Attention to detail is essential to ensure the Voice does not divide us
All parties will have to give ground in this debate, writes Jeff Kennett
THE public discussion on the referendum that would establish the Voice to Parliament for our Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders is becoming very divisive. Such divisions are very damaging and should be avoided. Of course, every citizen is entitled to their views and to express them.
But the public discussion should be a considered, educated one.
Not one that seeks to further divide our community through intractable views and at times personal attacks.
It is beyond dispute our Indigenous and Torres Strait past communities were our country’s first people. By tens of thousands of years. Should not our Constitution recognise that fact?
Why do we not, through a referendum, insert a new chapter 1 that simply states: “The Commonwealth of Australia recognises that Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait
Islanders were the First Peoples on our Continent’’. All other chapters are then subsequently renumbered.
The Voice, its formation and responsibilities, have been the subject of a great deal of work led by professors Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, with the input of more than 50 Indigenous leaders from around the country.
The federal minister responsible at the time was Ken Wyatt in the Morrison government.
What Opposition Leader Peter Dutton last week called for was the detail of the legislation that would establish the Voice, before the referendum was put to the community. That is a reasonable request and one Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should be prepared to deliver.
So, to this point of my article: The opposition publicly commits to recognising that Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people were the nation’s First Peoples and be prepared to state that within the Constitution. And the government be prepared to release a draft of the legislation by which they intend to establish the Voice if the referendum is passed, based on the three sentences Mr Albanese has said will be inserted within the Constitution.
That would allow an informed discussion on the Voice, which will not scare the horses because it has only ever intended to be an advisory body.
But I have another issue. It is one thing to recognise our First Peoples in the Constitution, but it is another thing to give any one group of Australians an advisory role to the
federal parliament and have that role enshrined in the constitution.
The Constitution is for all Australians – our First Peoples, successive settlers and even the recent arrivals who have been accepted as citizens.
The original Constitution positively discriminated against Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders. To give them now a specific task, opportunity, within the Constitution is to discriminate against all other Australians.
It is this separation of community, and lack of detail about the legislation that will establish the Voice, that is fuelling the current debate. Since I last wrote about the referendum in December, much has changed as the debate gets more robust and personal.
Everyone is going to have to constructively give ground. The Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The government and the opposition. And, of course, the community and the media. We have to find a middle ground, otherwise if agreement cannot be reached, the social damage could be considerable. Let me say the establishment of the Voice will not solve the challenges within many Indigenous communities and it will not, of itself, close the gap.
It will ensure parliament is made more aware of issues confronting our First Peoples and might avoid legislation being passed that ignores the culture of our First Peoples and runs the risk of causing further misunderstanding and maybe worse.
I do not want the referendum to be lost. It would set the country back decades. But I want serious constitutional recognition of our First Peoples and the details of the legislation, which will establish the Voice, being made public before the referendum is put to the people.