Calling all
‘conspiracy theorists’

Peta Credlin and Sky News have done a great favour to Australians mulling the coming referendum by posting the much misrepresented Document 14, which the Prime Minister has derided as misinformation for “conspiracy theorists”. Well he would say that, given that he prefers to ignore what is a backgrounding annex, an extended footnote, to the motherhood sentiments and blandishments of the one-page Uluru Statement.

This, of course, has drawn the usual response from other Voice advocates, who would have you believe the document’s quite specific talk of parallel legal systems, treaties, reparations and worse amounts to a big nothing-to-see-here. That was certainly the attitude at social media site Reddit, where an attempt six days ago by poster zanymeltdown to share Document 14 was accorded the treatment illustrated by the notice reproduced atop this column: down the memory hole with any and all information apt to ruffle the pro-Voice narrative.

Left-canted Reddit, just by way of background, bills itself as a bastion and defender of free speech.

Meanwhile, Voice architect Megan Davis goes ad hom on Credlin:

“The fact that a single No advocate has used her privileged media platform to confuse the mainstream media and our political leaders so dramatically about the Voice, tells you everything you need to know about the way Indigenous issues are treated in this country.”

It would have been two No advocates had Reddit not scuttled its post, but never mind because Davis’ pals at the National Indigenous Times (NIT) are staging a contortionists’ display in attempting to explain why Document 14 really should be banished forever  from the public eye and mind.

While conceding it is a distillation of activists’ discussions which shaped the public face of the Voice — that would be the one-page Uluru Statement — the report swears blind that the meetings, parleys, submissions and arguments which produced the From the Heart one-pager actually have nothing to do with it.

Should NIT ever publish a recipe book, expect to see lovely pictures of the completed dishes but with all needed ingredients and cooking instructions deliberately erased.

Fact is, Document 14 makes the perfect garnish for Quadrant‘s August online special edition, in which some 40 contributors lay out the No case in the sort of detail that should persuade all but Reddit moderators, Megan Davis, Chris Kenny and all the other Yes campaigners keen to keep the making of the Voice sausage from the public eye.

To download our special edition, just click on the cover image below.

— roger franklin