Anthony Albanese rejects Peter Dutton’s call to put Voice referendum on ice

The PM has responded after Peter Dutton said Australians weren’t ‘ready’ to vote in the Indigenous Voice referendum.

Anthony Albanese has rejected calls from Peter Dutton to put the Indigenous Voice referendum on ice as some opinion polling shows support for the proposal is lagging.

The Prime Minister on Sunday conceded it would “undoubtedly” be a setback for reconciliation if the referendum failed but said “no one ever won an Ashes Test by staying in the sheds”.

“The referendum will be held in the last quarter of this year. Peter Dutton unfortunately has raised a number of issues that he knows, I think, are just not right,” Mr Albanese told Sky News.

“As I said at the Garma Festival a year ago, if not now, when? Federation is 122 years old, it is more than half century since Indigenous Australians were counted in the 1967 referendum.”

Mr Albanese’s comments come a few days after the Opposition Leader delivered a speech in parliament calling on the government to shelve the referendum because it risked failure.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Voice referendum is going ahead as planned. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Dutton warned reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians would be harmed if the Voice referendum failed, and called on Mr Albanese to recognise that.

As an alternative, Mr Dutton proposed the government should legislate the Voice, rather than ensuring its permanency by embedding it in the constitution.

He said the referendum question should be changed to simply be about constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians.

“We believe that’s the moment that the Prime Minister should grasp, because the Australian public is not ready to vote for the Voice,” he said on Thursday.

But Mr Albanese on Sunday defended the government’s plan to enshrine the Voice in the Constitution and then using legislation to work out its finer details.

“Of course, the parliament can change legislation at any time affecting the Voice,” he said.

“But what we want to do is to get as much consensus as possible around the structure and the functions and operation of the Voice, including over its composition and the final format.

“But I should imagine over a period of time that will be improved as well.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the referendum should be shelved. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Albanese said enshrining the Voice would be well received in history in a similar way to the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations.

“If we recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution, I think people will look back at it and say, ‘Oh, why didn‘t we do it earlier?’,” Mr Albanese said.

“Just like people say, ‘Why didn’t we make the apology earlier?”

The Coalition has sought to paint the Voice as something that belongs to Mr Albanese or to the Labor Party, but will fail to improve real outcomes for Indigenous people.

However the government maintains the Voice is the form of constitutional recognition Indigenous community leaders asked for in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Australians will vote sometime in the final three months of the year on whether or not to create the constitutionally-enshrined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body.

The Voice would be able to make representations to parliament and the executive government, including federal cabinet and the public service, on matters affecting Indigenous people.

The government says the Voice would not have any veto power or be able to direct funding or programs, with the parliament to retain supremacy and decide how to act on the Voice’s advice.

The government is yet to set a date but the national poll is expected to be held in October, with the respective Yes and No campaigns now beginning to roll out in earnest.

Left-wing advocacy group GetUp is reportedly going to launch its campaign backing the Yes case in Queensland on Sunday, with another event planned for Alice Springs later in the week.

A majority of voters in a majority of states needs to vote Yes if the referendum is to succeed.

Originally published as Anthony Albanese rejects Peter Dutton’s call to put Voice referendum on ice