Conservative forum to seek Liberals’ Yes vote

A forum held by the key conservative body in favour of an ­Indigenous voice to parliament, Uphold and Recognise, will go ‘some way’ to addressing Peter Dutton’s 15 questions.

Uphold and Recognise chairman Sean Gordon.

A forum held by the key conservative body in favour of an ­Indigenous voice to parliament, Uphold and Recognise, will go “some way” to addressing Peter Dutton’s 15 questions that the Opposition Leader says need to be answered before he announces the Liberal Party’s position on the voice.

In a bid to secure the Liberals’ support, Uphold and Recognise will put forward a vision for the “architecture” of the voice and how the body would work following the forum, which will hear from former minister Ken Wyatt, Father Frank Brennan, Australia’s first Indigenous senior counsel Tony McAvoy and members of the referendum working group Greg Craven and Sean Gordon.

The event, which is being held in Sydney on Tuesday, is also expected to put more pressure on Labor to formally remove the reference to “executive government” from the draft constitutional amendment.

Anthony Albanese last week flagged he was open to changing the amendment in response to concerns that including “executive government” in the wording could have legal ramifications.

Mr Gordon, chair of Uphold and Recognise, said the conversation over the voice was currently “being led by the far left and far right” and that the forum would allow “sensible people in the centre to come together”.

“There are genuine concerns out there with the term ‘executive government’. We hope the forum will provide a conversation around that,” he said. “My opinion is that a voice to ‘parliament’ is enough to obligate the executive and secretaries and others to consult the voice.”

Mr Gordon said the proposed architecture would draw on the report by Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, which set out a model that includes local and regional voices to feed into the ­national voice to parliament.

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, a voice supporter who will also be at the forum, said understanding how the voice would ­incorporate local and regional perspectives was “critical”.