PM Anthony Albanese open to Voice to Parliament ‘alterations’

Anthony Albanese will make a passionate plea for Australians to support the Voice, saying he is “open to improvements or alterations” to his proposed change to the constitution.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make a passionate plea for Australians to support the Voice in a speech ahead of the return Parliament’s return on Monday, saying he is “open to improvements or alterations” to his proposed change to the constitution.

In an address to Labor’s official think tank, the Chifley Research Centre, the PM will also warn Australians need to “heed the warning” about the fragility of democracy shown by the 2021 riots that saw the US Capitol occupied by a mob in 2021 and recent events in Brazil.

“Our democracy is a great and enduring national achievement, a marker of what it means to be an Australian … but democracy can never be taken for granted,” the PM argues.

Mr Albanese argues “the most compelling argument in favour of democracy, is not an abstract or a theoretical one” but “governing through purpose” and “demonstrating the capacity of government to improve lives”.

Implementing reforms that change Australia for the better through programs and policies that open the doors of opportunity, as well as investing in national resilience and self-reliance, depends on people understanding where you are coming from.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Speaking of the 1967 referendum which changed the constitution so that it henceforth included Indigenous Australians in the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, Mr Albanese says “our generation can go one better” in this year’s referendum.

He says “instead of removing a provision that no longer speaks for who we are, we can make a change that speaks for the future we seek to build”.

A demonstration rally at Martin Place in Sydney prior to May 1967 referendum, campaigning for right of Aborigines to vote in elections.

Unlike 1967, which removed a stain on the constitution, in this referendum Australians have the chance to add something positive, “to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our nation’s birth certificate”.

The time, he argues, to do this is now, “six years after the Uluru Statement from Heart, 56 years after the 1967 referendum” and “122 years after Federation,” asking, “if not now, when?”

Speaking of the wording he unveiled at the Garma Festival last year, the PM says “we haven’t seen any suggested changes to the wording yet” but is open to improvements or alterations: “But the substance – the principles of recognition and consultation – will not change.”

And while there will “in the course of the year … be more information for people to examine … the mechanics of the Voice won’t be written into the constitution”, saying “that’s not how it works”.

Hitting back at demands by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton for more detail on Voice ahead of this year’s vote, the PM likens it to the way the constitution gives federal parliament the power to make laws for the “naval and military defence of the Commonwealth”.

That document “doesn’t spell-out the size of the ADF, or where it should be based or what sort of defence hardware we should have, and just as well – that section of the Constitution doesn’t even mention the air force, for the very good reason that it became law before the first powered flight.”

The authors of the Federation understood, he argues, “as servants of democracy – that it was for government, parliament and the people to deal with the detail and the implementation, through legislation”.

Originally published as PM Anthony Albanese open to Voice to Parliament ‘alterations’