PM must get it right on voice or history will judge him

Janet Albrechtsen (“Conventional approach to real debate on voice”, 8/2) and opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser are absolutely correct in their assertion that the way forward for the proposed voice constitutional amendment is by means of a constitutional convention, as was done with the republican debate, This is in accordance with the recently published opinion of barrister Louise Clegg. That course will ensure that all Australians are properly informed about the proposal and have an opportunity to be heard in the presently noisy public square concerning this crucial constitutional amendment.

That the proposed amendment is crucial was made abundantly clear by Greg Sheridan in a recent article (“Identity politics the real risk in voice”, 7/2). That article revealed flaws in the proposed amendment and its more than likely consequences. It seems that these will readily change our present constitutional arrangements and our fragile representative democracy.

The fragility of our democratic arrangements is both a strength and a weakness. The latter is the readiness with which constitutional amendment can be achieved to change the present ­arrangements. The former is the solid foundation of equal citizenship on which those arrangements are based. That equality extends to all aspects of the Australian matrix.

It is the federal government’s bounden duty to maintain that basic principle of equal citizenship and to keep the citizenry properly informed concerning any constitutional change. This has not been done so far concerning the voice proposal. PM Albanese has a choice: get it right and rightly earn public acclaim; get it wrong and be damned by history and our successors. There is no middle way.

Ian Dunlop, Hawks Nest, NSW

Earlier this week, Professor Megan Davis said “the voice to parliament’s ability to lobby cabinet ministers and government departments” is crucial. Then special envoy Patrick Dodson was saying that the voice should have a seat at the national cabinet table, something which the Opposition Leader, representing rather more Australians than the voice, does not have. Robert Gottliebsen (“Voice could hit property ownership”, 8/2) points out the possibility of an attack on the absolute foundations of Australian society and economy – title and ownership of land. What will be next?

A slow leaking out of possible expanded roles for this entity is exactly why the Prime Minister needs to provide a lot more detail, especially on the limitations that will be written into its charter.

Otherwise, many will simply vote No, despite being concerned about Indigenous wellbeing.

Peter Thornton, Killara, NSW

I’m sorry Greg Sheridan, but the big bogeyman you enlist to conjure up opposition to the voice does not scare me. What is wrong with an identifiable class of people like, for example, cyclists, pedestrians or book lovers, getting together to promote their interests and expectations of a fair deal from the rest of society?

Am I supposed to abhor the achievements of the suffragettes and the eight-hour-day advocates? I’m sorry but you have lost me. I like bike paths, footpaths and libraries and am grateful to the people who cared enough about such things in the past to get them established for the public good. Right now I value the efforts of ­Indigenous Australians to have their existence recognised in the nation’s birth certificate, the Constitution. But these are not just any identifiable group. They are the survivors of Australia’s first peoples and I would like to see them get a mention.

Just as I am glad to know that the names of my birth parents appear on my personal birth certificate, it is also important to me as an Australian to know who the First Australians were and what they might have to tell us about the land we now share and the life of its people throughout the millennia of its history.

John Gare, Kew East, Victoria

Prime Minister Albanese won’t be able to believe this, but there is a good raft of No voters who only want good lives for the Indigenous community.

If they thought the voice was needed or was going to benefit that cause, they would vote Yes tomorrow.

Murray Horne, Cressy, Vic