A key architect of the Uluru Statement has decried Warren Mundine’s claims that the Voice has declared war on modern Australia as “disappointing and inflammatory.”
Megan Davis, a co-author of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, spoke out after Mr Mundine’s address to the National Press Club which heard him harshly criticise the three-year consultation process as unrepresentative and divisive.
“The [Uluru] statement was an expression of peace and love to the Australian people, it is about belonging and unifying the nation, and I find it really repugnant the notion it could be associated at all with the language of the declaration of war,” Professor Davis told ABC following Mr Mundine’s address.
“I have worked for many years, for decades, with people from across the world and I work with United Nations who have lived and grown up in war-torn countries - that is not what our people ask for when they participated in the First Nations dialogue and also the national convention.”
In a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Mr Mundine, a leading No campaigner, aired his grievances about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
He argued corporations and Yes supporters were out of touch with the realities facing Aboriginal communities.
Professor Davis, a constitutional lawyer, said the Uluru dialogues heard the voices of many First Nations Australians, who made it clear they wanted a national representative body.
“We designed a process that would take a sample of First Nations people, run them through a complex constitutional and legal deliberative process that was based on a lot of research and a lot of work,” he said.
“Our people find it really offensive to be told that our empowering reform and recognition of our culture of well over 60,000 years is somehow equivalent to racial segregation.
Mr Mundine, a former Labor Party president, has become one of the most high-profile figures in the referendum debate since he founded the Recognise a Better Way group opposing the body in January.
He has since campaigned alongside Nationals Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, despite a split in opinions over Indigenous treaties and changing the date of Australia Day.
Mundine grilled on legal claims
In a terse exchange with a journalist during the post-address questions, Mr Mundine was asked whether some of the most senior legal minds in the country, who had this week backed in the Voice, were wrong.
Mr Mundine said he did not trust the Law Society because they were in the Yes camp, saying it was the “insanity of the Law Society to take a position on this”.
“If I get in trouble with the law, how do I know I am going to get a fair trial with those lawyers? How am I going to know if I’m going to be treated differently because they signed up to the Yes campaign,” he said.
The journalist asked him what that had to do with the Constitution, to which he replied it was about the legal system.
“How can the Law society, quite frankly, you are the guardians of our legal system, sign up to one side of politics? It is insanity for them to do it,” he said.
Pressed further, Mr Mundine was asked again to outline how the Voice was problematic and legally risky.
Mr Mundine said the Law Society was getting itself “into big trouble”, and (that the Voice) opened up a legal argument.
In another follow up, Mr Mundine was asked whether some of the country’s leading legal minds, who had issued a public statement that they did not believe there was any legal risk in the Voice, were wrong.
Mr Mundine responded: “Just because you are chief justice, does not mean you do not get outvoted by your fellow justices”.
He accused the journalist of not “facing the facts”.
Voice gives “two choices”, Mundine says
During his speech, Mr Mundine said the Voice offered Indigenous Australians only two choices, one being a reality based on “centralised, government dependence” and another a mindset focused on historical wrongs and “identity politics”.
“The other is a vision of economic participation, financial independence and self-determination and a mindset focused on jobs, education, social stability and practical initiatives,” Mr Mundine said on Tuesday.
In his speech, Mr Mundine said despite fractures in the No camp, Indigenous people needed to “forgive” and “fully invest in our shared national project” to reach reconciliation.
“Many Aboriginal people feel angry when they think about the wrongdoings of Australia’s past. But these events can’t be undone,” he said.
“So as Aboriginal people, we have a choice: to continue to feel angry and aggrieved — to be trapped in the past — or to draw a line in history and move on from a clean slate.”
Mr Mundine described the Uluru Statement from the Heart – which called for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament – as a “symbolic declaration of war against modern Australia”.
Mr Mundine’s speech comes amid an increasingly divisive debate over whether the constitution should change to create a body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to advise the government on policies affecting them.
The referendum is Australia’s first since 1999, and has seen a record number of people enrol to vote on October 14.
Corporate Australia has overwhelmingly backed the proposed Voice, with national airline Qantas declaring its support after it unveiled three planes sporting a Yes logo on three planes at Sydney Airport in June.
Mr Mundine, a successful businessman, harshly criticised corporations for treating the Voice like “the shiny new thing” and said companies like Qantas failed to advocate for work which directly benefited Indigenous people.
“Large corporates have been advocating for the Voice – but when was the last time any of them raised awareness about violence and abuse in remote Aboriginal communities?,” he said.
“When will Qantas paint one of its planes with a call to confront the violence and abuse of Aboriginal women and children in remote Australia?”
Mundine defends controversial joke
Mr Mundine was asked to condemn comedian Rodney Marks, who at the CPAC conference last month, mocked the Welcome to Country and labelled traditional owners as “violent black men”.
As chair of CPAC, Mr Mundine has yet to condemn or apologise for the comments, prompting a journalist at the address to ask him what action he would take.
“I’m not saying that I agree with his comedy or anything like that, but he’s a comedian, he does his thing, and that’s it,” Mr Mundine said.
“We have opened the door for those debates, and we can’t really complain about them if we open those doors.”
Mr Mundine would not condemn the comments, saying comedians were supposed to “push buttons”, and cited how US comedian Dave Chappelle’s comments about transgender issues had been received.
Mr Mundine said he was a “great admirer” of Chapelle.
In a follow up question, Mr Mundine was asked whether Mr Marks’ comments weren’t “unbecoming” of the debate or racist.
“They’re not my words. They’re a comedian’s words. The comedian can make jokes … And he’s allowed to do that,” Mr Mundine said.
“Comedy is about pushing buttons and going right to the end.
“Now whether I agree with those comments is irrelevant.”
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