Albo voices belief in vote

Liberals yet to make call

ANTHONY Albanese has called on Australians to “think about the generosity of spirit” when considering the voice to parliament, saying it is “above politics”, and “has arisen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people themselves”.

The Prime Minister made the comments after a church service held – as per tradition – before the start of the new parliamentary year.

He said the service heard “a powerful sermon … about the importance of the Statement from the Heart, about how we need to listen to its call as a community”.

“I believe very firmly that Australians should take the opportunity that they’ll have in the second half of this year to cast a vote for ‘yes’, to cast a vote to walk upon the path of reconciliation in the spirit of generosity in which the Uluru Statement from the Heart calls us,” Mr Albanese said.

This comes after a Newspoll revealed most Australians were in favour of the voice.

Earlier, Leader of the House Tony Burke cast more light on when Australians would be asked to vote on the voice to parliament.

“In probably the second quarter of the year … the bill that has the question and the specific word-for-word changes that would go into the Constitution, that one has to be passed by an absolute majority of each house of the parliament,” Mr Burke told the ABC.

“And once that’s happened, then the deadlines as to when the vote will happen are all locked in.”

Mr Burke said that would be the second and final legislative step before the question was put to the public.

“The first is updating the referendum laws themselves,” he said.

“That’s been introduced to the parliament. There’s a committee that’s looking at it now. And so it’s sort of sitting in the House of Representatives and will issue a report in the next couple of weeks.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and his Liberal colleagues were yet to reach a party room decision on whether they would support the voice to parliament.

Coalition partner the Nationals oppose it.

Mr Dutton said he would attend another meeting of the referendum working group later this week.

Meanwhile, independent senator Jacqui Lambie said on Monday that she was inclined to vote “no” in the referendum, saying she was more concerned about the issues surrounding Alice Springs at the moment.

“I want to see what action can be done. Is this just some nice words to put in the constitution? Because frankly, I want to see what changes are going to be made,” she told Nine.

“If they can’t do anything in Alice Springs, why all this trouble to change some words?”

“I’m a ‘no’ at this point. Don’t speak about action, I want to see action taken.”