Promise of a voice for Indigenous Australians

Fighting back tears, Australia’s next prime minister addressed his supporters just before midnight in Sydney on Saturday after his party ended nearly a decade of Right-wing coalition governments.

First, Anthony Albanese pledged a historic transformation in the representation of Indigenous Australians and a formal role for them in the constitution.

Then, in front of a rowdy crowd chanting ‘‘Albo! Albo!’’ at Labor headquarters, he promised to bring Australians together after a bitter six-week campaign dominated by the divisive personality of the defeated incumbent, Scott Morrison.

Albanese, 59, has spoken of a lifetime of being underestimated. He said: ‘‘It says a lot about our great country that a son of a single mum who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown, can stand before you tonight (Sunday) as Australia’s prime minister.

‘‘My mother dreamt of a better life for me. And I hope that my journey in life inspires Australians to reach for the stars.’’

After Morrison conceded defeat and resigned as leader of the Liberal Party, it was unclear whether Albanese would be able to form a majority government or would have to rely on independents.

For Australia and the world, his triumph has profound ramifications. As leader of the opposition, the avowed republican revelled in royal discomfort after the Duke of York’s Newsnight interview in 2019 in which he addressed allegations that he had sexually assaulted a teenage girl supplied by his friend Jeffrey Epstein.

‘‘Congratulations, we’ll become a republic next year,’’ Albanese told guests at a political dinner in Canberra shortly after the broadcast.

Australia’s new leader had planned to hold a referendum on the monarchy if elected but, as his victory speech confirmed, he has decided to ask the country a different question.

Albanese has promised a referendum on whether the 121-year-old constitution should be changed to officially recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who lived in the world’s driest inhabited continent for tens of thousands of years before colonisation.

If the public votes ‘‘yes’’, indigenous leaders will form a ‘‘voice to parliament’’, a new body that will consult with elected politicians about decisions and policies that affect Australia’s 798,000 indigenous people, who are more than 12 times more likely to be in jail than white Australians, almost four times more likely to be unemployed, and have a far shorter life expectancy. Constitutional recognition would be powerfully symbolic even if it did not at first change lives.

‘‘It will certainly make a difference if our voices are heard. It will just be magnificent,’’ said Jim Morrison, a prominent Aboriginal activist.

For the UK, Albanese’s victory means more than the prospect of a referendum on the monarchy. It cuts short Morrison’s budding political bromance with Boris Johnson, forged over their recent free trade deal and the historic tripartite Aukus defence pact with the US.

But the two deals should also mean Australia’s new prime minister and Johnson will see plenty of each other. Both leaders like a beer and are big rugby fans. – Sunday Times