Door left open to national cabinet to be advised by Indigenous voice

Labor has left the door open to giving the Indigenous voice to parliament a role in advising ­national cabinet.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, left, Dominic Perrottet, Anthony Albanese and Daniel Andrews at the national cabinet meeting last week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Labor has left the door open to giving the Indigenous voice to parliament a role in advising ­national cabinet, with Anthony Albanese saying it was critical the voice be able to advise on ­issues “across different levels of government”.

It comes after special envoy for reconciliation Patrick Dodson revealed his view that a voice should be able to have a seat at the table in national cabinet.

“I would think that (national cabinet is) one of the aspects that you’d want to be able to talk to,” he told The Australian.

When asked whether the voice would be consulted by nat­ional cabinet, the Prime Minister would not rule it out. “This is a voice to parliament, and it will be a voice that will release its views publicly. Publicly, it will be available for all,” he said on Monday.

“Of course, so many of the issues go across different levels of government. This is about consultation. It won’t have a right of veto, it won’t be a funding body, it’s very clear with the principles that have been put out.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there shouldn’t be a problem with the members of the body having a say on issues that affected them. “We can be so much stronger as a nation. We can become much more unified and the first ministers, premiers and chief ministers have demonstrated that,” she told ABC.

It follows national cabinet on Friday endorsing a “statement of intent” and formally supporting the voice to parliament.

Senior Labor sources also indicated that the option for the voice to advise national cabinet would be left open.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said whether the voice would advise national cabinet was a matter for Mr ­Albanese. “The concept of the voice is to advise parliament on a whole range of issues; you could put that question to the Prime Minister,” she said.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan said national cabinet received advice “from a range of stakeholders”, which he said “was appropriate”.

He would not be drawn on Monday on hypotheticals about how the voice would operate in WA. “We will support the referendum, we will work with the commonwealth government and the Yes case to promote a positive vote in WA,” he said.

“We will make any decisions on what the state does after the referendum is held.”

It follows organisers of the Yes campaign saying Queensland and WA would be the focus of the first blitz encouraging people to vote in favour of the voice.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser said the question of the voice advising national cabinet was one of many raised in the lead-up to the referendum that could not be definitively answered.

Additional reporting: Lydia Lynch, Paul Garvey