Indigenous voice should be fully formed before referendum: Marcia Langton

Marcia Langton has warned of the risks in going to a referendum on a voice to parliament without a fully formed model describing how the body would work.

Marcia Langton says most Indigenous people believe legislation for the voice should be tabled in parliament ‘before the referendum’. Aaron Francis/The Australian

Indigenous leader Marcia Langton has warned there are risks in going to a referendum on a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament without a fully formed model describing how the body would work.

Professor Langton has spoken out on the issue after Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney last week told The Oz news website the referendum question would likely avoid prescribing a specific model, with the detail to be decided in parliament if Australians back the body to be protected in the Constitution.

Professor Langton, who co-chaired the advisory panel for the voice for the Morrison ­government, said most Indigenous people believed legislation for the voice should be tabled in parliament “before the referendum”.

“Clarity on the question to be put to the people is essential and avoiding the matter of the structural arrangements for the voice does not achieve the clarity that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will require,” Professor Langton told The Australian.

“If you don’t present the voter with the available information in some form, then the voter is going to say ‘I don’t know what I am ­voting for’.”

Indigenous leaders are divided on whether the voice body should be legislated and running before a vote is put to Australians on whether its existence should be constitutionally guaranteed.

While Cape York leader Noel Pearson argues the referendum needs to come first, he has also suggested designing the body through legislation that would then be “set aside” before a vote. “Let us complete the legislative design of the voice, and produce an exposure draft of the bill so that all parliamentarians and the members of the Australian public can see exactly what the voice entails,” Mr Pearson said last year.

“Let us set the bill aside and ­settle on the words of a constitutional amendment that recognises Indigenous Australians and upholds the Constitution, and put the amendment to a referendum of the people at the next best ­opportunity.”

Ms Burney said last week the Labor government may not settle on the details of the proposed voice’s structure before a referendum on the concept is held.

“I don’t know having a detailed model out there would lead to a clean question about what should be observed in the Constitution,” Ms Burney said.

Professor Langton said that there was no need for the Albanese government to walk away from the recommendations in the report produced last year by the advisory panel that she led in ­conjunction with fellow academic Tom Calma.

The report recommends establishing 25 to 35 local and regional voice bodies that would inform a “small national body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members tasked to advise the Australian parliament and government”.

“The voice report presented to the federal government by Professor Tom Calma and myself presents a clear picture of the role and structure of the voice – co-designed with 50 Australians and commonwealth officials – and supported by the majority of Indigenous people,” Professor Langton said.

Professor Langton also took aim at Coalition of Peaks convenor Pat Turner for suggesting that she could not support a voice to parliament unless she saw “some meat on the bones”.

Ms Turner also said in the last term of parliament she would oppose the voice body that Professor Langton and Professor Calma had designed for the Morrison government.

“It would be tragic if after 15 years of consistent work to get to this point, we fail because they have caused confusion and doubt,” she said.

“Nothing in our report will ­affect the Coalition of Peaks or ­efforts to close the gap.”