Indigenous Voice campaign getting fresh momentum
INDIGENOUS Australians have launched a campaign to change the country’s constitution and ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ views are better represented in Parliament.
The effort to have the Voice To Parliament enshrined in the country’s founding document was a ‘‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’’, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said last month.
The Voice would give indigenous people a right to express their views on policy through representatives elected by their communities. Lawmakers would not be bound to follow the body’s advice.
In 2016-17, a council appointed by then-Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull hosted meetings in 13 towns and cities across Australia to ask First Nations Australians what form constitutional recognition should take.
About 270 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, chosen to represent their home communities, then travelled to Uluru and produced the Uluru Statement From The Heart. This called for the establishment of the Voice To Parliament; the establishment of a commission to oversee agreement-making between Indigenous people and the Australian Government; and a truth-telling process about Australia’s history.
Turnbull rejected the proposal, but it has now been picked up by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. A referendum will take place in the second half of this year.
The bar for constitutional
change is high – it requires an overall majority across the country, and a ‘‘yes’’ vote in a
majority of the eight states and territories.
The Voice proposal has faced criticism from both conservative figures and some left-leaning Indigenous leaders.
At the 2017 Uluru meeting, seven of the 270 delegates walked out, including Lidia Thorpe, now an outspoken senator who resigned from the Greens party this month to become an independent MP. Thorpe and some other First Nations figures advocate a treaty process between the federal government and Indigenous nations. She wants these negotiations to include 10 designated First Nations seats in parliament.
Australia’s conservative opposition has not yet announced if it will support a ‘‘yes’’ vote. Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton says he needs to see more detail before deciding. The National Party, with MPs from regional electorates, is opposed.