Peter Dutton’s Indigenous voice to parliament ploy raises the stakes for Anthony Albanese
Peter Dutton is offering a choice for voters on more than just an Indigenous voice. This week could mark a significant change in the tone of the wider political debate about the referendum.
At the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land last weekend, Anthony Albanese decided to frighten those people who support constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians but are baulking at voting Yes because they are concerned about the ramifications of the voice to parliament.
But trying to scare people into changing their minds always has a political risk, and Peter Dutton is setting out to exploit that risk and appeal to the very voters the Prime Minister is trying to influence.
This week could mark a significant change in the balance and tone of the wider political debate about the referendum.
The Prime Minister adopted a tried and true political formula of warning voters that if they vote against a proposition because they don’t like part of it they will certainly miss out on the whole, perhaps forever, and not to expect a second chance. It’s a gamble and a sign of desperation.
As prime minister facing an unwinnable election against John Hewson in 1993, Paul Keating told voters that if they voted for the Liberals and the GST they would get the GST – he removed any hope of Labor blocking the new tax in the Senate or any reprieve. He won.
With the idyllic backdrop of Arnhem Land and the warmth of the Garma Festival where he first announced the wording of the referendum, Albanese, facing dwindling support in all the polls for the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, tried to change the trajectory for the Yes campaign and reset the fundamentals of the debate.
Albanese warned voters that, like the republican referendum 20 years earlier, a No vote on the Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government would mean that it would not come again. He intends to win.
“We know that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” Albanese said.
“Many people in the republic referendum thought it would come around again. And that’s why I say to those people, including people who say, ‘It doesn’t go far enough, so therefore I’m going to vote No’, don’t think that other issues can be advanced by a No vote.
“A No vote will be a vote for more of the same,” he said.
It was a clear statement of intent that this referendum will be the only chance for recognition in a lifetime; there will be no separate agenda for recognition and those voters who vote No because they don’t like a particular part won’t get another go.
It’s brutal politics.
Albanese may have reshaped the trajectory and substance of the debate from Garma but it may not be in the way he expected.
After a week of sowing confusion about the voice in parliament, sucking up valuable government time during question time, making Labor look distracted from the cost-of-living crisis, and forcing ministers to talk about the advantages of the voice in their portfolios, the Opposition Leader has made a strategic shift.
Dutton has emphatically declared the Coalition, in government, will “fight for constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians” and legislate for local and regional Indigenous voices to parliament but not a national voice.
For weeks, Dutton has been taking advantage of the clear and overwhelming concerns about the cost of energy, fuel, housing and food, not just to leach support away from Labor’s national voice proposal but also to link the voice referendum to Albanese’s economic management and political judgment.
The Coalition’s parliamentary tactics over the past two sitting weeks have involved asking a few questions on the cost-of-living crisis, particularly harping on Labor’s pre-election energy promises of lower power bills, raising the spectre of federal heritage cultural laws hitting farmers, and creating a fog of confusion about the voice to parliament – ranging from treaty to the farcical issue of how many pages there are in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Albanese accused the opposition of nonsense and indulging in conspiracy theories, and implored Dutton “to spend less time on his dirt unit and more time in the red dirt of the Top End”. He sought to blame the Coalition for concentrating on the voice and not asking questions about the cost of living; the simple fact of the parliament is that the public sees the Prime Minister and ministers talking about the referendum.
Now Dutton is seeking not just to further entwine Labor and Albanese with a referendum loss but also to turn the referendum into more than just a Yes or No on the Indigenous voice and into a political choice between the positions of the ALP and the Coalition.
Dutton has committed a Coalition government to “fighting for” constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians and has dismissed Albanese’s threat of Australia losing a once-in-a-generation chance for recognition as “arrogant and dismissive”.
Dutton is offering a second chance – under the slim prospect of a Dutton government after the next election – for those voters who want to support constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians but don’t want to vote for a national voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Of course, Dutton’s position will be criticised and ridiculed as lacking faith and his position will be subjected to misrepresentation.
Dutton also runs the risk of not having such a clear and unambiguous position in opposing the national voice.
But, politically, Dutton is no longer just taking advantage of the falling support for the voice and opposing the referendum. He is now offering an alternative process for constitutional recognition and an Indigenous voice to parliament, with safeguards and greater choice.
“The Australian public would overwhelmingly support constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians but people won’t support the voice for many reasons, but mainly because the Prime Minister won’t give the detail on how it will work,” Dutton told Inquirer.
“The unifying moment for our country would be to vote for constitutional recognition.
“A vote for the voice will divide our country. That is why a Coalition government I lead will fight hard for constitutional recognition,” Dutton said.
“The Prime Minister is having a dummy spit when he says vote for the voice or you get nothing.
“His approach is arrogant and dismissive of the views of millions of Australians,” the Opposition Leader added. “The public just isn’t supportive of the voice but they will support constitutional recognition. When a prime minister turns his back on the country, people won’t forget that betrayal.”
Dutton is even prepared to vow to legislate a voice – which may not attract people committed to a constitutional voice but could appeal to Yes supporters who fear a rushed constitutional change and prefer a legislate-and-test model.
Albanese has not declared whether he would seek to legislate an Indigenous voice if the referendum fails, saying he is concentrating on a successful poll, but Dutton has emphatically declared a Coalition government would legislate for an Indigenous voice to parliament to ensure legislation could be withdrawn and corrected.
Capitalising on the forced and embarrassing repeal of the disastrous West Australian laws designed to protect Indigenous culture which had costly, unworkable and infuriating unforeseen consequences for all concerned, Dutton underscored his legislative safety valve as opposed to constitutional enshrinement.
“As we’ve seen in Western Australia, if you get a law wrong, even if there was good intent at the start, you can amend or abolish the law,” he said.
“If it’s in the Constitution there is no turning back. No amendment or abolition. You’re stuck with it.
“The beauty of our proposal is we propose constitutional recognition as well as a local and regional advisory body in legislation, not in the Constitution.
“In legislation you can make changes. No law can change the Constitution,” he said.
From the outset, Albanese’s strategy has been to bundle together the two concepts of constitutional recognition and a voice to parliament and executive government for Indigenous Australians, tying the broadly popular idea of recognition to the increasingly unpopular voice.
Albanese has refused numerous calls – including from Yes campaign supporters – to separate the issues or to delay or defer the referendum to enable constitutional recognition, just as he now insists there will be no revisiting of constitutional recognition.
He has also accused Dutton of having a contradictory position on the voice, saying that the Liberal leader supports a legislated voice but not one enshrined in the Constitution. Albanese argues that if Dutton can live with a legislated voice and doesn’t consider it chaotic, why doesn’t he commit to a constitutional voice.
Here Dutton’s new clarified position highlights that Albanese has been fudging on Dutton’s support for voice – when it is not a national voice but regional and local Indigenous voices.
Albanese will still seek to portray Dutton as contradictory but will have difficulty with this new position in simply painting the Coalition as negative oppositionists.
The past two weeks have also demonstrated that apart from being trapped into constantly talking about the voice referendum, the government can still offer no detail about how the voice will operate and has had to resort to rehearsed lines and platitudes about past process and historical support for constitutional recognition.
Indeed, for Albanese, the burning question on his numerous FM radio appearances is what the date of the referendum will be? Until now he has tried to cast as wide a net as possible to prevent any early start for the formal campaign, which he wants to restrict to the mandatory minimum of just over four weeks – 33 days.
Albanese is relying on a large undecided vote on the referendum to turn into Yes support in those final weeks as a blitz of corporate advertising dollars hits digital screens and TV.
Yet, within the guidelines of the September football finals, the wet season in northern Australia and the Prime Minister’s overseas travel commitments, it’s hard not to see October 14 as polling day, announced by September 12 on his return from the G20 in India.
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