The campaign to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution is “in a good place” despite falling polls and the “sheer volume of hatred, lies and misinformation”, the pro-voice campaigner Thomas Mayo has said.
“We are rapidly growing our volunteer base, we’re seeing a lot more activity and we’re seeing also a lot more visibility. We are a couple of months away and … we’re getting close to an explosion of yes,” Mayo said.
Mayo, a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Island man, said there was a “vast difference” between the racism and vitriol online and the reactions of people he speaks to at train stations, airports and shopping centres, in forums and on the streets.
Mayo has been on the receiving end of personal attacks during the campaign. He was the subject of a racist cartoon in an advertisement published by the Australian Financial Review in July. The cartoon appeared in a full page ad authorised by Fair Australia, the main group campaigning against the voice.
Matt Kean, a NSW Liberal MP, called the ad “a throwback to the Jim Crow era of the deep south”. A spokesperson for Nine, publisher of the AFR, later apologised and said the ad should never have run. A spokesperson for Advance, the group behind Fair Australia, accused Kean at the time of “elitist Sydney views” but did not comment on why Mayo was depicted as he was.
Mayo said he was initially shocked at the “sheer volume of hatred” online directed at him and other yes campaigners.
“It was shocking, when I first saw these things, the intensity of it, just the sheer volume of hatred. But, at a certain point, it just started to put more fire in my belly,” he said.
“How can we let these people get away with this, as Australians? I think nobody wants to be taken for a fool. And the way that the misinformation, the utter lies like [the voice] is going to take anyone’s back yard, or farm … how can we let them get away with this? That’s what I feel. We must succeed.”
Mayo has been travelling the country for six years talking about the Uluru Statement – it was definitely a one-page document, he said – and remains confident there is “no question that can’t be answered”.
“I’m doing this because I genuinely believe this is going to help not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but our entire nation move forward in a way that our children can be proud of, that we let go of the burden of our colonial past and made a great step towards healing,” he said.
“I do it because I love my children, and I love my community, and I love my families. That is my motivation.
“But if you were to [look at the] massive amount of negativity towards me and the campaign on social media, and think that was what Australians thought, then wear a yes campaign T-shirt out in public, and you’ll see that it’s a very different feeling on the street.”
Mayo said he was concerned the referendum campaign has spawned new lows in political discourse, including the use of AI by an unaffiliated no campaigner to create at least three ads on Facebook featuring a male character with brown skin who voices scripts casting doubt on the referendum.
“Australia really does have a choice here about hope and fairness versus lies and the further marginalisation of Indigenous peoples,” he said.
On Friday other key yes campaigners called on the media to recognise what they said was deliberate misinformation being spread during the referendum debate.
The Uluru Dialogues, headed by the Balnaves chair of constitutional law at the University of NSW, Prof Megan Davis, said in a statement deliberate misinformation “has become a key plank in the no campaign’s effort to defeat the voice referendum”.
The Dialogues said it had calculated that 50 individual claims by no advocates had been investigated and found to be false by the independent AAP Factcheck unit since election night in 2022.
“We implore all editors and journalists to recognise this for what it actually is: a deliberate decision by key members of the no campaign to flout facts in this campaign. Why? First, to scare and confuse enough Australians about this referendum that they will vote no, and second, because no advocates have learned that every hysterical claim they make will drain energy and resources away from yes advocates asked to respond to media requests about them,” the statement said.
They said Australians should “inform themselves by reading deeply, rather than be distracted by a no campaign intent on misinformation and division”.
