Clare blasts Liberals
Labor minister says Voice opposition makes it harder
Labor minister Jason Clare has accused the Liberals of drifting too far to the right as he conceded their rejection of the Voice to parliament would make a successful referendum more difficult.
In the wake of the Liberals’ decision to oppose the government’s proposal to enshrine the Indigenous advisory body in the Constitution, the Education Minister said he thought the party might have reached a different position had Josh Frydenberg become its leader rather than Peter Dutton.
Mr Frydenberg was widely considered Scott Morrison’s natural successor as Liberal leader but Mr Dutton took up the position after the former Treasurer lost his seat to a teal independent candidate at last year’s federal election.
The Opposition Leader announced on Wednesday he would actively campaign against the Voice after a majority of his MPS and senators agreed to reject it at a special party room meeting in Canberra.
Speaking to Sunrise on Friday, Mr Clare claimed the Liberals under Mr Dutton’s leadership looked more like Pauline Hanson’s right-wing One Nation than the party its founder Robert Menzies had championed.
“I do think that they may have reached a different conclusion if Josh Frydenberg was still there; we’ll never know,”
Mr Clare said. “But the bottom line here is that it’s not the Liberal Party that will get to decide this. It’s the Australian people.”
Australians will vote some time in the final three months of the year in a referendum that will add a chapter to the Constitution to enshrine the Voice if a majority of voters in a majority of states back the proposal.
Asked if he thought the Liberals’ decision to oppose the Voice had torpedoed the referendum, Mr Clare said: “I don’t think it’s done that. It’s made it more difficult; it’s made it harder.”
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, speaking in the same Sunrise interview, said her party believed the government’s proposal for the Voice wouldn’t really improve the lives of Indigenous people.
The Liberals have agreed to back local and regional Voices which would be legislated but not embedded in the Constitution, as well as symbolic constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“We are absolutely in favour of constitutional recognition of our First Australians and the local and regional Voice,” Ms Ley said.