Lack of detail on voice risks losing nation’s goodwill

No one who has followed this newspaper’s reporting over decades could remain untouched by the misery afflicting many of our Indigenous communities, nor would they question the vital need to solve the problems that underlie that misery. Most Australians bear enormous goodwill towards the first inhabitants of this continent, sharing a pride in their tens of thousands of years of culture while also recognising that their brutal encounter with the Western world occasioned great suffering. That such suffering continues almost 250 years later is undoubtedly a disgrace and needs to be addressed. The voice to parliament, offered and received in good faith, is intended to be a means of alleviating that suffering. But it must do more than pay lip service to emotion.

As Noel Pearson, one of the great champions of reconciliation, respected and admired by Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, observed this week, it must be a genuine partnership between government and Indigenous peoples to repair damaged communities across the nation. “If nothing happens at ground zero,” Mr Pearson said, “this voice will be worthless.”

The referendum on the voice to parliament is set to be held in the last quarter of this year, and on Thursday the official launch of the Yes campaign took place in Adelaide. It was heartening that the campaign began without the usual politicians, for the great danger is that this referendum will be seen as, or turn into, a political, ideological battle. For despite the rhetoric from supporters who suggest a No vote would be a devastating insult to Indigenous people, it is a logically tenable position to be in favour of Indigenous recognition and advancement while remaining sceptical about the ability of the voice to achieve this.

In her speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra on Wednesday, University of NSW law professor Megan Davis, co-chair of the Uluru Dialogue, urged universities to support the Yes vote, insisting that “silence is political”; but there remains a continuing political silence on the details of the voice from those who will shape it.

This newspaper stands out in the Australian media for its unparalleled role in covering Indigenous affairs with deep knowledge, understanding and empathy; it has long been in favour of an acknowledgment of the country’s first peoples. At the same time it has asked, repeatedly, for more precise information on the wording and ambit of the proposed amendment to the Constitution; drip-fed attempts at compromise, over terms such as “executive government”, are insufficient to satisfy objectors.

Currently on the No side of the ledger are many good-hearted people who fear this lack of detail is the equivalent of a blank cheque, a Trojan horse to smuggle in the ambitions of the vocal activists who demand treaties and sovereignty, together with financial compensation today for the wrongs done to their ancestors, and for the inequalities they see in the present.

Objectors include credible Indigenous leaders such as Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, who view the proposed change as divisive. If, as the Prime Minister has assured us, this voice is merely “good manners” or, in the words of writer and filmmaker Rachel Perkins, a “modest ask”, then the details need to be forthcoming to assuage those fears. And they need to come quickly, before the predictions of division are fulfilled.

In an interview with the ABC this week, Mr Pearson said that for 30 years he had “pursued a middle path” towards reconciliation between the original Australians and the new Australians. “If the advocacy of that pathway fails, a whole generation of leadership will have failed,” he said. He was adamant that if the referendum was not passed, his road towards reconciliation was finished. “I will fall silent,” said the man whose own voice has done so much for his people and his nation. “That will be the end of it.”

Constitutional change, however, is a hugely serious proposition and not something to be undertaken lightly. Whether the referendum succeeds or fails, we must trust Australians to have voted with their consciences and according to the facts as they understand them. If it failed to pass, so be it; but that should be only because informed voters believed there was a better path to reconciliation.

It would be an unforgivable failure of leadership if the voice was rejected simply because on referendum day we were still trying to find out what we were voting for.