Prominent Indigenous academic Marcia Langton has accused some no vote supporters of spreading “garbage”, personally targeting Indigenous supporters of the voice and “swarming social media with bots and AI lies”.
Langton, the former co-chair of the Morrison government’s Indigenous voice design advisory group, made the comments during an event she presented in Sydney on Thursday night.
She said prominent Indigenous voice supporters were being maliciously targeted by anti-voice campaigners, including politicians.
“We’re the imaginary enemy of the state and every politician comes along and plays political football with us,” she said at the event.
“They’ve played the old-fashioned fear tactics but now they’ve got all the extra post-Trumpian tactics, the Steve Bannon tactics of swamping social media with bots and AI generated Facebook lies and lies on Twitter.”
Langton said: “I’ve never been a member of the Communist party. I did have a very cute Communist party member boyfriend once here in Sydney.
“If you only read the ‘no case’ bots about that evil Marcia Langton, you’d be horrified. You’d run out of the room.
“Every Indigenous leader has been targeted. Megan Davis has been targeted by these nefarious Trump-like cult groups.”
Langton also made a plea to the public to back the “yes” vote, claiming that because of misinformation yes supporters face an “uphill battle”.
“There needs to be a new label for the post-Trumpian world of hate,” she said. “We face an uphill battle, a really tough uphill battle to convey our simple message and we need your help.”
She urged supporters of the voice to go into the community and talk to friends and family to boost the campaign’s chances of success.
“We need everybody phoning friends, handing out Yes23 materials at railway stations bus stops, classrooms,” she said.
“I want everybody to wake up after the referendum and feel proud to be Australian … to know that we’ve done that extra step … and empowered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first peoples to have a say in our own futures.”
The former co-chair of the former federal government’s Indigenous voice design advisory group was scathing of some in the media, saying there was misreporting and a lack of understanding around the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for voice, treaty and truth.
“It’s been misreported by the media. The media use it for the usual game of ‘oh, look at what the Aborigines are doing now, isn’t it shocking?’” she said.
“They consistently miss that the Uluru Statement from the Heart and all of our work is an invitation to the nation to walk with us. It’s an invitation from us, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It’s not from the government.”
Initial surveys showed support for the voice at above 50% in most jurisdictions, but, since then, national polls have trended downwards.
She said that, even if the vote failed, she wanted it to be legislated: “What will the future look like if we win this referendum? I hope that even, if we don’t, the government should legislate something like what we recommended.
“We came up with a way to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to close the gap, to have agency in their lives and have dignity.”
Langton said she wanted the nation to be unified through the referendum: “I hope we face a unified Australia and empowered Indigenous people with a practical way to become engaged in giving advice on how to close the gap.
“That’s recognised around the world as having decent standards for all its citizens and ending the colonial exclusion of Indigenous people from the fabric of the nation.”
The evening closed with the audience reading out the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
