An Uluru Statement architect has lauded the millions of Australians who voted 'yes' to an Indigenous voice to parliament, saying the referendum provided a springboard for a national conversation about constitutional recognition.
Professor Megan Davis said the voice referendum - which would have enshrined an Indigenous advisory body in the constitution - wasn't debated seriously in a democratic context due to the myriad of misinformation.
"It is to us, incontrovertible that political lies and disinformation derailed the advocacy for a voice," she told the Centre for Public Integrity's annual integrity oration in Sydney on Wednesday night.
"Therefore we never really arrived at a point that the voice to parliament was debated or discussed seriously in the context of Australian democracy and accountability because of the avalanche of fabrications and exaggerations about the voice, the Australian constitution and race."
The referendum was defeated 60-40 in October 2023.
Prof Davis said she didn't see the referendum as a loss anymore.
"We have 6.2 million people who are our mates that we never knew existed," she said.
Prof Davis said she hadn't given up on constitutional recognition, which the coalition had supported, though it campaigned for 'no' as the referendum questions did not split the issues of recognition and the voice.
"Australia can't walk away from constitutional recognition ... constitutions matter," Prof Davis said.
"They provide the material conditions for a flourishing human life, a dignified human life and so it's something we've got to try again.
"We've got a really good base to build off now."
There was a knowledge gap during the referendum campaign that was partly explained by an education gap, "but also interestingly, explained by a diminishing bank of popular knowledge about Aboriginal disadvantage and closing the gap", the Indigenous scholar added.
"That meant that the kind of exigency and the purpose of the voice to parliament was not fully ventilated," she said.
Visibility was also important, she said, pointing to a piece of research that stated a majority of Australians hadn't met an Indigenous person.
"We tested that in some research at the beginning of 2023 where we found that if you had dinner with an Aboriginal person, you're more likely to vote 'yes'.
"Part of our work going forward ... is that we need to do some of this work, which is, we need to get out into Australia and have these conversations about what happened, what we think went wrong, and have some of these discussions."
Prof Davis said by the time now-Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price made remarks during the referendum campaign about there being no negative impacts of colonisation on Indigenous people, "we were so deep into the mud".
Senator Price spearheaded the 'no' campaign as the opposition's then-Indigenous affairs spokeswoman.
Her claim was vigorously challenged by experts linking colonisation to intergenerational trauma and inequality.
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