In October 2016, Damien and I fronted an Australians for Constitutional Monarchy event in honour of Keith Windschuttle’s new book, The Break-up of Australia, which presented his conspiracy theory that Indigenous constitutional recognition was really a secret plot by Indigenous activists to achieve Aboriginal separate state sovereignty—a claim I’d refuted as irrational in an article for The Australian. Damien and I sat on the panel after Windschuttle’s speech to battle with him and editor of The Spectator Rowan Dean. We held our own with dignity and made the conservative case that would appeal to the monarchists. Some of the old ducks nodded enthusiastically, and one woman encouraged me afterwards to ‘keep doing what you’re doing’. For others, it fell on deaf ears—literally. I nudged Damien and pointed out five aged citizens in the front row who were sound asleep—perhaps lulled into slumber by Windschuttle’s speech, I surmised, which had been like a fantastical bedtime story.
The ACM panel was a wasted opportunity for sensible, cross-partisan discussion. Instead of focussing on Damien and my constitutionally conservative, radical-centre arguments for an Indigenous advisory body in the Constitution, Windschuttle and Dean focussed on refuting the separatist sovereignty arguments of the far-left (who were not represented on the panel)—for those arguments were easier to sensationalise and therefore undermine. They barely engaged with our more balanced, middle-ground approach. I spent considerable energy on that panel explicitly affirming the value and success of Australia’s Constitution and acknowledging the need to uphold it—hence the modest proposal for a voice, instead of the insertion of uncertain symbolic words. Instead of hearing my constitutionally conservative arguments, Rowan Dean mischaracterised my position: he said I was saying Australia had a ‘racist Constitution’ (words I did not say), essentially lumping me in the category of the radical left without engaging with my position. I pulled him up, and Dean apologised for the mischaracterisation. It demonstrated the deafness of the reactionary far-right, who tend to be more interested in sensationalism than genuine intellectual engagement, even when presented with conservative arguments.
Sometimes the far-right surprised us, however.
Lyle Shelton, staunch right-winger, then head of the Australian Christian Lobby and opponent of same-sex marriage (with whom Noel and I disagreed on many things, including amendment of the Marriage Act), was also coming quietly on side with the idea of an Indigenous advisory body in the Constitution. It took a few meetings and repeated explanation, but eventually he told David and me he supported the proposals and now would need to get his board on side.
Somewhere along the line, Damien and I convinced Noel to address the ACL conference in April 2016. He agreed, then pulled out to attend the funeral of Indigenous activist Tiga Bayles. I spoke in his stead, to 600 or so people; Julian and Damien helped me draft the speech. I painted a picture of Australia’s British, Indigenous and multicultural heritage as strands irrevocably entwined, enriching us all. I made the moral case for an Indigenous voice in the Constitution as a way of ensuring a relationship of ‘amity and kindness’ as the Crown intended, quoting Paul Keating, George Pell and Jesus Christ, and even threw in a bit of my Hindu karma argument for good measure. I could feel the audience was with me and engaged. Afterwards I sold and signed a heap of books, and in talking to audience members, discovered this crowd carried genuine goodwill for the Indigenous recognition cause despite their discriminatory stance on same-sex marriage. ‘You persuaded a lot of people, Shireen,’ Lyle told me after. ‘It really shifted them.’
It was a valuable lesson: just because a constituency opposes a particular progressive cause, it doesn’t mean they can’t be persuaded to support another—especially if the argument is presented in a conservative way. This was the value in prosecuting a truly radical centre proposal. It could win support in the most unexpected of constituencies.
We were criticised by some on the left, however, for attending the conference at all.
Our book launch of The Forgotten People was to be held at the Melbourne Town Hall in June 2016, hosted by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle. A few days before, our book launcher, Reverend Tim Costello, pulled out due to the death of his father. As chance would have it, I’d been trying to organise a meeting with former Liberal premier of Victoria Jeff Kennett.
Two days before the launch, I went to Kennett’s Richmond office. We had a quick chat and I could see he was intrigued. ‘You’re on a mission,’ he observed, and asked about my background. I told him and also explained the proposals. ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Kennett asked. I decided to be bold and asked if he would launch our book that Wednesday night. He looked sceptical, then told me to send him the constitutional drafting and some dot points explaining the proposals. I did. At 9 p.m. he called and agreed to be our launcher.
One hundred people turned up at the Town Hall to support the launch of my first-ever book (albeit coedited). Kennett met my parents, and tried to persuade them to ditch Labor and join the Tories. ‘Shireen tells me you’re rabid socialists,’ he joked (but he was correct). He had advised me in our meeting that I should join the Liberal Party to pursue politics, because he thought I should change things from within. I wasn’t convinced, but he seemed to respect me and I was quietly chuffed, for Kennett was clearly a charismatic and caring Liberal.
The following week Kennett published in the Herald Sun his support for the Indigenous advisory body in the Constitution, even endorsing Anne’s drafting. I had no idea he would do this, but he put his support on the record. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. He would publish his support again after the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in 2017.
Our persuasive work was paying off.
Supporters of our approach now included Liberal Party stalwarts such as former Australian trade minister Andrew Robb, former federal Opposition leader Dr Brendan Nelson, centrist military veteran Sir Angus Houston, and progressives such as author Thomas Keneally, who at a NSW Art Gallery event declared an Indigenous advisory body the way forward in the most theatrical and uplifting way I had yet witnessed. A growing number of constitutional lawyers were coming to see the merits in the approach, and Uphold & Recognise had run impressive promotional events at the NSW Gallery and the War Memorial in Canberra, and had been involved in a standout event at Parliament House at which Julian, Tim Wilson and Chris Kenny all made the case (Wilson noting he had his own original ideas to input), with Rachel Perkins and me on the panel.
Rachel spoke at many of these events and proved herself an eloquent advocate. I watched in awe as she altered her Parliament House speech midway through: she’d just seen Abbott walk into the room and paused to acknowledge his leadership in this debate, conjuring a sense of flattery and respect but emphasising the responsibility he now bore to take things forward. There were other Coalition members present, engaged, attentive and interested. At these events, members of the public were always moved and energised. Many found the proposals compelling.
We were slowly building consensus across the different sectors of the political right. These were the hardest sectors to crack, but we were gradually cracking them.
Turnbull in 2017 would claim the proposed Indigenous body in the Constitution would be unable to win the support necessary for a successful referendum. In our experience, the opposite would be true. With a bit of hard work, the proposal could win support—we had seen it time and again.
The problem was that there were only a few of us advocating, with too few resources. The political leadership was still missing.
There is another factor that may have contributed to Turnbull’s abandonment of support for an Indigenous body in the Constitution: the changed positioning of Labor. This part of the story is not well known. Insiders know what really happened.
Previously, Labor had been advocating ambitious reform, sticking to the Expert Panel approach and keeping the political tension high. But somewhere along the line (after Wyatt’s joint select committee report came out in June 2015, and Wyatt repudiated its
recommendations) they released the tension—at least for a time. They didn’t shift to the radical centre; they drifted down to minimalism just long enough for it to have an impact. It meant there was no strong progressive influence forcing the Coalition to a more ambitious position. Productive political tension, for a time at least, was lost.
Labor’s brief descent into minimalism should be viewed in context, however, as should Wyatt’s historical preference for constitutional minimalism over an Indigenous constitutional voice. Both Labor and Wyatt would shift to positions more supportive of an Indigenous constitutional voice in months and years to come. As this story shows, people change their minds over time. Noel and I changed our minds. Julian, Damien and Greg changed their minds. Building consensus is a journey, and each must travel at their own pace. As I came to learn, the ability to change one’s mind shows humility and courage. It is an asset, not a flaw.
After the Kirribilli meeting in July 2015, Noel, Megan Davis and Patrick Dodson, together with Kirstie Parker of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, pushed Abbott to endorse an Indigenous-specific consultation process to determine a national Indigenous position on constitutional recognition. There would be no point proceeding with an Indigenous recognition referendum that Indigenous people did not support, they argued. After Wyatt’s capitulation, the Indigenous leadership realised the whole thing was heading towards minimalism. The only way they could stop it was by forming a strong Indigenous consensus: a position that backed substantive reform and rejected minimalism once and for all.
I drafted a united opinion piece for Noel and Dodson, pressuring Abbott to allow Indigenous people a say. It was a historic moment, with both leaders rising above their historical personal and political differences. Both Noel and Dodson resolved to respect whatever came out of the Indigenous process.9
Abbott initially refused the request, saying it would lead to an Indigenous ‘log of claims’. Indigenous leaders, especially Noel, pushed back.10
On 20 August 2015, the four leaders attended a seminal meeting with Abbott to prosecute their plan. Their conjoined advocacy was powerful and it won the day. Abbott agreed that an Indigenous process would be part of the planned consultation process. It was the ‘rumble we had to have to get the ground rules right’, Noel said.11
A month later, Abbott was no longer prime minister, but the plan they forged stuck.
On 7 December 2015, the new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, together with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, appointed the Referendum Council to take constitutional recognition forward and advise government. They made Mark Leibler and Patrick Dodson the co-chairs, just like in Expert Panel days. The council included Noel, Megan Davis, Tanya Hosch, veteran Indigenous activist Pat Anderson, and, initially, journalist Stan Grant (before he left to take up an ABC position), plus Yolngu leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Torres Strait Islander Dalassa Yorkston. Among the non-Indigenous leaders were former NSW Labor premier Kristina Keneally, former chief justice of the High Court Murray Gleeson, lawyer Michael Rose, former Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja, and former Liberal Party Indigenous affairs minister Amanda Vanstone.
Due to the advocacy of Indigenous leaders, an Indigenous led and run Indigenous consultation process was part of the Referendum Council’s terms of reference. The council was tasked with consulting with Indigenous people and concurrently with the broader community, to make recommendations on the way forward. Its Indigenous members began to organise a historic series of First Nations regional dialogues to ascertain Indigenous views and enable them to form a national Indigenous position.
As the work was getting started in 2016, the issue of treaties was also bubbling up in some states. Victoria’s Labor government announced it would begin a treaties process, and South Australia followed suit. There was some talk of the Northern Territory doing the same. Renewed talk of treaties changed the debate.
Patrick Dodson, who previously had been passionately attached to a racial non-discrimination clause, after the Referendum Council was appointed publicly indicated a willingness to abandon the Expert Panel’s key reform. A racial non-discrimination clause would ‘have a hard time’ succeeding, he conceded.12 Wyatt had ditched the substantive reform. Now so had Dodson, it seemed—before the council’s consultations on the options even began.
Dodson began advocating for a ‘post-recognition settlements’ process, to follow a more minimalist form of constitutional recognition. Some speculated that he might have been persuaded by representatives of Recognise to shift to constitutional minimalism. My own speculation was that it was probably Frank Brennan’s influence. Maybe it was both.
In April 2016, Dodson was elected as a Labor senator for Western Australia and resigned from the Referendum Council. Then, when Bill Shorten appeared on Q&A in June 2016, his comments indicated that Labor was pushing a ‘post-recognition settlements process’ too.
‘Do I think that we should have our First Australians mentioned in our national birth certificate, the Constitution? Yes,’ said Shorten. Again: ‘mentioned’? What happened to substantive constitutional reform? I thought anxiously as I watched. The ‘national birth certificate’ lingo smacked of Recognise. ‘Do I think we need to move beyond just constitutional recognition to talking about what a post-constitutional recognition settlement with Indigenous people looks like? Yes, I do,’ Shorten further stated.13
If there is a settlements process after the referendum, then constitutional minimalism may be acceptable, seemed Labor’s new logic. Yet Bob Hawke had promised a treaty too and never delivered. What if Labor accepted constitutional minimalism on the feeble promise of a future treaty, and then the treaty promise disappeared like writing in the sand, as Yothu Yindi sang? Why not argue for substantive constitutional recognition and a treaties process, as a progressive party should?
The strategy was not well considered. But Shorten on this issue seemed to be taking his cues from Dodson, just as Turnbull was taking his cues from Wyatt, and neither Wyatt nor Dodson at this stage seemed amenable to Noel’s suggestion of an Indigenous constitutional body as a middle-way alternative to constitutional minimalism. They would rather support minimalism than support the Cape York Institute model, seemed the sad truth.
But just as public views shift over time, so too can true leaders galvanise to match the passions of the people they serve. Both Dodson and Wyatt would down the track shift their positions to express support for the Uluru Statement’s call for a constitutional voice. Dodson, in particular, together with Linda Burney and Malarndirri McCarthy, would become a passionate and impressive advocate, holding Turnbull fearlessly to account. Wyatt would even speak up against his prime minister in defence of the proposal.
For now, however, they seemed resigned to constitutional minimalism. This caused a momentary lapse in political tension, with devastating results.
Over the next few months, as the Referendum Council members would discover, the Labor Party’s position on constitutional recognition slid down to the same level as that of the Coalition. By November 2016, it was clear the politicians had done a backroom, bipartisan deal for minimalism.
11
A Snowflake’s Chance in Hell
To achieve national change, one must first be able to imagine that change and envisage its realisation. It requires optimism. One must have hope that change is possible, for without hope and vision, there is no driving force for action. Hopelessness breeds apathy: lethargic acceptance of the status quo.
Noel and I practised radical hope. Hope against the odds. Hope in the face of losing battles. Our hope is what drove us during these years—it’s why we worked hard and why we often felt at the edge of victory, even as we teetered against heartbreaking defeat. We were in it for the long haul and every skirmish along the way bolstered our resolve. Referendum or bust. Substantive reform or nothing. ‘We will get there,’ Noel would say.
While engaging with compassionate conservatives, politicians on the left and the occasional far-left
Indigenous radical to boot, I was also engaging with the reactionary right. Earlier that year, I met Andrew Bolt for the first time. It was the day after Australia Day: 27 January 2016. I was in Canberra to film my segment for the ABC documentary I Can Change Your Mind on Recognition with Bolt and Indigenous Labor MP Linda Burney. A symbolically appropriate time for the encounter, perhaps: the day after the British arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788.
The filming was at the National Press Club, where Noel had literally just given his speech. I sat in the audience of the fancy lunch but couldn’t eat. Jimi Bostock, who was with me, quaffed wine, oblivious to my angst. Noel spoke of the radical centre and his regret at never entering politics. We were both realising you had to be inside to truly change things. Advocating from outside was feeling increasingly futile.
I sat dumb, riddled with nerves. I’d spent the past several years watching and reading Bolt and understanding his arguments. They were basically the same as those of the IPA. I’d met Chris Berg and Simon Breheny, two IPA advocates, was across their positions, and knew the reasons they were wrong. The night before, in my hotel room, I’d practised on a conference call with friends—studying several typed pages of my Andrew Bolt analysis. My mates played an even more annoying version of Bolt than Bolt himself, if that’s possible. It helped.
Then the day came, and I went through some initial stress about a deodorant stain on my blue dress (I washed it in the sink, blow-dried it with the hairdryer, ironed it then donned it again). The producer rang to tell me Bolt was cranky. Noel had refused to be in the doco with him, and I had been put forward instead (an unknown replacement, but Jimi had pushed). But upon arriving at the Press Club to see that Noel was speaking at exactly the same venue on the same day, Bolt, apparently, was insulted. I hid in the toilets, mulling over this added aggravation, imagining his seething disdain at having to meet a mere adviser.
Radical Heart Page 20
