Andrew Bolt: Voice to Parliament is expensive and unnecessary

With all his engagements at the cricket and Mardi Gras, how could the PM know we’re already paying $160m a year for something claiming to be just like the Voice?

Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese keeps insisting we need his Voice in the constitution Pictures: Darren Leigh Roberts

Poor Anthony Albanese. How was he to know he already has a Voice to Parliament, telling his ministers what to do for Aborigines?

With all his engagements at the Australian Open, the cricket and the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, how could he know he’s already paying $160m a year to 1200 people in 39 offices around the country to do exactly that?

How embarrassing, because Albanese keeps insisting we need his Voice in the constitution so “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a say in the policies and decisions that affect their lives”.

Yet the National Indigenous Australians Agency is doing that very thing, claims its head, Aboriginal woman Jody Broun: “We lead and influence change across government to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a say in the decisions that affect them.”

That’s its job, under the government order establishing the NIAA: “to build and maintain effective partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people … and enable policies, programs and services to be tailored to the unique needs of communities”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been busy at the cricket, Australian Open and Mardi Gras. Picture: Martin Ollman

So we can now add the NIAA to all the other groups already telling the government what to do for our 810,000 Aborigines – more than 30 land councils, 3000 Aboriginal corporations, 11 Aboriginal federal politicians and the Coalition of Peaks, representing around 70 big Aboriginal agencies.

At the very least, the Prime Minister should say which of them we can scrap if he still goes ahead with his Voice, plus its 35 regional Voices.

After all, this NIAA does not come cheap, and nor will the Voice. The NIAA’s leaders are collectively paid $2.5m a year, and last financial year spent nearly $2 billion.

But its boss says it’s doing a wonderful job: “The NIAA works in genuine partnership to enable the self-determination and aspirations of First Nations communities.”

So who needs the Voice?

The NIAA also assures us it’s got the government’s ear. It doesn’t just report to Albanese’s Indigenous Australians Minister, his assistant Indigenous Australians Minister and his special envoy for “reconciliation”, but last year gave advice to 12 parliamentary committees.

So, again, who needs Albanese’s Voice?

News of the NIAA’s existence, raised on social media by Voice opponents, has created panic in the ABC.

“No, Indigenous Australians don’t already have a Voice to Parliament,” shouted its “Fact Check Unit” on Friday.

For evidence it consulted two pro-Voice academics – Dr Dylan Lino, a senior lecturer in law, and – ha ha ha – Asmi Wood, an Australian National University law professor on Albanese’s Referendum Consulting Group.

Yes, well. Wood’s expertise in constitutional law may be judged by the fact he keeps repeating the ludicrous myth that our constitution once “regulated ‘Aboriginal natives’ as fauna”.

So why do these experts deny the NIAA is already doing the work of the Voice?

One, because they claim the NIAA’s public servants aren’t independent of government, but the Voice will be.

National Indigenous Australians Agency Jody Broun says the organisation leads and influences change across government to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a say. Picture: Martin Ollman

But the government’s blueprint of the Voice, written by Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, says its members will not be elected, but mysteriously selected. By whom, exactly? The government will set those rules, determine powers and decide who gets paid what. How independent is that?

Two, Wood admits the NIAA is actually “meant to give free and fearless advice”, but complains the minister still “makes the final decision”.

But wait! Albanese claims Parliament will still make the decisions if we get a Voice. Or are we being conned?

And three, Lino says that unlike the Voice, the NIAA isn’t all-Aboriginal. Only a fifth of its staff identifies as white, even if two of its three top executives and both its ministers are Aborigines and calling the shots.

But whites could be on the Voice, too, or choose who is.

Aboriginal activists such as Suzanne Ingram claim as many as 300,000 of our 810,000 Aborigines are actually fakes, and the Langton-Calma report says it doesn’t want direct elections for the Voice because “confirming Indigeneity … has historically been divisive in some communities”. Aborigines would complain of white fakes voting and running, and they must be shut down.

I guess that leaves the big difference: that unlike the NIAA, the Voice – being in the constitution – cannot be sacked, even if it’s totally useless, or worse.

Hardly a big selling point.

No, let’s stick with the NIAA and save the grief and the cash. After all, it’s doing what Albanese says he wanted, right? Or is there something else he isn’t saying?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Voice to Parliament is expensive and unnecessary