Indigenous voice to parliament: Marcia Langton has no one to blame but herself

Prominent Yes campaigner Marcia Langton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

It is easy to understand why Marcia Langton is seeking to play down and clarify her comments about the No campaign against the referendum for an Indigenous voice to parliament being built on “base racism” or “sheer stupidity” – she has created a furore which is damaging the Yes campaign and for which she will be blamed.

And, she has no one to blame but herself.

Langton’s comment at a Yes campaign event on Sunday: “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” is now central to the tone, substance and success of the referendum campaign.

Langton has sought to explain away the commentary, put a sympathetic spin on her words, gone on the attack and distract from the core argument that she has used her leading position as a Yes campaigner to label the No campaign as racist and stupid and infer those who want to vote No are accepting racist and stupid arguments.

“I certainly was not calling No voters racist but I was explaining very carefully to the woman who asked me the question how their fear tactics worked,” she told ABC on Wednesday.

Labor ministers were scrambling in media interviews to back Langton’s explanation and adopt the traditional political tactic of attacking the media, the opposing side and accusing the No campaign or its supporters of racism.

The problem for Langton is that she has dropped an incendiary claim into a febrile political atmosphere which is directly working against the latter-day Yes campaign tactics of treating No voters with respect and seeking to claw back failing support from so-called “soft No voters”.

Langton is a respected campaigner for Indigenous rights, a forceful academic who is true to herself and has never taken prisoners.

But, she is not a politician used to campaigning and has unleashed a furore which will only serve to strengthen opposition to the Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government and has provided political ammunition to Peter Dutton and the Coalition.

At the very beginning of the formal five-week referendum campaign Langton has brought the spotlight on herself and created collateral damage for Anthony Albanese and his ministers who are being called upon to “condemn” the “base racism” epithet.

Outside an election campaign a leading advocate may be able to downplay the significance of politically dangerous remarks, even if they can’t deny them as Langton can’t in this instance. But within the intensity of what is an increasingly bitter and personal campaign for want of real argument, there is no escape.

In 2019 the then NSW Labor opposition leader Michael Daley was caught on video and audio – as was Langton until it was taken down from a Labor MP’s website – at the beginning of the election campaign declaring that Sydney people were being forced out of the city and foreigner – “mainly Asian” – were taking their jobs.

Labor’s campaign never recovered and Daley’s remark was blamed for the loss.

This is how tough and unforgiving an election campaign can be and Langton’s hard, even harsh approach, has already taken its toll on the Yes campaign.

No matter how sympathetically her explanations are treated, no matter how careful Labor’s support is and no matter what more is to come, real damage has been done because of the words from her mouth.