CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The head office of the ‘No To The Indigenous Voice’ Campaign is a panic station today, after one of their leading spokesmen went off script in a media appearance this morning.
Warren Mundine, one of the leading figures opposing the upcoming Indigenous Voice Referendum, has slipped up and revealed some personal views that don’t sit that well with the Liberal and National Party heavyweights that he is supposedly representing.
Mundine, a Bundjalung man, has expressed support for both a treaty with Indigenous people, and changing the date of Australia Day if the nation votes No to an Indigenous Voice.
These two proposals are the two main things that No Campaign has been campaigning against.
Mundine’s comments, which greatly embarrassed his conservative colleagues, have now jeopardised his plan to be elevated into a Federal senator’s seat after the Referendum.
This comes just days after the Coalition’s alternative Indigenous ambassador, Jacinta Price, boldly declared to the National Press Club that there there are “no ongoing negative impacts” of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, only a “positive impact”.
Price’s comment seems the clash directly with the Liberal Party’s reluctant admission that Indigenous people do indeed face disadvantages and disparities in health and education.
Given the fact that Australia’s media landscape have given both Price and Mundine more airtime than any other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander figure in the country, it is no surprise that one of them was going to eventually fuck up the talking points that have been agreed upon by the Liberal Party’s marketing machine.
However, the No Campaign has been left surprised by these inconsistencies, which is weird, considering they have willingly recruited a former RNB singer (Price) and a former Labor Party president (Mundine) to lead their attack on Aboriginal self-determination.
Unfortunately for both spokespeople, these gaffes have only accelerated their expendability in the eyes of the conservative political class.
Senior party source have come out today to clarify that Mundine’s comments about treaties and date changes have ‘made it very difficult for himself’ in race to succeed retiring NSW senator Marise Payne, making it clear his place within the Liberals is only temporary.
