Statement by Prof Chelsea Watego regarding Bandarran Marra’Gu Gathering Strength Summit.

Gudamulli,

After a long hiatus on this website, I’m back with two articles within a day. There is a reason for this.

Earlier today, I published a critique on early media complicity in running police propaganda over the killing of an Aboriginal man in Mparntwe.

I wanted to disrupt the logics and tactics that are used to routinely cover up racist violence. I wanted to point out how news stories are not naturally newsworthy, but are implicated in relations of power, and always, always end up oppressing and killing blackfellas in this colony.

And that is why today, I’m handing over this platform to Professor Chelsea Watego to share a statement.

The Australian newspaper has a long tradition in slandering and dehumanising Indigenous peoples. It is an outlet that has a violent history in relation to our mob.

It has a particular methodology it employs in Indigenous affairs; a particular form of news gathering which involves framing certain black voices as ‘moderate’ and ‘legitimate’ as a method to de-legitimise voices like that of Professor Chelsea Watego.

I would note that Professor Chelsea Watego has a long tradition in supporting, and elevating the voices of Black Witnesses. She is generous in her time and support, and I will pull out one quote from her statement below:

· The irony of this is, when I spoke on the morning of Day 2, I reflected on the legacy of those that have gone before us. Specifically, I referred to learnings offered by Pastor Don Brady’s biography ‘Yalanya’ and the chapter ‘Brady and Bonner’. This chapter spoke of the different political strategies between that of ‘Black power’ and a more conservative approach, while noting the personal respect and care they had for each other. The intervention I personally made at the summit when I spoke, was a call for us to work better together, in that same spirit, irrespective of our approach.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much focus is put on a relationship with the state, rather than relationships with each other.

By prioritising relationships with the state, you turn to solutions within violent institutions, which includes the media, and in particular, The Australian - Rupert Murdoch’s favourite newspaper.

The Australian is good at enacting violence and breaking relationships between blackfellas because it has practiced it and fine-tuned it over years, just as the processes of settler colonialism were practiced and refined over centuries.

What you read in The Australian is not a ‘truth’; instead it is a process of news gathering which is directly implicated in what is currently happening in Indigenous affairs, particularly in the vacuum of the referendum.

I urge you to pay attention.

Here, I’ve published Professor Chelsea Watego’s full statement below:

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Statement by Chelsea Watego regarding Bandarran Marra’Gu Gathering Strength Summit.

(Munanjahli and South Sea Islander academic Professor Chelsea Watego)

In recent days, The Australian newspaper have tried repeatedly to link me to a confected controversy between ‘senior Indigenous leaders’ over Black political strategy.

I have been repeatedly asked to comment on discussions at the Bandarran Marra’Gu Gathering, and they have contacted my employer perpetuating allegations that are simply untrue.

I was not present at whatever argument that those briefing The Australian have imagined, and I have no interest in contributing to further media reports which are designed to distract from the actual violence that is being visited upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men, women and children.

Statement of facts:

I was an invited delegate and speaker attending the Bandarran Marra’Gu | Gathering Strength Summit convened in Magandjin on 19-20^th May 2025.

Unbeknownst to me, my attendance alongside approximately 12 others from the delegation of over 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was made public in a range of articles relating to the summit.

I have not made any public comments regarding this event as I honoured the ‘Principles and Wellbeing Guidelines’ that the convenors had provided all delegates and speakers.

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On Sunday morning (25^th May, 10.30am) I received an email from a journalist at The Australian asking my thoughts about alleged discussions at the summit regarding “using the word genocide” and whether I had raised this. I did not reply as I was honouring the “Principles and Wellbeing Guidelines” that we had all agreed to.

On Sunday evening (25^th May, 9.01pm) the journalist published an article titled ‘First Nations ‘genocide’ uproar over children’s human rights statement’ with the claim:

“Some of Australia’s most experienced leaders had intervened to remove an allegation of genocide against the Crisafulli government from the official record of a summit hosted by the Australian Human Rights Commission”.

It would go on to claim:

“The Australian has confirmed with multiple attendees that activists at the summit – some aligned with independent senator Lidia Thorpe – wanted to accuse the LNP government of Indigenous child removals amounting to genocide…”.

In reference to Senator Lidia Thorpe, the article included a hyperlink, which referenced the Senator’s attendance at a symposium I convened earlier this year.

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On Monday (26^th May, 12.48pm) I received a text to my personal mobile from the same journalist, stating “I understand you were among the leaders/thinkers/activists who advocated for the word genocide to be in the formal statement…” and proceeded to ask a range of questions claiming “I would like to quote you” with notice that the article was to be filed by 5pm that day.

I replied to advise that their sources were “clearly misinformed as I was not involved in any such conversations”. I asked her to disclose her sources to which she refused because “she gave her word”.

The journalist proceeded to ask more questions insisting “Quite a few people have told me about it but not all mentioned you. Were you there for the back and forth about the word genocide?”

The journalist went on to state “I saw you used it in some comments about Australia Day last year, and it is in Lidia Thrope’s most recent media release out today”.

Again, I reiterated that “I don’t know anything about this alleged discussion”.

Shortly after this interaction, I would come to learn that the same journalist had contacted my employer’s media department prior to having texted me (26^th May, 11.41am) with the following claim:

“We understand from listening to people present that Professor Chelsea Watego was strongly in favour of using the word genocide in the formal statement of the summit” followed by a raft of questions interrogating my views on the alleged discussion.

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That evening (Monday 26^th May, 8.13pm) the journalist would publish another story titled ‘Radicals who live for the performance are part of the problem’.

Here “some of the nation’s most respected Indigenous leaders” were juxtaposed against “radicals…people who want the endless fight. People who live for the performance…[and] achieve nothing”.

The journalist went on to claim “the Blak Sovereign Movement was fomenting malcontent” stating, “activists at the summit revealed they wanted to make a splash by accusing the state of genocide…This is when senior leaders stepped in. They knew this would derail the summit. It would be all anyone spoke about”.

The following day (Tuesday 27^th May, 12am) The Australian would publish an editorial titled ‘Genocide claim a calculated evil’.

The editorial would assert, “using the term genocide was calculated to be inflammatory” but “Thankfully Professor Langton, in particular, has been able to demonstrate a deep understanding of the mischief and confusion at play. She rightly denounced earlier attempts by the “Blak sovereignty” movement to link the issue of Aboriginal disadvantage with the Palestinian cause, where claims of genocide are also being made”.

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I wish to make the following points clear:

• I was not in attendance at the summit when this conversation was alleged to have taken place.

• I am deeply disappointed that delegates at the summit have not honoured the protocols that we had all agreed upon.

• The allegations and associated reporting were designed to distract from the central concerns that delegates shared regarding the care of our children and the role of the state. These concerns included the failure of the ‘Commission of Inquiry into Queensland’s broken Child Safety System’ terms of reference to make explicit mention of the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.

• The claim that the discussion regarding the term ‘genocide’ was a “calculated” move is odd, given the inquiry and its terms of reference had been released just one day prior to the Summit. The Australian’s publication of three articles regarding this apparent issue, in under 48 hours and their attempt to attribute this apparent conflict to me does seems rather calculated, however.

• The irony of this is, when I spoke on the morning of Day 2, I reflected on the legacy of those that have gone before us. Specifically, I referred to learnings offered by Pastor Don Brady’s biography ‘Yalanya’ and the chapter ‘Brady and Bonner’. This chapter spoke of the different political strategies between that of ‘Black power’ and a more conservative approach, while noting the personal respect and care they had for each other. The intervention I personally made at the summit when I spoke, was a call for us to work better together, in that same spirit, irrespective of our approach.

• During the two-day summit, I was present during a conversation in which a delegate expressed concern with the initial wording of the proposed statement, namely the use of the term ‘leaders’. There appeared to be a general consensus that the word ‘leaders’ should not be used. Given the media reporting since, it is clear how ‘Indigenous leadership’ has been weaponised to silence, denigrate, divide and enact violence upon other Indigenous peoples.

• · I am not a leader, nor am I a radical or an activist – I am a Blackfulla, a race scholar and a single mother of 5, who holds a deep personal commitment to keeping our families and communities stronger, together.

• It is most disconcerting that Indigenous ‘leaders’ would enlist the Murdoch press to cast Indigenous mothers as uncaring and posing a risk to the safety of our own children and communities. After all, it is this racialized discourse that has been central to the rationalisation of the over-representation of our children in the ‘child safety’ system, the hyper-incarceration of our kids and the ongoing contraventions of their fundamental human rights. It is this that should be the focus of any Indigenous leader and Indigenous Affairs journalist in this moment.