It has been six weeks since Wiradyuri journalist and writer Stan Grant stepped back from television, citing relentless racist online abuse, and a lack of support from ABC management.
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On his final Q+A broadcast, he talked about what this abuse has done to him, but also about what the role of the media had played in his saga, saying: "We in the media must ask if we are truly honouring 'a world worth living in'. Too often we are the poison in the bloodstream, of our society. I fear the media does not have the love or the language to speak to the gentle spirits of our land."
The way in which Stan spoke of the media in that circumstance speaks to more than just how we as a society grapple with racism. It also speaks to how we reckon with all Indigenous issues. In particular in this year, when we are about to head to the polls on a referendum on a First Nations Voice to Parliament.
No matter where you look with the upcoming referendum, misinformation is running wild.
Across our country, in various elements of society, falsehoods, fearmongering, and outright lies about the referendum, and First Nations peoples, have been allowed to perpetuate.
Crazy theories about what the referendum means, where a Voice to Parliament has come from, and even false ideas about the legality of our constitutional democracy are getting traction, not because they are particularly clever or believable ideas, but because no one seriously challenges them.
It's easy to think that such ideas are peddled mostly by online trolls, or fringe hate groups, which is the mentality many Australians may have about this issue.
That doesn't tell the full picture though. Of course, there are a fair share of online conspiracy groups around, so much so that the AEC has expressed concern about it. But it's also coming from our elected officials, and well-known public figures.
We have seen false claims that a Voice to Parliament would create apartheid in Australia (not only wrong but offensive), that it inserts race into our constitution (race is already there), that it is a new idea by Canberra elites (instead of the truth, that it came from grassroots communities over many years), that the Voice will clog up the courts (it won't), that Indigenous people don't support the Voice (we do, in overwhelming numbers), that it will cede Indigenous sovereignty (it can't and won't).
One particularly outrageous claim, aired by some politicians, including opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, is that "secret government documents" show the Voice's "real agenda", that "Australians [would be] forced to pay rates/land tax/royalties to the Voice".
These are demonstrably false statements, bordering on the absurd. Yet they continue to have traction, even after repeated attempts at debunking them. They are also being aired by a senior member of the shadow cabinet, with seemingly little commentary on the issue in the media, and certainly no rebuke from the Opposition Leader.
Political commentary about the Voice to Parliament, is "bordering on misinformation, if not well into that territory", in the words of ACT senator David Pocock. It's a game of political whack-a-mole.
This perhaps is an argument for truth in political advertising laws, like the ACT and SA have in place for their elections. Certainly these will help fix the long-term rot. But that does not fix the issue in this referendum.
Misinformation is reaching members of the Australian public, affecting how they think, and likely how they vote. It's moved well beyond the fringe, and into the mainstream. And it has the ability to influence the outcome of this referendum.
The government needs to do better at actively engaging in this space, and combatting the misinformation. The "yes" campaign has to do the same. Social media companies too, need to take greater responsibility on deliberate misinformation and abuse. But there is also a role for mainstream media here. About how it addresses two sides of a debate where one side is playing with facts, and the other peddling falsehoods so bold they would make Donald Trump blush. It's not about free speech, it's about integrity.
Indeed, the connection to Trumpism is not far off. Australian-American academic Bruce Wolpe's recent book Trump's Australia, notes that "propagation of misinformation, deliberate distortion and lies about issues, and news coverage in political campaigns" are a "real and growing threat to the nature of political discourse" in this country, much as they have become in the United States.
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Unchecked spread of political disinformation is a pollutant in our political culture - toxic, dangerous, and with long-term effects on our democratic health.
Yet we see so little prevention or clean-up from media. Instead we get sad, tired analysis on Sunday programs, newspapers, and press releases of what it must be like to be a pelican covered in crude oil.
The solution here is to apply the same critical lens the Voice has been placed under towards those in the "no" camp. Treat the claims made by those on the "no" side, Pauline Hanson and Lidia Thorpe alike, with the same level of scrutiny and critique the Voice and Uluru Statement From the Heart have gotten for six years. Take down falsehoods and misinformation from social media too - no free speech right should allow deceiving the Australian people.
Much as Stan Grant fears that the media does not have the love nor language to speak to the gentle spirits of our land, I fear they do not have the same when it comes to the issues of this referendum. Truth and respect used to mean something in politics - it needs to more than ever this year.
- James Blackwell is a proud Wiradyuri man and research fellow in Indigenous diplomacy at the ANU's Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. He is also a member of the Uluru Dialogue at UNSW.
