Megan Davis, acknowledge you damaged your Yes cause

Professor Megan Davis of the Referendum Working Group addresses the media after meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton at Parliament House ilast year. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Mocker responds to Professor Megan Davis’s NAIDOC Week keynote lecture last week at the University of Queensland, during which she read aloud a letter she wrote to her youngest niece, Mimi, regarding the outcome of last year’s referendum.

Dear Megan,

I was not present for your oration, although I have no doubt it was splendidly received by the faithful. Your colleagues would have told you your speech was incredibly inspirational, moving, profound, and insightful. They would have gushed about your bravery and resilience in the face of last year’s callous rejection.

All very well, but a faculty love-in, irrespective of academics’ incessant references to diversity and inclusivity, is not representative of mainstream Australia. But let’s leave that aside for now and examine some of your claims.

Australians in 2023 voted No to enshrining an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice in the Constitution. They didn’t vote No to truth-telling. They didn’t vote No to agreement making. The No doesn’t mean a legislative voice is off the table.

That is quite the take. Nonetheless, I hope you write to every state and federal Labor MP and implore them to campaign primarily on these issues. And let’s not stop there. Tell them we need more sacred sites in national parks to be closed off to the public, more Bruce Pascoe texts in our classrooms, more indoctrination sessions under the guise of yarning circles, and even more Indigenous activists on the public purse. Make it clear to everyone what we can expect under Labor governments. Spread the word, Megan!

So Mimi, you must be wondering why did 60 per cent of Australians voted No … The reasons were many and varied … Obscuring everything was a thick cloud of misinformation and disinformation.

If only we had enjoyed the benefit of properly funded Yes and No campaigns to inform voters. You know, just like the Coalition requested, to no avail. As I recall, a certain referendum working group member scorned that idea. “All public funding will do is top up the ample resources that both sides already have. It would be a waste of taxpayers’ money,” she insisted. Who was that, you ask? Why, it was one Megan Davis, who now blames the outcome of the referendum on misinformation and disinformation.

Professor Megan Davis with Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson in Melbourne last year. Picture: NewsWire / Aaron Francis

But it was not one thing. Rather, it was a cocktail of negative influences – racism, politicisation, disinformation, and let’s not forget plain old inertia and fear of change.

It could be the voice was a lousy idea from the start, but conveniently you do not canvass this. As for your claim “fear of change” played a part, perhaps you are unfamiliar with a post-referendum analysis conducted by the Australian National University. To quote from that report, “There is no evidence in the data to suggest that Australians are against the idea of constitutional recognition in general.”

You want more truth-telling? The report also notes “a sizeable number of Australians” think special rights based on race and “unfair” and that “the reason for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage is a lack of effort”. Before you cry racism, you might want to consider the analysis qualifies this with the observation that those surveyed acknowledged their situation “justified extra government assistance”. However, they “did not see the voice model put to them as the right approach to remedy that disadvantage”.

Mimi, this has been a long letter … but I wanted to record for you my reflections on this moment. And recording what we feel and our version of what happened is important.

“Our version” as in “my truth”?

I believe in the enduring importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples being recognised in the Australian Constitution.

So do many Australians, including this one. It is a pity that Indigenous activists, together with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, opportunistically refused to separate the questions of recognition and voice for the purposes of the referendum.

Then they sought to brand the idea itself as divisive. Imagine that, Mimi. Our people conceived of an idea to extend an olive branch to the rest of Australia. How can an olive branch be called divisive?

An olive branch, you say? Silly me thought it was a guilt stick for bashing whitey over the head with repeatedly. How could I have been so wrong?

Megan Davis and Pat Anderson at Brisbane City Hall to vote in the referendum. Picture: Ben Fry

This book (Belonging without Othering by John A. Powell and Stephen Menendian) ultimately argues on behalf of a “belonging” paradigm and framework as the only one that has the potential to overcome these dynamics and reweave the social fabric. The problem of non-belonging may be most acutely felt by marginalised and “othered” groups, but it is experienced by superordinate and high-status groups as well.

Just checking – this is a letter to your youngest niece, right? I know everyone is unique, but your prose would not have captured my attention when I was her age. Mind you, I was a fidgety kid, and this would have been ideal for making me go to sleep.

Shaming has no place in this effort. Many Australians have had quite enough of the left telling them they are ignorant or bigoted. It’s an approach that yields nothing and persuades no one.

Likewise, being two-faced is an approach that yields nothing and persuades no-one. Two months after the referendum, you wrote an article “Truth after the Voice’’ for The Monthly, lamenting the result. Allow me to remind you of what you asserted.

“Australia is a nation that can no longer point to the 1890s drafters and say that the racism imbued in our constitutional order is the legacy of old, white, rich, dead men,” you said.

“Modern Australia owned that on October 14, 2023.”

In other words, those who voted No are ignorant and bigoted. Feel free to claim otherwise, but you still need to own your words.

We continue to conduct in-depth research into the makeup of No. We can’t shy away from it, even if what we unearth is unpleasant.

But you do shy away from acknowledging what you did to damage your cause. Last year you attacked universities for not collectively supporting the voice. Their doing so was “false objectivity”, you claimed, saying “silence is political”. Did you really think that voters warmed to your “you are either with us or against us’’ approach?

You also recently lambasted “conventional media” in the wake of the referendum, accusing journalists of a “slavish adherence to ‘both sides’, a false equivalence approach to reporting”.

Heaven forbid the media scrutinise the arguments for and against the referendum proposal. Seemingly it did not register with you that most ABC presenters were pro-voice or that they fawned over you during the many times you featured in their coverage. Like a petulant adolescent, you hit out at the national broadcaster for featuring No campaigners, demanding in a since deleted tweet that the ABC managing director and news director “be questioned”.

In short, you are vocal in criticising others for perceived faults, but you do not address your failings. As for the alleged misinformation and disinformation you decry, did it occur to you that your lost-cause mythologising falls into these categories?

There’s an old African proverb that says: The hunter always tells the story of the hunt, never the lion. Well, Mimi, it’s time for the lion to roar.

Actually, Megan, it’s time for the “lion’’ to stop whining.