Key Points
- Australians have delivered a resounding No to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament
- Warren Mundine and Marcia Langton clash on the issue of race in both Yes and No campaigns.
- Mundine repeatedly spoke over Langton as she denied claims by the No campaign.
Prominent Yes campaigner Marcia Langton has strongly denied claims she called Australians racist, saying the Voice question "was not about race".
Langton, a Yiman and Bidjara woman, and prominent No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine engaged in a heated debate on NITV's The Point program on Saturday, in which Mundine accused Langton of "racially abusing Australians" and "causing division".
"I'm not going to take any comments from a person who thinks that we are a racist country, and that we are racist people," he said.
Langton has denied claims that she branded No voters "racist" or "stupid" while speaking at a referendum event in Bunbury earlier this month, clarifying her quotes were taken out of context.
The exchange took place as the live panel started declaring results nationwide for Australia's first referendum in a generation on Saturday night.
— which would have been a body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people advising the government on issues particularly impacting Indigenous Australians.
Speaking on The Point, Langton accused Mundine of "a very Trumpian play".
"Create racial division, by lying, and then accuse me of being a provocateur," she said.
"It's factual," Mundine interrupted, continuing to speak over Langton. "It's not a lie."
"You are the one who has caused division in this country. We are about uniting this country and moving forward and fixing the problems that we have in Aboriginal communities."
Host Narelda Jacobs interjected, defending "national treasure" Marcia Langton whose "words were twisted".
"I didn't say that Australians are racist," Langton said. "What I said was that the messaging of the No campaign is based in some racialist assumptions."
"I was asking people to think deeply about the racist underpinnings of the No campaign messaging.
"It's not true that I think Australians are racist … It's not about race at all, and that was my message," she said, thanking the 50,000 volunteers that helped campaign for a Yes vote.
Race in the constitution
The moment highlighted one of the most talked about claims that a Voice to Parliament would divide Australia by race, or give special rights to one race of people.
, clarifying that race was already in the constitution and the advisory body did "not propose any racial segregation policies".
Cheryl Saunders, a professor at Melbourne Law School and expert in constitutional law, said in her view this does not mean Australia will be divided by race, or that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would have gained special rights.
"We're recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people because they were the first peoples here, not on the grounds of race," Saunders said.
Langton said the No campaign had used "scare tactics" to inject racial undertones into the debate.
"This question was not about race. The No campaign have turned it into a racially divisive proposition when it is not at all," Langton said.
"Being Indigenous does not mean that we are members of the imaginary 19th-century race that was put into the constitution and remains in the constitution."
Mundine responded: "You cannot say that putting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in a constitution, which all my life and all my parents' life and all my grandparents' life — is that we were Aboriginal, is a race, Torres Strait Islanders are a race.
"And then to pretend that by putting those things in the constitution is not about putting a race in the constitution."
Week of silence as Voice is rejected
A group of, which Anthony Albanese said "doesn't define" Australians.
Meanwhile, Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the prime minister was to blame for the result.
As official counting continues, all states and the Northern Territory have voted No, with only the ACT delivering a Yes vote.
