The feud between Sky News hosts Peta Credlin and Chris Kenny escalated on Tuesday as the pair accused each other of spreading ‘nonsense’ and ‘telling lies’ about the foundation document for the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Credlin, who fiercely opposes the Voice, traded accusations with Kenny, who claimed she was spreading a ‘furphy’ about the Uluru Statement of the Heart being a 26-page document rather than just 440 words.
At stake is whether the Uluru Statement has a wider agenda of change than just the ‘advisory body’ of the Voice, which Kenny as a supporter of the proposal denies.
Kenny said claims the Statement contained steps towards a treaty between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians as well as calls for more ‘truth’ telling about colonisation ‘were nonsense’.
‘Credlin’s claim hinges on the fact that in some public service Word document or some filing, they’ve put another bunch of pages in the same batch of documents with the Uluru Statement,’ Kenny said.
Chris Kenny rubbished claims by fellow Sky News host Peta Credlin that the Uluru Statement of the Heart was longer than the one page commonly referred to
‘These pages are not the Uluru Statement, they are not government policy, they have no status whatsoever.’
A similar denial was also made by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during Tuesday’s Question time in Parliament House when he was asked if the Statement was a longer document.
‘Nothing exposes, exposes the falseness of the arguments being put by the No campaign than this conspiracy theory and they’re struggling to get their scares straight,’ Mr Albanese said.
‘I mean, what role did Marcia Langton play in the faking of the moon landing? There’s a whole lot of projection going on here, Mr Speaker, more projection than a film festival.’
Credlin accused the unlikely allies of misleading Australians in the lead up to the referendum expected to be held in October or November.
‘Now, I’m all for alternative points of view, but you can’t have alternative facts and no one, least of all prime ministers, get to mislead the house,’ she said.
Credlin added that ‘one of the strengths of Sky (News) is that there’s no group think here, all of us, all the hosts are free, indeed encouraged to speak our mind’.
Credlin cited Voice architect Megan Davis and an FOI request to show that the Statement from the Heart was a 26-page document
However, she accused Mr Albanese and Kenny of trying to hide ‘the whole box and dice’ of the full Statement because it outlines ‘the Voice, treaty and truth’.
To back up her claims she cited Uluru Statement of the Heart architect Megan Davis as saying on two occasions the document was ‘lengthy … around 18 to 20 pages’.
Credlin said Ms Davis had called out the ‘PM’s lie that the Uluru statement is a simple one-pager’ and this was also verified by National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA), an advisory body to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs.
A Freedom of Information request has led to the release of documents from the First Nations National Constitutional Convention that happened at Uluru in 2017 and led told Statement of Heart
The FOI released document can be found on the NIAA website and is listed as Document 14 in a collation of material from the convention.
Credlin said the government’s FOI lawyers had twice confirmed to the person who made the FOI request that the 26-page addendum was the full Uluru Statement of the Heart.
The first of the 26 pages, which has normally been considered as the whole Statement, was just the introduction, according to Credlin
‘He (Mr Albanese) and Chris Kenny can’t credibly claim that the FOI lawyers in the government’s own indigenous agency are somehow wrong when they confirm what I have told you,’ Credlin said.
A road map from the 26-page document Credlin says is the full Uluru Statement of the Heart
‘That document runs to 26 pages including three pages of road map diagrams.
‘It’s all there including reparations calculated, perhaps on Australia’s GDP, paid to Aboriginal people.’
One road map showed a Makarrata (treaty) Commission being established to act as an umpire sitting above the Parliament and the Voice in treaty negotiations.
Credlin quoted the document saying that such a treaty ‘was the culmination of our agenda’ and ‘would be the vehicle for Indigenous people to ‘achieve self determination, autonomy and self-government’.
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‘This I repeat is all in the statement from the heart that the Prime Minister has committed his government to in full no less than 34 times,’ Credlin said.
‘All Australians need to read and understand the full Uluru statement before they vote.
‘The very fact that the government now wants to try and bury this statement says everything about what will happen to this country if the Prime Minister’s Voice gets up.’
A referendum will be held at un unspecified date later this year where Australians will vote on whether to recognise Indigenous people in the Constitution by the establishment of the Voice.
To pass the referendum must gain assent from an overall majority of voters and also be approved in a majority of states.
