A very good historical background to the lead-up to the Voice is given by Michael Conner, “A True history of the Voice,” Quadrant Special Digital Edition, August 2023. This piece being a running account of the players in the Aboriginal industry beginning in 1981 - Bob Collins, H.C. “Nugget” Coombs, Marcia Langton, Shorty O’Neill, Al Grassby, Judith Wright, Garth Nettheim, Lyndall Ryan, Henry Reynolds and Eddie Mabo – is difficult to summarise given all that they got up to. But, Eddie Mabo gave us the Mabo case, and native title, which now covers over 60 percent of the Australian land mass, and it is not finished yet.
After looking at the academic works produced and their flaws that influenced the High Court Mabo decision, Conner concludes: “In 1981 land rights were tactics and the real goal of self-determination was masked from public view. As Reynolds said: Yes, it’s very much a matter of tactics. Do you ask for the immediate and most realizable first, and when you’ve got that, then ask for the other things, or do you ask for them all at once? Nothing has changed, the tactic was successful—we are being misled. Keith Windschuttle in The Break-Up of Australia (the title is absolutely accurate) wrote that “The voters in the proposed referendum need to recognise that its ultimate objective is the establishment of a politically separate race of people, and the potential break-up of Australia.” In 1981 Reynolds was eager to associate violence and the creation of land rights: If it has to be done by force, by using the army, as the Federal government in Washington had to do, I’d accept that. If necessary you could parachute them in and take over the [Queensland] reserves. That wouldn’t concern me one bit.”
We can’t say that they did not warn us!