The no campaign for the voice to parliament referendum has deleted the image and quote of an Indigenous man from its website who claimed he was told to recite a script opposing the proposed constitutional change.
But tweets from no campaign leaders Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine incorrectly claiming that the man is the grandson of land rights activist Vincent Lingiari are still online.
Stewart Lingiari, an Indigenous man from the Northern Territory, was featured on the website of Fair Australia, the anti-voice campaign from conservative lobby group Advance. Stewart was quoted as saying he was against the voice, and Mundine and Price identified Stewart on social media as Vincent Lingiari’s grandson.
Vincent Lingiari led the Wave Hill walk-off of Indigenous stockmen in the Northern Territory, a key event in the Aboriginal land rights movement. In 1975 he was immortalised in an iconic photo as then prime minister Gough Whitlam poured sand into his hand, to represent the handing back of land to the Gurindji people.
But in an article this week, RMIT University’s FactLab reported that Stewart was not Vincent’s grandson and had been told what to say by a cameraman. Stewart later told Guardian Australia he was “humiliated” by the episode, adding: “I’m not from that family. If they had asked me directly, I would have told them I’m not his grandson but they never asked me.”
He also claimed he had not given permission for his image to be used in this way and asked the campaign to take his photos down.
Despite Mundine telling Guardian Australia on Wednesday the situation was a “non-issue”, the Fair Australia campaign has since accepted Stewart’s request to delete his photo from their website.
On Thursday morning, Mundine told Radio National that the photo would be removed from the campaign website in coming days. As of Thursday afternoon, Stewart’s photo and quote had disappeared from Fair Australia’s website.
Fair Australia was contacted for comment.
Mundine told Radio National that other people had told him Stewart was Vincent’s grandson, but added that the no campaign would do more diligence on their sources in future.
“We’re going to be ensuring that, as much as possible, we’ll be checking and checking before we put things out,” Mundine said.
“I was introduced to him as the grandson of Vincent Lingiari … his group of Aboriginal people from Ngukurr, said this is the grandson and he said he was the grandson,” Mundine said.
“This is a very strange situation. I’ve never been in a situation like this, where someone introduced themselves as someone and then later on said they weren’t that someone.”
Tweets from Price and Mundine identifying Stewart as “Vincent Lingiari’s grandson” remain online as of Thursday afternoon.
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Posts by Mundine on Facebook and Instagram about Stewart have been covered with factcheck warnings, carrying the label: “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”
The label is based on the RMIT factcheck and links to their article. The posts are automatically blurred by Facebook and Instagram. Users are shown the factcheck first and have to click “see post” for Mundine’s original claim to be visible.
In the Radio National interview, Mundine said the no campaign was feeling “very confident” after a Resolve poll in the Nine newspapers showed support for the voice declining from 58% to 53% in the last month.
The latest Guardian Essential poll shows support for the Indigenous voice was high and remaining steady, with 59% supporting the voice, while 41% opposed it. Other published polls have shown voice support in the mid to high 50s.
Sources in the yes organisation said they expected polls to bounce around during the campaign, noting there was likely still five months until the referendum – and that there was a wide variety of results in various polls. Yes campaigners said they weren’t concerned about one poll, pointing to a large civil society campaign still to come, including from sporting groups like the AFL and Rugby Australia which pledged their support on Thursday.
Mundine noted the no side would focus on campaigning in Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia, but would also campaign in New South Wales and Victoria.
“All we have to do is pick up three states, and that’s the end of the referendum, but we’re also going to be fighting for a majority as well,” he said.
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