Links:

Peta Credlin claiming that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is 26 pages (Youtube)

The Guardian article refuting Senator Price’s claim that the Statement is 26 pages (Web)

Final Report of the Referendum Council dated 30 June 2017 (Web/pdf)

Charles Pakana (Victorian Aboriginal News):

In early August, Sky News commentator and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin, claimed on air that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was in fact a 26-page document, a revelation she claims that emerged as a result of a document being released under the Freedom of Information Act. Well, let’s get it straight right now, and we will move to prove this. That claim is false, and either Peta Credlin knowingly came forward with disinformation or, as a result of pure ignorance and being hoodwinked by others, shared misinformation. This is what she said.

Peta Credlin (Sky News):

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is not a one-page document. It’s actually 26 pages in all, and we only know that because the government’s been forced to release the full document under Freedom of Information, FOI. And it’s the whole 26 pages of the Uluru Statement from the Heart that every Australian should read, not the PM sanitized one-pager, before they cast their vote in the upcoming referendum.

Charles:

When I first heard this, I have to admit that I really was intrigued. So, I located the document, very easy to do, and read the 26 pages to which Peta referred. As I read those pages though, my intrigue pretty soon increased when I realized that I had read these words somewhere before. But here’s the rub. If the government had been forced to release this under freedom of information, I was confused as to where I could possibly have read it previously. So, after a very quick search both of my own research documents and the web, I realized that those hitherto secret pages were in fact public record and freely available on the web as part of the final report of the Referendum Council dated June 2017, presented to the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten.

Those additional 25 pages, by the way, are referred to in the Referendum council’s report as “our story,” and not an extended Uluru Statement from the Heart. In fact, Professor Megan Davis, an architect of the statement, in a tweet on the 8th of August referred to the documents held high by Peta Credlin as, I quote, “An earlier 2017 draft of conference floor butcher’s paper.” Professor Davis further tweeted, “Here is the news for free. I refer always to the Referendum council report. The Uluru Statement is one page, and I always include the First Nations history, our story, as part of it for Aussies to read. No conspiracy. It’s been here since 2017,” and it’s followed by a link to the report.

Unfortunately, Peta Credlin has not been alone in this strange claim that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is in fact a 26-page document. Several days after that initial broadcast, she was joined on Sky News by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Now, Senator Price is the leader of Fair Australia, which promotes itself as a grassroots movements of Australian’s Pledge to Vote No in the Labor’s Voice to Parliament referendum. In commenting on the additional 25 pages, Senator Price said this.

Senator Price:

My office today sought clarification from the FOI team at NIAA to determine whether the Uluru Statement from the Heart is simply one page or the full 26 pages. And so my staff got a phone call at 12:54 this afternoon with a verbal clarification that the document is in fact the 26 pages and not just, of course, the one page. The Prime Minister needs to come clean to the Australian people, not just on this issue, but on various other issues around treaty, around details of the voice. He’s dancing around everything and taking the Australian people for a ride.

Charles:

Well, whether you are a supporter or otherwise of Prime Minister Albanese, the fact remains that on this matter, he seems to have not taken the Australian people for a ride. It appears, in fact, that all those who are currently pushing the 26-page conspiracy may well in turn be guilty of attempting to take Australian people for a ride. This is because of a report carried in The Guardian in direct response to Senator Price’s claim about having confirmation from the NIAA, the National Indigenous Australians Agency. On the 9th of August, Guardian political reporter Josh Butler wrote, “In a letter sent to the Senator today, obtained by Guardian Australia, the NIAA said her claim was incorrect.”

He goes on to quote from the letter, “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is one page signed by delegates at the National Convention in 2017. The authors of the Uluru statement from the heart have confirmed this. The additional pages,” it goes on to say, “contained in document 14 of FOI 2223-016 are background and excerpts drawn from the regional dialogues.” It goes on. “The NIAA did not provide verbal clarification that the Uluru Statement from the Heart document is 26 pages long. What was verbally confirmed was that the publication of the correspondence on the Right to Know website between the NIAA and an individual was accurate.”

Going back now to the original recording from Peta Credlin, as she continued to comment on those additional pages, “Those pages that Professor Davis has already explained are a draft of conference floor butcher’s paper.” Peta sought to exploit the very same fears within the community that Malcolm Turnbull sought to exploit in 2017, and that is that the voice would be a third chamber of Parliament.

Peta Credlin:

This marries out with what I’ve been told by people who still talk to me in the public service out of Canberra, that a lot of them are involved in reviewing the plans of the Parliament House building, working out where they’ll locate this new voice, where they’ll build the voice a chamber of its own. Like the House, like the Senate, there’ll be a chamber for the voice and where all these new voice members will be accommodated, the new officers, the staffers, and the salaries, which I’m told must be at least equivalent to elected MPs. Talk about a third chamber. That’s what Malcolm Turnbull once very aptly described the voice as.

Charles:

The first thing to note is that regardless of what Peta may have been told, the government has yet to determine what a voice member’s salary will be, simply because the legislative process that would follow only if the voice is successful is yet to start. It is a legislative process that has to stand the scrutiny of community consultation, debate and passage in the lower house, and debate and passage in the upper house. Realistically, this could take anywhere from one to two years. So, once again, at this point in time, there really can be no firm determination on a voice member’s wage.

Secondly, just because the voice may or may not be housed in Parliament House hardly gives credit to the already disproved claim that it would be a third Chamber of Parliament. For your general information, when Parliament sits, there are actually around about 5,000 people working in Parliament House, and that is according to the Office of Parliamentary Education there on the website. Now, this claim that it will be a third Chamber of Parliament has been disproved time and time again, and indeed even disavowed by voice advocates. Malcolm Turnbull got it wrong in 2017 when he alluded to this, just as Peta Credlin has it wrong in 2023.

Ultimately, the question I have for media commentators continuing to push this 26-page barrow is that if I can dig down to the truth with virtually no support resources, why, with all their production resources, can’t they? And talking of resources, all those articles, documents, and videos mentioned in this podcast are provided either as downloads or links in this episode on the Victorian Aboriginal News website. Read them, view them, and see the truth.