No alternative: Jacinta Price’s Indigenous voice to parliament pitch

Using Marcia Langton’s own words, the NT Senator will today tell the National Press Club what would be ‘racist, is segmenting our nation into ‘us’ and ‘them’ ’.

Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

Jacinta Price hopes a No vote at the referendum will mean governments take greater accountability for improving the lives of First ­Nations people, warning a voice will only become “yet another ­battle ground for many Aboriginal voices to disagree, fall out and ­create division”.

In a draft version of her speech to the National Press Club in Canberra obtained by The Australian, the opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman will on Thursday say a voice to parliament will “undermine the importance of the Aboriginal members of parliament” who are “fighting to affect real change via the democratic structures by which they were elected”.

The No campaign’s leading spokeswoman laid out her vision of what a referendum defeat should mean for Australia, after a two-day political storm over claims from Marcia Langton ­opponents of the voice were being fed arguments steeped in “base ­racism … or just sheer stupidity”.

Using Professor Langton’s own words to attack her, Senator Price declared that “what would be ­racist, is segmenting our nation into ‘us’ and ‘them’.”

“You have to say it would also be stupidity to divide a nation when it has been growing ever more cohesive. To split it along fractures of race rather than try to bring it closer together,” she said. “My hope is that, after October 14, after defeating this voice of division, we can bring accountability to existing structures, and we can get away from assuming inner-city activists speak for all Aboriginals, and back to focusing on the real ­issues: education, employment, economic participation and safety from violence and sexual assault.”

Pointing to the Victorian ­experience with the Yoorrook Justice Commission, Senator Price also argued that Indigenous “truth-telling commissions” had “no desire to tell history in the round”. “They desire to misrepresent Aboriginal life prior to the arrival of the British as some form of Pasconian paradise,” she said. “And they want to demonise colonial settlement in its entirety and nurture a national self-loathing about the foundations of the modern Australian achievement.”

The address from Senator Price on Thursday comes after footage emerged of Professor Langton speaking at the University of Queensland on July 7 this year in which she suggested that 20 per cent of the population voting at the referendum were “spewing ­racism”. Professor Langton also doubled down on her assertion No campaign arguments in the voice referendum were “frankly stupid and racist” and confusing voters, ramping up her attack by hitting out at tactics she said were ­imported from overseas and damaging democracy.

“The No case has caused severe damage to our social fabric and to our democracy by importing overseas tactics using a call bank that automatically generates numbers and sending these messages out to millions of Australians. This is deeply damaging to our democracy,” Professor Langton told ABC radio on Wednesday.

“There’s a lot of work to do both with people who have legitimate concerns that need to be ­addressed and clarified and also those people who are simply confused by the very base and frankly stupid and racist claims being made by the No campaign to frighten Australians into believing that the referendum will result in damage to the Australian social and democratic fabric.”

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney refused to condemn Professor Langton’s comments in parliament after being asked by deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley if the remarks were in accord with her request for people involved in the referendum to act respectfully and with care.

“There is no room for racism in Australia. The pain of racism is real for those people who have experienced it. It is something that should not be used for political purposes,” Ms Burney said.

Campaigner for the No case, Warren Mundine, rejected Professor Langton’s suggestion 20 per cent of Australians were racist as “pure nonsense”. “Many Aboriginals enjoy a good life in Australia and we’ve got migrants who have come overseas living here and millions more want to come here. So this idea that 20 per cent of Australians are spewing racism is a bizarre comment,” he said.

SA Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle, who is also Indigenous, said Professor Langton’s views of the No campaign were “pretty ordinary”. “I’m not going to be moved by commentary that suggests my position is ill-informed, stupid or racist,” she said. “But I’m really troubled for those people who hold a No position who aren’t as comfortable as I am with taking this position.”

Yes23 co-chair Rachel Perkins said there was “only a very small margin” of Australians with racist views, as she defended Professor Langton’s attack.

Campaigning in Perth for a Yes vote, Ms Perkins said Professor Langton’s comments from Sunday had been taken out of context.

“That was unfortunate. She’s now had the opportunity to respond and you can see that she’s talking about some of the No case’s material,” Ms Perkins told 6PR radio. “We have seen ads from the No case … that do have those racist undertones and we have seen some commentary from some people associated with the No case that is very upsetting.”

“The thing we’ve got to keep in mind is Australia is fundamentally not a racist country. People are having their views not necessarily based on racism at all. People are having their views because they might have concerns but we have to be understanding that people are still making their minds up.”

Uluru Dialogue Strategic ­Adviser and former journalist Kirstie Parker said the Yes campaign was appealing to Australians not to be frightened into voting no based upon mischief-making and subterfuge by outfits like Fair Australia who she said had abandoned honesty, decency, fairness – all long-held Australian values. “Such ‘no campers’ are trolling Aussies, and I hope Aussies will understand that come referendum day, and vote accordingly,” she said.

The Coalition peppered Ms Burney with questions in parliament over several controversial remarks Professor Langton had made – including that families had been broken apart by social workers who were, by and large, white and racist – while demanding detail over how the voice would work. The government also sought to escalate its attack against Peter Dutton, labelling him the “chief propagandist” of misinformation and mistruths in the referendum campaign.

“The Leader of the Opposition has taken the weirdest whispers from the furthest fringes of social media and legitimised them and amplified them here in the people’s house of parliament,” Jim Chalmers said. “He has seen this (the referendum) from the very beginning, not as a chance for unity, but as an excuse to practise the usual nasty and negative and angry and dishonest and divisive politics.” In her National Press Club address to be delivered on Thursday, Senator Price said that, to argue the voice was a request of First Nations people, was to play into “backwards, neo-colonial racial stereotyping, suggesting that all Aboriginal people think the same, feel the same and want for the same things”.

“Despite racial stereotyping that suggests Aboriginal Australians are one homogenous group, we are not,” she said. “I am one of 11 Indigenous voices in parliament, and I will not accept … our democratically elected voices are redundant because we belong to political parties.

Additional reporting: Paige Taylor