Wyatt advances recognition

After more than 20 years of false starts, setbacks and debate under both sides of politics, Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt is proceeding steadily and competently towards giving Australians the opportunity to vote on constitutional recognition of Aborigines by June next year. The planned referendum keeps faith with the Coalition’s commitment at last year’s election to work towards “recognition of First Australians in our nation’s founding document” to “acknowledge our shared history and the value we place on our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage”.

Mr Wyatt, the first indigenous minister to hold the portfolio, is proving a wise leader. He favours pragmatism and common sense over ideology. Shrewdly, he is endeavouring to ensure a referendum on recognition does not become confused with the proposed indigenous voice to government. Recognition, as Mr Wyatt says, “needs its own oxygen and its own space”. This approach will improve the chances of recognition being passed not only by a majority of voters in a majority of states but also by a thumping majority — creating a unifying outcome.

The bill to alter the Constitution deserves bipartisan support when the Morrison government puts it to both houses of parliament this year. Once passed, a referendum would need to be held not less than two and no more than six months later.

On Friday Pat Anderson, an Alyawarre woman who helped oversee the Referendum Council report on how best to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution, said she was disappointed with Mr Wyatt’s decision. Indigenous people had expressly rejected symbolic constitutional recognition at the Uluru convention in 2017, she told Paige Taylor. The Uluru statement from the heart called for “a First Nations voice enshrined in the Constitution”. Both the Turnbull and Morrison governments have rejected that call, however. Nor is there much doubt that a referendum about such a proposal would draw strong opposition and would be unlikely to pass, setting back the process of reconciliation for years.

Mr Wyatt is determined to make progress on the voice, however. To that end, indigenous leaders Marcia Langton and Tom Calma are co-chairing a senior advisory group that is due to propose models for the voice at national, regional and local levels by June. After consultation on the models, Mr Wyatt plans to legislate that voice ahead of the referendum on constitutional recognition.

He intends, wisely, to have both issues resolved well ahead of the next federal election due by September 2022, a timetable that will reduce the chances of political pointscoring. Whatever the obstacles, his methodical, low-key approach offers the best chance of progress on an issue where many others, often aiming for too much too soon, have failed. Not unreasonably, Mr Wyatt hopes Uluru backers and the indigenous community in general will get behind the Yes campaign on constitutional recognition. That is their decision. But unity is important, as he argues, “because if there is a division among indigenous Australians then an opportunity will be lost … we are going to have some strong opponents (to constitutional recognition)”.

Mr Wyatt has now intervened in a controversy over the Aboriginal identity of author Bruce Pascoe sparked by indigenous lawyer and entrepreneur Josephine Cashman. Last month, Ms Cashman asked Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton for an investigation into Professor Pascoe for alleged “dishonesty offences”. An Australian Federal Police assessment found Professor Pascoe had committed no commonwealth offence but it did not consider his identity. Mr Wyatt sacked Ms Cashman from the advisory group, saying her actions were “not conducive to the constructive and collaborative approach required to progress the co-design process for an indigenous voice”.

The dispute shows how fraught the politics of the portfolio can be and the challenging road ahead towards achieving indigenous recognition.