Agent Of Change: Professor Megan Davis
Constitutional lawyer Megan Davis is a law reform campaigner who has been intimately involved in the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. She is passionate about Indigenous rights and the Rolling Stones, and laments the fact that, as an ex-Queenslander, she has lost the ability to deal with the heat.
Tell us a bit about the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
This law-reform proposal is the culmination of a decade-long process, and it speaks to the desire of Australians – First Nations people and also the rest of Australia – to finally address some unfinished business. We took a number of reforms out to the Aboriginal communities and they were very clear on what reforms matters most to them. The reform that most of the First Nations delegates sought was constitutional reform, in the form of a Voice to Parliament. This is a simple amendment that compels the state to have Indigenous peoples at the table when laws and policies are made about their communities. The next most-wanted reform was a treaty, and the third element was the need for truth-telling on Australian history.
You travelled to communities right across the country as part of the constitutional dialogue process. What did you learn?
What I found fascinating was that the diversity of our people and their preference for reform options was very much driven by geography and landscape. Support for a treaty was strong in places like Sydney and Hobart where the dispossession was really acute. When I went to places where there is strong recognition of Aboriginal statutory land rights or native title, where they have spent decades negotiating complex legal documents, it was different. The Broome dialogue, for instance, was really fatigued by agreement making
Tell us a bit about the actual event at Uluru, where the Statement from the Heart was negotiated.
We had to go in a week early to work with interpreters – the discussions had to be translated into five different Aboriginal languages, so we had to make sure that the words for all the legal and constitutional terms were appropriate. The mobs all have a deep, nuanced understanding of both constitutional law and their law; it was quite extraordinary to see our First Nations engage with reform of the Australian legal system. People wanted solutions, people wanted to move forward, and seeing that was really fascinating.
What is happening with the Uluru Statement now?
Three years on, there is so much wide support for the proposal. Corporate Australia, the legal profession, civil society, the unions – all of them support a referendum on an enshrined Voice to Parliament and view the Uluru Statement as a coherent roadmap to peace. Our current task in a COVID environment is to educate the Australian population on the exigency of the Voice to Parliament.
“The mobs all have a deep, nuanced understanding of both constitutional law and their law; it was quite extraordinary to see our First Nations engage with reform of the Australian legal system. People wanted solutions, people wanted to move forward, and seeing that was really fascinating.”
The Uluru Statement was famously captured in a painting. Where is that painting now?
The Uluru Statement painting was painted around the words written at the national constitutional convention in Yulara in 2017 by senior Maruku artist and traditional owner, Rene Kulitja, and Mutitjulu artists Christine Brumby, Charmaine Kulitja and Happy Reid. The story that surrounds the Uluru Statement is the story of Kuniya, a female python with eggs from the north-east and Liru, the poisonous snake from the south-west. They battle to the death at the Mutitjulu Waterhole. The painting, and the Statement, connects polities that have survived for 60,000 years to Australian democracy. We want to see the painting hanging in the cultural centre at Uluru, so all Australians can go out there to view it and to feel the power of Uluru and its connection to Australian democracy. The experience out there is powerful.
You serve on the UN Human Rights Council's Expert Mechanism on the rights of Indigenous peoples. What have you learnt in that role?
Through serving on two successive United Nations expert bodies, I have a deep understanding of the similarities in how colonisers dispossessed and subjugated indigenous peoples – removing children, banning language, dispossessing people of their land – it has happened in multiple ways right around the world. On the other hand, I’ve also seen how in other UN member states where there was a first-contact treaty, the interests of indigenous people have been or were accommodated within the framework of the state. This has influenced my practice as an academic constitutional lawyer focused on how public law and law reform can be used to empower our people and address disadvantage, because the status quo isn’t working and closing the gap will not do it.
What skill are you still working on?
Time management! Before the Referendum Council and the Uluru Statement, I answered my emails. After the Uluru Statement, I struggle to get through the volume. And a skill that I’ve lost is dealing with the heat. I grew up in Queensland and was good at dealing with the heat as a kid, but since I came to Sydney, I’ve become a sook. It’s because I’m inside all the time. Last time I went up to Mum’s I just lay around complaining about the heat all day.
When you do you feel really free?
At a concert. I remember seeing Al Green at [Sydney’s] State Theatre; I was screaming like a Beatles fan. That’s the first time I met Bob Hawke, actually – he was there with Blanche and I went up at half-time and introduced myself. We yarned about treaty and national land rights. I adore the Rolling Stones, too. They came to town not long after I moved to Sydney. I was dirt-poor but I saved up and went to their concert. When Keith Richards came out onto stage and played his opening riff of Sweet Virginia with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a bottle of bourbon in one hand, it was like the greatest moment of my life.
Professor Megan Davis is the Balnaves Chair for Constitutional Law and Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous UNSW and is an expert member of the UN Human Rights Council’s Expert Mechanism on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Megan is the constitutional lawyer who designed the constitutional dialogues that culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Interview with Megan Davis by Ute Junker
Photos_ Andrzej Liguz/moreimages.net