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A specter is haunting the settler polity: Brett Nicholls, ‘The communist empty signifier: the Australian League of Rights and the Voice to Parliament referendum, Continuum, 2025

19Dec24

Abstract: In 2023, voters across Australia resoundingly rejected the Constitutional institution of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Among several claims made by vote no campaigners against this institution, a text published in the 1980s by the notorious extreme right organization, The Australian League of Rights, surfaced. The central claim of this text, titled Red Over Black, is that Aboriginal claims for justice and land rights are a communist conspiracy. In the lead-up to the referendum, the campaign to vote no echoed this claim. Drawing upon the Laclauian Discourse Analysis, this paper considers how this signifier, ‘communist,’ continues to resonate in political campaigns in Australia. My claim is that the foundations for this continued resonance emerge in enduring reactionary organizations such as the Australian League of Rights, which was founded in the 1940s. The paper thus outlines how the League imagines the communist conspiracy and explains how this conspiracy remains embedded in political discourse today.


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