Andrew Bolt: Linda Burney’s desperation on the Voice now an embarrassment

Dividing Australians by race under our Constitution will not just be immoral but disastrously divisive and Linda Burney’s latest sales pitch on the Voice is an insult.

Please, please, please, Linda Burney. Stop embarrassing yourself. Stop hoodwinking voters about your racist Voice.

Burney, the Indigenous Australians Minister, tried yet another shabby trick on Wednesday to sell the Voice – a kind of Aboriginal-only advisory Parliament which Labor wants to put in our Constitution at a referendum this year.

I know, she was desperate. After all, polls show that the more the Albanese government tries to explain why it wants to divide Australians by race, the more voters hate what they’re hearing.

But Burney’s latest sales pitch, at the National Press Club, was an insult.

First, she tried a guilt trip. Look, she cried, Aborigines are 55 times more likely to die of rheumatic heart disease and this was “entirely preventable”.

If so, Minister, fix it. Do we really need a Voice to tell you to fix something you already know about and claim is “entirely preventable”?

But Burney’s biggest con came in trying to tackle one great fear about this Voice – that it could go nuts with its constitutional right to advise federal politicians and public servants on any “matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.

Never fear, said Burney: “I will ask the Voice to consider four main priority areas: health, education, jobs and housing”.

Yes, she’d tell the Voice to do what she wants: “I will say, bring me your ideas on how to stop our people from taking their own lives, bring me your ideas on how to help our kids go to school and thrive, bring me your ideas on how we make sure our mob live strong and healthy lives ...”

What a con.

Linda Burney can ask the Voice to stick to her preferred issues but the Voice doesn’t have to listen. Picture: Martin Ollman

Sure, Burney can ask the Voice to stick to her preferred issues, but the Voice doesn’t have to listen.

Labor’s planned constitutional amendment actually gives the Voice the power to advise Burney or another Minister for decades to come on whatever it likes, as long as some people identifying as Aborigines say they’re affected.

And the activists who designed this Voice that way say they’re keen to have it interfere on many more issues than are on Burney’s list.

For instance, Professor Megan Davis, on the government’s own Referendum Working Group, crows that the “the Voice will be able to speak to all parts of the government, including … the Reserve Bank ... Centrelink, the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority”, and will advise on all kinds of things, which “would include environmental and climate policies”.

Thomas Mayo, also on the Referendum Working Group, has his own list of issues for the Voice to work on: “‘Pay the Rent’ for example … reparations and compensation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

And Professor Greg Craven, from the government’s constitutional law expert group, confirms: “The Voice can comment on everything from submarines to parking tickets.” And the High Court could insist it be heard.

If Linda Burney needs fresh ideas, then why keep funding the giant bureaucracy that’s giving her the stale ones? Picture: Richard Walker

Of course, if Burney really wants the Voice to stick to her four issues, the government could reword its planned amendment to the Constitution to insist on it. But it won’t. Burney’s words are just spin.

Another example. Burney said she wants “fresh ideas” from the Voice on health, education, jobs and housing, but the Voice is specifically designed to suggest nothing fresh at all.

You see, the designers of the Voice didn’t want to create a rival group that could upset the Aboriginal aristocracy which has dominated government policy-making for years.

That’s why the Voice’s 22 members won’t be elected, but selected by the kind of Aboriginal organisations already advising governments.

So don’t expect the Voice to suggest anything not already pushed by the existing 30 big land councils, 3000 Aboriginal corporations, and the Council of Peaks, which represents some 70 big organisations and has worked with the federal government for years to tackle Aboriginal disadvantage.

But if Burney needs fresh ideas, then why keep funding the giant bureaucracy that’s giving her the stale ones? Why still give $2bn a year to the National Indigenous Australians Agency, that’s officially supposed to do what Burney wants from the Voice – “enable policies, programs and services to be tailored to the unique needs of communities”?

I’m sorry to write again on the Voice, but I’m frightened. Australia risks making a shocking mistake that will change this country forever.

Dividing Australians by race under our Constitution will not just be immoral but disastrously divisive.

And if this really is the best case Burney can make for the Voice, the answer – please – must be no.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Linda Burney’s desperation on the Voice now an embarrassment