Reflections on the Referendum

This year’s NAIDOC Week theme for 2024 is "Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud & Proud", honouring the enduring strength and vitality of Indigenous cultures. Following the result of last year's Referendum, we are more driven than ever to keep the flame alight and the movement going with this keynote lecture, "Reflections on the Referendum" from distinguished constitutional lawyer and expert in public law, Professor Megan Davis.

At this significant event, Professor Davis will examine the political journey towards justice and human rights for Indigenous Australians in the aftermath of the Voice Referendum's result. Over six million Australians voted in favour of constitutional recognition, demonstrating continued support for the dialogue initiated by the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Join us, alongside Professor Davis, as we charter a path forward and celebrate the resilience and enduring strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“We will never recover from this result, but we will move together as we now have six million new friends – the six million who voted yes.” - Professor Megan Davis

Professor Megan Davis

Distinguished constitutional lawyer and expert in public law, Scientia Professor Megan Davis FAHA FASSA FAAL, grew up in Eagleby and Hervey Bay, Queensland and is a Cobble Cobble woman of the Barunggam Nation. She has been at the forefront of the campaign for constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples for twenty years. She was key in shaping the deliberative process of the Referendum Council, which resulted in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Professor Davis is Pro Vice-Chancellor Society (PVCS) at UNSW Sydney and holds the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law and is director of the Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW Law. She is the 2024-2025 Whitlam Fraser Harvard Chair in Australian Studies and a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

Professor Davis is a Sydney Peace Prize Laureate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2022 and in 2023 she was named on TIME Magazine’s TIME NEXT100 list of the Next Generation of Global leaders. Professor Davis was also named Marie Claire “Powerhouse of the Year” in 2023. She is a previous Overall Winner of the AFR Women of Influence (now Women of Leadership) awards in 2018 and has previously been named on the AFR Annual Cultural Power list and AFR's Australia's top Legal Powerbrokers list.

She was co-chair of the Uluru Dialogue and worked on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples for over twelve years and was instrumental in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Professor Davis is a globally recognised expert in human rights and Indigenous peoples rights and was formerly expert and Chair of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and expert member and Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Enquiries

Vennetia (Vee) Tzanis

Indigenousengagementevents@uq.edu.au

+61 7 334 67547