Post voice, PM still failing to follow through on his vow

Anthony Albanese’s handling of Indigenous affairs in the 12 months that followed have served as an indictment on his character as leader of this great country.

Last year on October 14, perhaps ironically, Australians made their voices heard without an Indigenous voice to parliament.

Anthony Albanese’s handling of Indigenous affairs in the 12 months that followed have served as an indictment on his character as leader of this great country.

Ever since his victory speech in 2022, the Prime Minister made it clear that the voice was going to be his focus. For him, the voice was not some small policy issue that Labor would try to get up if it successfully formed government. Rather, little else received airtime from the moment of his appointment as Prime Minister through to referendum day.

I think it’s reasonable to say that he had chosen this to be his defining political moment, the thing on which he was willing to stake his political career. But it’s not the failure of the referendum in and of itself that has been the Prime Minister’s downfall. It is his response to it.

In his speech on referendum night, Albanese claimed he would respect the wishes of the Australian people; take responsibility for the result; meet the result with grace and humility; and seek a new way forward.

I actually think these are wonderful traits; they are respectable aspirations that are fitting of a good leader. The problem and irony is that in the 12 months following on from that speech, Albanese has done exactly the opposite of them when it comes to Indigenous affairs.

First, he has shown disrespect for the democratically expressed wishes of Australians by failing to put an end to the voice and treaty-like negotiations occurring in virtually every state and territory around the country.

What does it mean to respect someone’s wishes if you persistently allow the advancement of things against those interests when you have the power to stop them?

Second, he hasn’t taken responsibility or practised humility that would have otherwise seen him look Australians straight in the eye and admit he had incorrectly assumed their position. Allegiance to his own pride forced Albanese to gaslight the public over the establishment of the Makarrata commission.

There is no question that Makarrata was a formal body to be established. Albanese committed $27.7m to its establishment; $5.8m was then budgeted for it over three years, and more than $650,000 has actually been spent by the National Indigenous Australians Agency on it.

For Albanese to then stand up at the Garma Festival this year and suggest that Makarrata was nothing more than the vibe of a coming together after conflict is outrageous.

If he actually was going to “meet this result with … grace and humility”, he would simply admit that establishing the commission was not consistent with the wishes of the Australian public in light of the referendum result. But when you value your own pride above everything else, it makes taking responsibility and practising grace and humility an impossibility.

Third, instead of Albanese’s government using the past 12 months as an opportunity to change tack and actually focus on practical solutions for Indigenous Australians, it withdrew from the space or made a mess of the little it did keep its hands on.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

We saw the hands-off approach to the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, which has had a revolving door of six chairs and acting chairs; the retention of a domestic violence perpetrator on its board; the unfair dismissal of a senior executive and 90 unrepresented clients, 27 of whom were held on remand due to inadequate service ­delivery.

We saw money for domestic violence prevention services being given to an organisation with a domestic violence perpetrator on its board. We saw the removal of the cashless debit card in communities in which it had been trialled, and the attempt to dismiss a University of Adelaide report that was critical of its removal.

So while the referendum was a political failure for the Prime Minister, my bigger concern is the character failings that the past 12 months have revealed. Australia doesn’t need a leader who can perform semantic gymnastics, we need someone who has the courage of character and humility to admit when they get things wrong, someone who can in fact respect the wishes of the people he leads and then respond in a way that accords with those wishes.

He chose to stake his political career on the voice, and its defeat didn’t have to be his downfall. But the past 12 months have left no room for doubt, that Albanese does not have the character required to lead this country into the future I know it can have for all Australians.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians and senator for the Northern Territory.