Indigenous voice to parliament: Marcia Langton has form in ‘racism’ attacks

The prominent Yes campaigner says one in five Australian voters are ‘spewing racism’ and previously accused Jacinta Price and her mother of being the ‘coloured help’ for conservative think tanks.

Marcia Langton.

Prominent Indigenous campaigner for the voice to parliament, Marcia Langton, has previously described Jacinta Price and her mother Bess as the “coloured help” for conservative think tanks and accused one in every five voters at the upcoming referendum of “spewing racism”.

In an article published in the Saturday Paper on August 25, 2018, Professor Langton said Senator Price and her mother – a former member of the NT parliament – had appeared to be “sincere in their comments about the impact of violence on their own lives”. But she said their “failure to extend sympathy to other Aboriginal victims raises questions about their motives”.

“Leaving aside appearances on mainstream television, many of Bess Price’s speaking engagements have been at the invitation of the rightwing think tanks,” Professor Langton 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.”

In her 2018 piece, Professor Langton said Senator Price “legitimises racist views by speaking them against her own people”.

Senator Price told The Australian Professor Langton “can’t understand that some people, ­especially other Aboriginal people, might have a different view to her”. “She and too many other voice advocates resort to emotional blackmail and attacks because they are unable to argue the merits of their own divisive voice proposal,” she said.

Professor Langton was contacted by The Australian about her 2018 article, asking whether she stood by the piece, but did not respond by deadline.

On Wednesday, she also doubled down on her claim made on Sunday at a public forum in Bunbury, Western Australia, that the No campaign could be reduced to “base racism” or “sheer stupidity”, in an extensive interview on ABC radio. “What I was saying was that the claims made by the No campaign are based in racism and stupidity,” she said.

At the event on Sunday, Professor Langton declared: “Every time the No case raises one of their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism – I’m sorry to say it but that’s where it lands – or just sheer stupidity.”

Pressed on whether she was branding no voters racist and stupid, Professor Langton told the ABC: “I deny it absolutely.”

However, footage of Professor Langton speaking at the University of Queensland on July 7 this year was broadcast a short time later on Sky News in which she suggested a large number of No voters and 20 per cent of the population were “spewing ­racism”.

“The only poll that matters is the poll on voting day,” she said.

“Yes. We have a lot of work to do. And I am hoping – and I hope I am right – that the surge of racist nonsense is confined to a minority of Australians. I do hope I am right about that.

“And that ordinary Australians are thinking, yes, of course I am voting for the voice and that would be say 48-49 per cent; about 20 per cent of people saying, ‘I’m not sure how I vote. I’m a bit confused. I need more information.’ And then there’s the hard No voters. And I am hoping that they are about 20 per cent and they are the ones who are spewing the racism.”