Indigenous voice to parliament: Marcia Langton is nobody’s spokesperson and calls it as she sees it

Marcia Langton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

When Marcia Langton turned up at the National Press Club to deliver a speech about the Indigenous voice last week, the 74-year-old did not have an entourage one might expect for the associate provost of an organisation as prestigious as Melbourne University.

She just looks after herself, one observer noted.

Perhaps if Professor Langton had been under the guidance of a slick media adviser in the regional port of Bunbury on Sunday, she would have been briefed to stick with the voice campaign’s key messages of love, hope and unity.

It is more likely that Professor Langton would have gone ahead anyway and characterised the pulled-apart arguments of the No campaign as “base racism … or sheer stupidity”.

She does what she wants. She says what she wants. She is nobody’s spokesperson.

Professor Langton does not belong to either of the twin strands of the voice campaign – she is not a member of the women-led Uluru Dialogue nor is she an office holder with the Yes23 campaign co-chaired by Indigenous leader Noel Pearson and filmmaker Rachel Perkins.

In fact, any organisation or political party that thinks Professor Langton belongs to them inevitably gets a rude surprise.

In recent years, she has confounded the left with support for the cashless debit card and stark warnings about the price that Aboriginal people will pay to accommodate the green economy.

As the McGowan Labor government dithered on alcohol policy in the far north of Western Australia five years ago, Professor Langton used her formidable research skills to uncover horrific rates of alcohol-related violence, child hunger, child rape and child prostitution in the region. She oversaw devastating interviews with frontline workers dealing with the mess of gross oversupply and she published these in a report that went straight to the state director of liquor licensing.

Her giant intellect, and her successful career exposing the truth on important matters such as the prevalence of extreme violence against Indigenous women, have ironically been used against her.

Professor Langton’s life’s work has been a public service yet she is sometimes written off as an elite. It is lazy, easy politicking but Professor Langton lives in a capital city and has a big job title with letters after her name.

This is a gift for those who hate what she stands for.

Professor Langton says the majority of Australians are not racist. But after decades in the public square, she is confident she recognises racism when she sees it.