Anthony Albanese’s Indigenous voice to parliament and economy double act

Anthony Albanese has provided an assurance to Australians the voice referendum will not distract the government from addressing the cost-of-living crisis.

Anthony Albanese in Hobart on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Chris Kidd

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers say they can run the country and the economy at the same time as campaigning for the voice referendum, with the Prime Minister declaring he will get ­credit for “having a crack”.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian following the announcement of the October 14 referendum date, Mr Albanese also dismissed the notion that delaying the referendum was an option he could have entertained. “The politics will always be challenging,” he said. “The question for me was considering all these people, (Tom) Calma, (Marcia) Langton, (Noel) Pearson, and the idea that I could say, ‘hey, you know we said we would have a referendum, but we can’t do it for ­another year’, you just say ‘nup, I’m up for it, I believe in it, and I’m doing it’.”

Mr Albanese said he was continuing to focus on a broad economic agenda. “Just in the past week, we have focused on skills, resources, jobs, Medicare, things that have an impact,” he said. “We are focusing on cost-of-living pressures, a very broad economic agenda, an international agenda spanning trade and economic relationships.

“The voice is important but so are all these other issues.”

The reassurance from the Prime Minister comes as the government faces a tough sitting fortnight, with business in open revolt against the second tranche of its industrial relations reforms and an escalating political conflict with the Greens that threatens to derail Labor’s legislative agenda. Labor is still unable to pass its $10bn affordable housing package through the Senate, faces doubts over the passage of its $2.4bn tax hike on offshore gas projects and has a new conflict with the Greens, which threatened to block Labor’s proposed $2.3bn tax hike on super­annuation balances for wealthy retirees.

The Treasurer dismissed suggestions the government could not focus on the economy while it was engaged in the referendum campaign, arguing that addressing the cost-of-living crisis remained Labor’s key priority.

“We can focus on the pressures that people are under and we can invest in the future of our country at the same time as we can get this done,” Dr Chalmers said. “The cost of living is Australians’ primary concern and so, rolling out billions of dollars of responsible cost-of-living relief is the primary focus of the government.

“(Opposition Treasury spokesman) Angus Taylor and (Opposition Leader) Peter Dutton might not be able to think about two things at once, but I think the country can and the government can.”

Mr Albanese said he was buoyed by the announcement of the referendum date for October 14, describing it as “very uplifting” and presenting the choice before Australians as an “incredible opportunity.”

He conceded that the politics of the voice would be complicated by the economic pressures Australians face.

Mr Albanese said he hoped there would be bipartisan support for the Yes case but “planned for the worst”.

Jesuit priest and law professor Frank Brennan, who has revealed he will vote Yes, said the Prime Minister made “three captain’s picks” that had scuttled the chances of bipartisan support and prevented greater public involvement in the referendum process. He warned that the nation would be divided whatever the outcome of the October 14 referendum.

Father Brennan identifying the first captain’s pick as Mr Albanese’s decision at the Garma festival last year to back an expansive constitutional model for his voice to parliament. The second was the abandonment of a constitutional convention or parliament-sponsored process for public involvement in the design of the constitutional provision. “Instead he (Mr Albanese) hand-picked a referendum working group of 21 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with whom the government would negotiate in confidence,” Father Brennan writes in The Weekend Australian.

“Third, he appointed an eight-member constitutional expert group … who now were locked into confidential government negotiations with the hand-picked group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives.”

Father Brennan said this would make it harder to win over Australians inclined to vote yes but concerned about “failings of process.”