A voice for all
Government needs to explain how The Voice will create genuine change in communities
It is hard to be unaware of politicians pointscoring over the proposed Voice to Parliament referendum with the Liberal leader Peter Dutton saying the party would campaign against it.
It all begs the question – what is it all about, and how will the Voice to Parliament create positive change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people?
The only way to change the 122year-old constitution is via a referendum and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who represent about 3.2 per cent of the country’s population, are not mentioned in the constitution.
History suggests Australians don’t like referendums – there have been 44 proposals for constitutional change in 19 referendums since Australia’s independence in 1901, and only eight have gotten through.
And they’re costly – the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic cost almost $67m – a figure that would build an awful lot of housing in overcrowded communities lacking basic facilities like a laundromat.
How many of us understand exactly what The Voice is?
It would not have a decisionmaking role, nor the power to veto legislation or government decisions. Recent News Corp polling showed 43 per cent of Queenslanders disapproved of The Voice – the highest of any state polled. Opposition leader Peter Dutton claims it “won’t deliver outcomes to people on the ground” and has proposed symbolic recognition in the constitution and a legislated model that would focus on local and regional voices, rather than a national voice.
There are 17 objectives in Closing the Gap, two of which are that Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander adults, and children, are not over-represented in the criminal justice system; another is that families and households are safe. Anyone who lives in the Far North knows that we are nowhere near achieving those benchmarks.
For a referendum to succeed, the majority of voters in a majority of states must approve the change.
So it’s time to stop the political grandstanding and for the government to explain how The Voice will bring about genuine change in disadvantaged communities rife with serious problems.