for coverage of the voice referendum

Key voice to parliament architects have accused the media of ‘driving sentiment’ towards a no vote while conceding their own messaging needs to be positive.

Key voice to parliament architects have accused the media of “driving sentiment” towards a no vote while conceding their own messaging needs to be positive.

Numerous polls in recent months have shown declining support for a yes vote at the upcoming referendum and advocates Megan Davis and Noel Pearson are among those to criticise the mainstream media’s coverage of the debate.

Professor Davis, the Balnaves chair in constitutional law at the University of NSW, lambasted the media last week and said she had seen significant support for a yes vote while visiting communities across the country, which was at odds to negative media coverage showing falling support.

“We are having deep conversations with Aussies and we are not picking up, nor is Yes23, the kind of sentiment that we are seeing in the media, where they are driving the sentiment … downwards, to no,” she told ABC presenter Phillip Adams on his Late Night Live program last week.

“We don’t believe it will be a no, we believe it will be a yes. We absolutely believe in the fundamental decency of Australians to understand the voice and the exigency of the voice and why this is one of our last chances at change.”

Prof Davis criticised politicians leading the voice debate including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price while taking a veiled swipe at the media.

“All (people) are hearing is Albo, Jacinta, Dutton, politician, politician, politician,” she said.

“The Uluru Statement from the Heart was issued to the Australian people because we know how the media behave and we know how retail politics happens in Australia.”

Noel Pearson. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Albanese has yet to set a date for the referendum and this month admitted the yes campaign must “be stronger” in putting forward its arguments.

Mr Pearson was careful in his criticisms of the media when he addressed a La Trobe University online event last week but said the yes campaign had to be positive.

“Well it is what it is, there’s not much I can do about that (the media) and not much anyone can do about that other than to persist with our case with dignity, with perseverance, with not shying away from our objective, we have got to be positive,” he said.

“There’s a lot of reason for grief and discombobulation but I just think we have got to keep our eyes on the prize, we have got to keep going.

“I’ll leave it to the historians to tell us about how the media covered this campaign.”

Mr Pearson sparked fury last year after he accused Senator Price of being trapped in a “redneck celebrity vortex” and using right-wing think tanks including the Centre for Independent Studies and Institute of Public Affairs to “punch down on other black fellas”.

Mr Pearson doubled down on these comments in an opinion article published in The Australian in May and said Warren Mundine and Senator Price were “glove puppets” for the think tanks. “The fists inside the puppets punching down on Indigenous people are white,” he wrote.

Constitutional lawyer Shireen Morris, a yes campaigner, moderated the La Trobe event and said they had constantly had to deal with “lies” said about the voice.

“We have to answer the lies with facts, we have to deal in the truth,” she said.

This month The Australian reported on another voice architect, Thomas Mayo, who condemned the media for publishing “negative headlines” on “positive stories” about the voice saying it was harming the yes campaign.

Indigenous lawyer Teela Reid – an adviser on the Indigenous voice to parliament – also criticised social media and said people without authority in the Aboriginal community were getting traction when they shouldn’t be.

“Often, especially around social media … what you’ll find is that there are the most popular voices (that) get traction or the most controversial opinions go viral and they are often not those people with authority in our community,” she said on a recent episode of her podcast, Blak Matters, on Southern Cross Austereo’s LiSTNR platform.