The best of Paul Kelly on the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

 

The Yes and No campaigns have entered the final straight, with early voting well underway across the nation ahead of the October 14 referendum.

Since the official launch of both campaigns, The Australian has published hundreds of articles, covering all sides of the referendum debate.

As the final poll draws closer, we revisit some of the paper’s best and most-read pieces on the voice, beginning with editor-at-large Paul Kelly, who has contributed some of the debate’s most authoritative and incisive commentary; his writing on the topic has been essential reading.

Kelly has covered 18 referendums over his career – with the Indigenous voice referendum his 19th.

Is the Constitution the right place for the voice?

The Constitution was built to resist innovation and to transcend the cycles of politics and partisan campaigns, Paul Kelly wrote.

“Success for the voice will shatter one of our deepest political orthodoxies – that the Constitution transcends contemporary and popular renovation and exists as a protective shield against ‘the demands of the present’.”

Why wasn’t the voice legislated first given the numbers existed in parliament to do exactly that? Readers can take in Kelly’s response to that question, and the lessons we glean from the 1999 referendum, here.

Is the voice really ‘modest and simple’?

Eighteen versions of the voice were put to a parliamentary committee in 2018. Legislating the voice before going to a referendum would have been “a sensible approach that would have transformed the atmospherics by putting the constitutional question at the end, not at the beginning,” according to Kelly.

“That was vetoed. So we’re now looking directly at a permanent change to the constitution.”

In this September Inquirer piece, Kelly invited us to “be honest” about the political support needed for the voice, and the “extraordinary” way Albanese thought it unnecessary to address this.

The model is the problem with the voice

The model is the essence of the referendum, yet Labor won’t discuss the central change it envisages for our system of parliament and government, Kelly wrote in February 2022.

Kelly seized on an “unwise but acute” remark by Anthony Albanese when he said it would be a “brave” government that defied the voice.

“That’s correct. The voice won’t have a legislative veto – but its expected moral, political and media clout suggests a likely de facto veto,” Kelly wrote.

Read the full article about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s choice to engage with queries or watch the voice be voted down here.

Coalition says no, but does not have a better proposal

The Liberal Party is “damaged goods” these days, Kelly wrote. “It cannot keep running on negatives.”

Will the conservatives, instead of defining themselves by what they oppose, actually explain what sort of voice they would support?

Paul Kelly unpacked the opposition’s response here.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price presents an alternative voice for the future

In the final month of the referendum campaign, something unexpected has emerged – the assertion that rejecting the voice is a better destiny for Indigenous peoples. This is put forward by Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

In her National Press Club address, Nampijinpa Price repudiated the narrative of invasion trauma, and the claim that Indigenous peoples today still suffer from colonisation. Kelly asserted Nampijinpa Price’s blanket rejection of any downside of colonisation doesn’t work, but in the event of a referendum defeat, her vision would guarantee a new and impactful debate about the nation’s future.

Still, Kelly has a warning about “political poison” for Nampijinpa Price. Join the tens of thousands of readers engaging with this point of view ahead of the referendum here.

Elites patronise the wary voting public all year

In this speech, the Prime Minister showed he was convinced Australia would empower Indigenous people with the voice to parliament, and that history was on his side. If history were to be on his side, it would not be alone. Our elites have come together – political, corporate, financial, university, media, sporting, trade unions, and religious – to “persuade and intimidate the Australian people”.

Paul Kelly confronted the unparalleled contest between the alliance of elites and a public that was suspicious and increasingly resentful of the pressure to do the “polite” thing.

This piece, in particular, captured a decisive moment in the debate and generated a huge response from readers and commentators. Engage with it in full here.