Garma Festival media panel hears Indigenous debate has soured since Voice

Australia’s political leaders have become too fearful of backlash to follow through on any significant promises to Indigenous Australians, according to a panel of media heavyweights.

Three years since the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum, the panel at the Garma Festival in north-east Arnhem Land tonight dissected how the majority ‘No’ vote in 2023 has led to a perceived void in political action around Indigenous advancement.

Former editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, accused the nation’s political leaders of “dropping the ball” on Indigenous affairs since the referendum, and having “just moved on”.

“It’s almost like the day after the referendum, people just forgot that it happened,” he said.

Earlier in the festival, Shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister Julian Leeser accused the Albanese government of being “adrift” on Indigenous policy, and lacking in direction since the Voice.

Chair of the ABC, Kim Williams, said the rise in social media disinformation was a pervasive threat to the ability of the media and politicians to discuss Indigenous affairs in a civil or positive way.

“Disinformation is a very insidious force in society,” he said.

“In social media it is a pervasive force … it is a genuine social cancer.”

NITV journalist John Paul Janke said since the referendum, NITV and SBS had been forced to hire external social media moderators to keep check of the fierce racism that populates the posts of nearly every online story.

“It just unleashed racism,” he said.

He said he believed that “governments are too afraid to do something [about correcting disinformation] because they don’t want to have a culture war” by speaking out.

Politicians ‘go on country, get excited’

Former ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy told the panel that politicians would often make grand promises while on Aboriginal country, and then later walk them back or break them when back in Parliament House.

“They get this kind of emotional rush of blood to the head,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy made the example of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s promise made at last year’s Garma Festival that he would attend the site at Gulkula annually, but then proceeded to skip this year’s event, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong attending in his place.

Also once an advisor to former prime minister Bob Hawke, Cassidy spoke of how his then-boss had surprised everybody by promising a treaty to Aboriginal Australians at the Barunga Festival in 1988.

“There was a lot of excitement around that day, but of course it didn’t happen,” he said.

“They go on country, they get excited, but they don’t follow up.”