Walking Together: Professor Megan Davis on the Uluru Statement from the Heart

This article is written by guest contributor Yatu Widders Hunt, General Manager of Indigenous PR and research agency, Cox Inall Ridgeway, and founder of online community @ausindigenousfashion.

Professor Megan Davis is a proud Cobble Cobble woman from Queensland. She is the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law and a Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales. Professor Davis has helped shape the legal rights and freedoms of First Nations peoples internationally, including as Chair and expert of a United Nations Indigenous rights body at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.

Importantly, she has been the leading constitutional lawyer working on First Nations constitutional recognition since 2011. As a member of the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council, Professor Davis designed the dialogue process which led to the issuing of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017; an invitation to all Australians to support First Nations in seeking a referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

A Voice to Parliament will provide First Nations people with the opportunity to have a say on the laws and policies that impact them. A Makarrata Commission would supervise a process of agreement-making between governments, First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

In line with Reconciliation Week, Professor Davis speaks to guest contributor Yatu Widders Hunt about the importance of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

You have become a leading constitutional lawyer and a United Nations expert on Indigenous rights, among many other things. Tell us about your upbringing and what drew you to a career in law and advocacy?

I grew up in south east and south west Queensland. My dad worked on Queensland Rail, so we moved around a lot, but basically, I’m from country Queensland. We ended up at Hervey Bay, which is the place my grandfather settled. Eventually we moved to Eagleby in south east Queensland for high school.

There is a synergy in the work I do that I often think about today. In 1901 my grandmother was moved to Cherbourg from Warra near the Bunya Mountains, which was known to be one of the most brutal Aboriginal Settlements in Queensland. I often reflect on the fact that around the time of 1901, as the country was celebrating nationhood and the new Constitution, First Nations were being moved into missions and reserves and experiencing subjugation and institutionalisation.

I think I always wanted to be a lawyer from around Grade 6. I was a voracious reader and remember that my mum bought me two books that really had an impact on me. One was a biography of the Governor General who sacked former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and the other was a text about the Constitution.

I didn’t know it clearly then, but I knew I wanted my career to have something to do with the Constitution, ‘the biggest law in the land.’

You are one of the leaders and authors of the Uluru Statement. Tell us about what the Uluru Statement means to you.

The lawyer answer in me, is that it is a proposal or a sales pitch for a law reform directed at the Australian people, explaining why we seek substantive change to the Constitution. Only Australians can change the Constitution, if we vote ‘Yes’ at a referendum. When an alteration is proposed to the Constitution, a referendum is held to seek the opinion of the Australian population about the proposed change. A referendum usually asks a question or questions to which all eligible voters must vote either 'yes' or 'no'.

Since 1788, there really haven’t been any significant things done to acknowledge or recognise what came before. I believe that unaddressed issue is part of our enduring disadvantage as First Peoples, in that our place has never truly been recognised. Recognition is central to dignity and self-respect. But politicians drag their feet and seem incapable of closing the gap.

So the Uluru Statement is an ‘invitation’ to understand why change is needed and why we the people have to lead the politicians. That’s my head answer. But my heart answer is that we know a lot has gone on in this country, and we face an uncertain future and we now need to all walk together. We call the Uluru Statement a sign of friendship and a sign of peace.

What is it inviting people to do?

If you read the Uluru Statement, it is 18 pages long, but the first page is a letter to the Australian people; an invitation to learn about why we are asking for reform.

It’s an unusual approach to law reform but it was important that we speak directly to each and every Australian. It asks Australians to understand that we, as Indigenous Australians, aren’t asked about the policies and laws that are brought upon us. Australians can see that things are not working. Closing the Gap; a strategy that aims to improve the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with respect to health and wellbeing, education, employment, justice, safety, housing, land and waters, and languages, is getting worse for instance. But if we work together, our laws will be better and stronger, and it will be the communities impacted coming up with the solutions, not public servants in Canberra.

Some people might say, why would we reach out with an invitation to Australia? But it’s important to remember that the process we undertook to develop the Uluru Statement was dominated by our old people and our cultural authority who, after all that has come before, conveyed a tremendous and unparalleled generosity of spirit for the Australian people.

A lot of them were around during the 1967 referendum ‘yes’ vote, which ensured the national government could make laws in respect of Indigenous peoples and to be counted in the census.

They have seen firsthand what can happen when we all come together. We sometimes use the saying ‘you’ve got to meet us at the rock.’

Tell us about the process of creating the Uluru Statement and the significance of the dialogues?

We held a series of pre-dialogues and trial dialogues across the country to engage our communities on the preparation for the dialogues. We had to think about how to set up a process to actually drive reform, not just consult communities and leave.

I spent most of 2015 and 2016 designing a process that would put grassroots communities in the driver’s seat. We designed a model for a ‘three-day dialogue’ where people received education about the legal and political system and civics knowledge as well as lectures on the reforms and then we used breakout groups and plenary sessions to yarn back and forth.

We held 12 regional dialogues and one final national constitutional conference. Each dialogue was capped at 100 Indigenous people to ensure a robust and consistent method, and we ran the same process in every community and gave everyone the same information.

At the end, everyone had to sign a ‘record of meeting’ to capture everything that was talked about. That included all the agreements, disagreements and tensions because we do all have different views.

In 2017, we held a national convention at Uluru, where we had a reading of what had been done in the regions so that it acc urately represented what was said. No one elected from the regions could attend Uluru and undo what was said in the regions: this is at the heart of ‘Voice’, listening. It was a serious deliberative process. The dialogues were a two-year process, but the movement has been much longer than that.

How can people learn more about the Uluru Statement and show their support?

I would encourage people to go to the website as a first step. You can read information about the dialogues and read the invitation itself.

You can also sign up to get regular information which will be really important if we do have a referendum.

There is a beautiful section on the website called Our Story which is the Aboriginal history and story from invasion to the frontier wars, to assimilation, to self-determination. It is a really important thing to read because it’s how we see Australian history.

There are resources around how to write to your MP and importantly, how to do yarning.

And that is probably one of the most important things—the yarning with your friends, families, and colleagues. That is how we achieved the 1967 referendum.

What makes you hopeful for the future?

Sometimes people feel hesitant to talk about Indigenous issues, but we need Australians to lend us their voice. That is how this is going to happen.

We live in an anxious and uncertain time, but people feel elated about this campaign. It’s something positive that we can hold onto, and the government has now committed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart!

We must get energised about this nation-building exercise. We must do this together.

This is not just for politicians; it’s for all Australians.

• Learn more about the Uluru Statement at: ulurustatement.org
• Follow the Uluru Statement at: @ulurustatement