Dutton focus on royal commission into abuse of Indigenous children before voice to parliament

Peter Dutton says the Coalition is undecided about the voice to parliament and that his focus is on achieving a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is undecided about the voice to parliament. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Peter Dutton says the Coalition is undecided about the voice to parliament ahead of the final sitting fortnight of the year and that his focus is on achieving a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory.

It follows Liberal Party elder statesman John Howard revealing in The Weekend Australian his view that it would be “unwise” and a political mistake for the Liberals and Nationals to offer their MPs a free vote on the constitutional referendum, and Indigenous leaders slamming the former prime minister’s comments as out of touch and uninformed.

Former prime minister John Howard. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Mr Dutton said the matter would be up to the Coalition parties, which would have the discussion about a free vote “at the appropriate time”.

“We’ve laid out a process and that process is for our party room to remain sacrosanct,” the Opposition Leader told Sky News.

Mr Dutton said it was “difficult” for the parties to have the conversation about such issues because “key elements” about the voice were still missing.

While not selecting a specific date for the referendum on the voice, Anthony Albanese has flagged it would be held between mid-2023 and mid-2024.

Mr Dutton said he was hearing concern from some Indigenous leaders in regional areas that the voice would be “elitist” and city-centric. “Indigenous leaders, particularly in regional areas, that I’ve spoken to over the course of the last month or so who don’t even know what the voice means, and they are very worried that it is essentially an elitist model, that it’s designed to represent a capital city view, not a regional and remote view,” Mr Dutton said. He said he was more focused on garnering support for a royal commission into sexual abuse of Indigenous children in the Northern Territory.

“I’ve called on the Prime Minister to hold a royal commission into the Northern Territory and what’s happening there at the moment where there’s unconscionable behaviour resulting in children being sexually and physically abused,” he said.

Mr Dutton raised the idea of the royal commission last month, with Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney saying the best way to protect children was to “work with communities” and pursue “concrete action”.

Mr Howard’s comments drew condemnation from Indigenous leaders who are advocating for the constitutional change.

Peter Yu, vice-president of First Nations at the Australian National University, labelled the views as “highly uninformed”.

He said the former prime minister had never taken a generous position on Aboriginal issues and was opposing the change on ideological grounds rather than practical or genuine reasons.

“It’s always easy for those who don’t have to suffer the consequences of the nature of those politics. If he was a genuine leader in the sense of having a vision for the country, then he would see it within himself to look beyond the base politics,” Professor Yu told The Australian.

He said Mr Howard’s prime ministership had held the nation back in numerous ways.

“The whole Howard era was unfortunately a significant step back in the progress of reconciliation in Australia,” he said.

Constitutional lawyer Eddie Synot, a senior member of the Uluru Dialogue, said Mr Howard no longer represented modern Australia.