Indigenous Voice to Parliament supporters reject symbolism criticism
A voice to parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will help combat issues like child abuse, says one of the proposal’s key architects.
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A voice to parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to speak on issues impacting their community is a “rejection” of symbolism and would help combat issues like child abuse and disadvantage, a key architect of the proposal says.
Professor Megan Davis, a constitutional lawyer and major figure behind the Uluru statement from the heart, which preceded the proposed “voice”, said the point of the new body would be to include unheard community members and not political “elites” like herself who already have public platforms.
Sometime in 2023 is the likely time a referendum on recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution and enshrining a “voice” for them to contribute and be consulted on policy issues affecting them will be taken to a vote, with backers like Prof Davis confident the federal government will have provided enough information for those wanting to learn more about the body well before then.
Prof Davis said it was not practical to put the entire voice model in the constitution for the referendum as that would make it difficult to amend or adapt as needed in the decades to come.
But she said Australians were rightly “curious” about how it would worked, and was confident they would be given the information before a vote.
“There’s a clamouring for detail,” she said.
“We haven’t had a referendum for a long time and people are impatient to get the information and that’s understandable.
“But the detail will come.”
She said the “voice” would be able to drive significant reforms, such as standardising how child abuse was dealt with across state and territory jurisdictions, as well as incarceration and other gaps.
“It doesn’t matter how much resources you put into institutions, if you’ve just got really bad systems, poorly trained staff … nothing will be fixed,” she said.
“I can see a voice speaking right across the federation, some of these issues is fixable very quickly, including incarceration rates.”
Prof Davis said indigenous leaders were not after a “symbolic” gesture, but a seat at the table to be able to make their communities better by contributing ideas and suggestions directly to parliament, not making their own rules or acting as a “third chamber” of government.
“Closing the gap is, is very much directly linked to service delivery,” she said.
“And it’s very much to do with the complexities of Commonwealth state and territory bureaucracies.
“So the key the key piece that’s missing here is how communities themselves can help drive closing the gap.”
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Originally published as Indigenous Voice to Parliament supporters reject symbolism criticism
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