Credlin: Dutton’s call on the Voice reaffirms Liberal Party values
Peter Dutton’s ‘no’ to the Voice is the best way for the Liberal Party to galvanise its supporters to fight for what matters, writes Peta Credlin.
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“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Those words of Martin Luther King Jr, that rang out across Washington DC in August 1963, inspired me and so many others around the world to rate character, contribution and humanity above any of the attributes that divide us, like race or gender.
And it’s those words that today provide the reassurance that it’s right to oppose a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice that would create two classes of citizen – Indigenous with a special Voice, and everyone else without one, and forever divide our country.
As more and more of us understand what the Voice is really about and what comes after the Voice (because it’s just the start), opposition to the Prime Minister’s plan is growing.
The mere fact that the PM doesn’t want you to know too much says it all because what Labor fears is that you WILL understand the Voice and, if you understand it, you WON’T vote for it.
For months now, the people most Liberals look up to, like Tony Abbott and John Howard, have been against the Voice on principle. It would be a Trojan Horse in the heart of the constitution. It would give 4 per cent of the population extra political power based on ancestry, thereby making everyone without indigenous forebears a lesser citizen. It’s wrong in principle and would be disastrous in practice. And now, finally, with Peter Dutton’s statement that he would be campaigning for a “resounding no”, the federal parliamentary Liberal Party has come to that same conclusion.
The party of Menzies was on the verge of losing me on this – but now that it’s rejected the Voice, and done so overwhelmingly, I’m encouraged that there’s still fight in the dog. Because the best way for a party to galvanise its supporters is to fight for what matters and to hold fast to its values.
It really is extraordinary that the Prime Minister is trying to stampede Australians into the biggest constitutional change we’ve ever been asked to make without a constitutional convention, without answering reasonable questions about how it would work in practice and, indeed, contradicting the public statements of his own attorney-general that the Voice could have a say on everything, and would be justiciable (meaning it would be up to unelected judges to decide how far it goes).
If it gets up, the Voice will inject an indigenous element into all decision-making – including everything that should be determined on objective grounds and should apply to everyone equally.
Last week the Liberals said they are in favour of regional voices although not a national one; and in favour of legislated voices but not a constitutionally entrenched one. This distinction is unlikely to last a week on the ‘No’ campaign trail, which the Opposition Leader says he’ll now join, because campaigns are always a binary choice: yes or no; us or them. Are you for or against giving special rights to some Australians but not to others; and for or against giving the unelected and unaccountable High Court more scope to second guess the elected and accountable government?
Eventually, it will dawn on the state Liberal leaders currently sitting on the fence, or morally unsettled by the PM’s insistence that a “no” vote would be disrespectful to “First Nations” people, that what the government really wants is treaties, reparations and the partial undoing of the sovereignty of the Crown, as established from 1788. Or, as we are seeing in New Zealand, co-government with non-Maori New Zealanders increasingly strangers in their own country.
It’s also important to understand that Labor’s Voice is to “advise”, not to take responsibility, and anyone who’s ever had anything to do with how government works knows that unless responsibility is taken to fix things, they will remain broken despite the $30 billion that taxpayers spend on indigenous disadvantage every year.
Despite this, the Albanese government is trying to nobble the “no” case by initially only giving tax deductibility to donations to the “yes” campaign and by allocating tens of millions on a spin campaign. Now that Liberals have joined with the Nationals to oppose the Voice, this is starting to look like a battle that can be won.
If Dutton campaigns vigorously against the Voice and prevails, it will be the making of him as a national leader because nothing galvanises a political party more than a fight about something that matters, that members care about deeply, and that speaks to its values.
Back in 2009, one or two Turnbull types pushed for a “market-based” approach to reducing emissions but most Liberals hated the insidious extra costs and far-reaching green tape of Labor’s ETS. And when Tony Abbott took on the fight as new Liberal leader, he almost reduced Labor to a one-term government.
Likewise, today, very few Liberals hate Australia like the left does, and given it was the Coalition that first put an aboriginal MP into parliament (Neville Bonner), no one can ever accuse the Liberal and National parties of not caring deeply, and practically, about aboriginal Australians.
Contrary to the journalists who don’t understand how the Liberal Party works, Dutton hasn’t given backbenchers special leave to campaign for the Voice. He’s just acknowledged that Liberal MPs, if their convictions really drive them to it, can cross the floor without being expelled. So far, that’s a mere five. The more Liberal MPs consider this Voice, the less they will like it, as we’ve seen so far; and that will certainly increase, now that Liberal Party members have been licensed by the leader’s decision to tell their local MPs what they really think.
Far from dividing the party, Dutton’s decision to oppose the Voice will unite the Liberals and give demoralised members and supporters something real and important to fight for.
‘YES’ VOTE SPRUIKERS RESORT TO CHEAP SHOTS
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has done many great things for Aboriginal people and for Australians more generally. His insistence that welfare is the “poison that’s killing our people” was both true and brave. His attempt to get back-to-basics teaching drills, including rote learning, into indigenous classrooms should be applauded by everyone who wants our schools to improve.
No one’s perfect though, and the Voice campaign has brought out an ugly side of Pearson. Despite declaring of the Voice debate, “when they go low, we go high”, so far it’s been the “yes” camp that’s done nearly all of the personal smearing with Pearson himself leading the way.
When Senator Jacinta Price had the temerity to oppose the Voice, Pearson said that she’d been manipulated by whites and accused her of “punching down” on Aboriginal people. Mind you, Price gave it back, declaring that she was sick of being bullied by indigenous men incapable of accepting that women like her could think for themselves.
When the Liberal indigenous shadow minister, Julian Leeser, questioned the scope of the proposed Voice, Pearson accused him of betraying his own principles. After Peter Dutton finally came out against the Voice this week, Pearson called him an “undertaker”, guilty of a “Judas betrayal of our country”.
On Thursday night last week, dealing with the perfectly reasonable request for more detail on who might be able to vote for, or be a member of this new Voice, Pearson asked: “does Julian want us to wear a tattoo” or “that our clothes be adorned with some kind of badge”.
Pearson is not ignorant of religion or history. This seems a clear reference to what the Nazis did to Jews, forced to wear a yellow ’Star of David’ and the tattoos in the death camps; and was an insensitive low blow directed at Leeser, a Jewish man.
The “yes” camp can hardly accuse their opponents of dividing the country when so much of their argument comprises moral blackmail and personal intimidation.
Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm
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