‘The decision was tough’: Former Indigenous minister Ken Wyatt quits Liberals in Voice protest

Former Coalition Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt has quit the Liberal Party to protest against its rejection of the Voice to parliament, as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton held firm in the face of condemnation from First Nations elders and disaffected Liberals.

The resignation of the senior Liberal figure, the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives, has underscored anxieties within the party over the way Dutton’s alternative model was pushed through following Saturday’s Aston byelection defeat. Few Liberals, however, broke ranks in public.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and former Coalition Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I still believe in the Liberal Party values, but I don’t believe in what the Liberals have become,” Wyatt told The West Australian newspaper. “Aboriginal people are reaching out to be heard, but the Liberals have rejected their invitation.”

Contacted at his house on Thursday night by a Nine news crew, Wyatt would only say: “The decision was tough. I’ll leave it at that.”

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said Wyatt was one of the wisest people he had worked alongside.

“He’s made history his whole life,” Turnbull told this masthead. “People will sit up and notice this.

“Political parties don’t prosper when people leave. Political parties’ goal should be to get people to join, and I think people are leaving at the moment.”

Wyatt, who lost his seat to Labor at the 2022 federal election, played a key role in the development of the Voice and had openly urged Dutton to back the proposed referendum, which would enshrine the body in the Constitution and give it the right to advise parliament and senior echelons of government.

The Coalition instead want recognition enshrined in the constitution without the Voice, which they say should be trialled at local and state level first.

Wyatt had also warned that rejecting the Voice could reinforce perceptions that Liberals were racists, concerns similar to those raised by three party members in a meeting on Wednesday before the plan to oppose the referendum in its current form and offer an alternative model was carried on the voices.

Earlier on Thursday, outspoken Tasmanian Liberal MP and referendum supporter Bridget Archer told Radio National the party was at a crossroads.

“I stay [in the Liberal Party] because I know I’m not the only person who thinks that way. I stay because I think the Liberal Party is at a crossroads,” she said.

“And for people like me, that means there’s a decision between either walking away and leaving them to it or fighting for what I believe the Liberal Party used to be and should be in the future, a credible, alternative government.”

On Wednesday, Archer said of Wyatt: “We lauded him as our first Indigenous minister and now we’re not listening to him.”

Former Tasmanian Liberal premier Peter Gutwein and former Liberal MP Fiona Martin also criticised Dutton’s stance.

In several radio and television interviews on Thursday morning, Dutton shrugged off questions about divisions in the Liberal Party, saying that, unlike Labor, “in our party, we believe in the individual, and their ability to express their view. There would be 99 per cent of our members in Canberra who support our position. I think two have nominated who want to support the Yes campaign. They’re entitled to do that.”

Dutton said he felt a duty to protect Australians from the Voice because the proposed model would fundamentally change Australia’s system of government. He said the opposition instead proposed to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution, without creating a national advisory body.

The opposition leader was savaged by Indigenous leader Noel Pearson, who told Radio National Breakfast: “I couldn’t sleep last night. I was troubled by dreams and the spectre of the Dutton Liberal Party’s Judas betrayal of our country.”

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie labelled Pearson’s comments an outburst of “nasty language”, but Albanese repeated Pearson’s remarks that Dutton was “acting like the undertaker preparing the grave to bury Uluru”.

“This is consistent with the undermining of constitutional recognition that he has undertaken since the day that he became leader of the Liberal Party,” Albanese said.

“If you’re under the age of 40 in this country you have never voted in a referendum. Because once an opportunity moves past, you don’t know when it’s coming around again. We have waited 122 years to recognise in our Constitution the privilege that we have of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth. I say to Australians, do not miss this opportunity.”

Late on Thursday, Dutton released a social media ad spruiking his opposition to the “Canberra Voice Bureaucracy” showing him listening to citizens and Albanese repeatedly saying Dutton’s name.

One of the Liberals’ most prominent commentators on the Voice, Keith Wolahan, said his party cared deeply about Indigenous advancement but had a duty to scutinise the Voice proposal and highlight any constitutional risk or unintended consequences.

“We can cherish our Indigenous heritage and want to see conditions improved, yet carefully analyse and question the particular wording,” said Wolahan, a former barrister who is deputy chair of a new parliamentary committee examining the Voice.

Labor senator and prominent Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson said Wyatt would not have taken lightly his decision to quit the Liberals.

“I’m sure he would be very disappointed that his party has shown absolutely no regard for the Aboriginal people, their leadership and their efforts to find an accommodation with the Australian people through a Voice to parliament,” Dodson told ABC television.

Shortly after his television appearance, the prime minister’s office issued a statement saying Dodson, a special envoy for the Voice, would be away from parliament for months “while he undertakes a course of medical treatment”.

“Senator Dodson is mindful that during this time he had a big workload planned in his role as Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart,” it said.

“He regrets that his work commitments, especially travel, will now be limited.”

Liberal MP Warren Entsch, who represents the Far North Queensland division of Leichhardt, said Wyatt’s decision would not damage the party’s position. “We have not said no to a Voice,” Entsch said, adding Wyatt’s reasons for quitting the party were “his prerogative”.

“I love Ken. He’s a lovely guy and he’ll always be a dear friend … he’s entitled to his view and I wish him well,” he said.

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