{"id":100290,"date":"2023-10-25T04:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T04:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/?p=100290"},"modified":"2023-10-25T04:39:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T04:39:09","slug":"anonymous-letter-writing-indigenous-leaders-to-blame-for-voice-loss-liddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/lifestyle\/anonymous-letter-writing-indigenous-leaders-to-blame-for-voice-loss-liddle\/","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous letter-writing Indigenous leaders to blame for Voice loss: Liddle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Liberal Party\u2019s sole Indigenous MP has accused the authors of an anonymous letter censuring people who voted No in the Voice referendum of lacking the courage to put their names to it in the most forthright political response to criticisms made by Yes case leaders.<\/p>\n
Coalition frontbencher Kerrynne Liddle says the letter, released on Sunday night, stunned her and has questioned the courage of Indigenous leaders who authored it, urging them to accept responsibility for the democratic outcome.<\/p>\n
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Liddle delivering a speech in September, 2022.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Alex Ellinghausen<\/cite><\/p>\n In an unpublished draft version of the open letter, revealed in this masthead on Sunday, Liddle was accused of being a \u201cfront person\u201d for right-wing think tanks that \u201cused black people to fight black people\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t a front person for anybody. I\u2019m a proud Indigenous woman. I\u2019m also a member of parliament and a contributing member of my community,\u201d she said, adding that she had seen the draft that named her.<\/p>\n \u201cThis wasn\u2019t a political decision for me. I held this position way before I came into politics.\u201d<\/p>\n The former journalist and resources industry executive was involved in various Indigenous organisations before she was elected to the Senate last year and has opposed the Voice for years.<\/p>\n Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said in April her anti-Voice stance was influential in shaping his own views.<\/p>\n Liddle took aim at an unsigned document that labelled the October 14 outcome \u201cappalling and mean-spirited\u201d, claimed lies were the campaign\u2019s \u201cprimary feature\u201d, and argued the truth of the Voice poll was that \u201cthe majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not\u201d.<\/p>\n The document released on Sunday said Australia belonged to Indigenous people and that it was the \u201clegitimacy of the non-Indigenous occupation in this country that requires recognition\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cFor people that claim to have spent a week in mourning, you would have hoped in reflection that they would have not come out with such an aggressive response,\u201d Liddle said in an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cThey should be looking at themselves, not pointing the finger at everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey haven\u2019t listened. They say they represent all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They represent themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cImagine if one or more of those individuals who authored this ended up on the unexplained constitutionally enshrined Voice. We\u2019d be hearing this type of toxic talk forever.\u201d<\/p>\n While no names were attached to the letter, several sources who asked not to be named so that they could speak freely previously confirmed Uluru Dialogue leader Megan Davis and Yes23 campaigner Noel Pearson were among many involved in the drafting.<\/p>\n Evidence cited by this masthead shows Pearson and Thomas Mayo had some level of contribution to editing the document, though the extent of any individual\u2019s involvement is unclear.<\/p>\n Some senior Indigenous leaders, including June Oscar, Mick Gooda and Pat Turner, objected to parts of the historic document.<\/p>\n The South Australian senator said the letter misleadingly portrayed the vote as a rebuff of symbolic recognition of First Australians when in fact it was a spurning of what she said was a flawed, unconvincing idea of a new advisory body.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is outrageous to be suggesting that people rejected Aboriginal people or they rejected closing the gap,\u201d Liddle said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people rejected was the proposition of Voice \u2026 The letter ignores the very thing that was problematic for most Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlbanese took a proposition straight from the very people that put this letter together in 2017 [the Uluru Statement from the Heart] and he didn\u2019t amend it at all. There was no compromise. And from these people, there\u2019s still no compromise in their position. They\u2019ve learned nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Liddle said the Yes leadership had failed to accept the loss despite the competitive advantage it had as a result of an \u201cextraordinary amount of money\u201d and the prestige of the leaders involved.<\/p>\n The open letter\u2019s claim that remote Indigenous communities overwhelmingly supported the Voice was disproved by results in Indigenous communities in her home state, she claimed.<\/p>\n Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nMost Viewed in Politics<\/h2>\n
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