Election 2025: Resurrected voice inevitable, says Penny Wong

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has suggested an Indigenous voice is inevitable and Australians will one day be incredulous there was ever an argument about it.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Parramatta. Picture: Jason Edwards / NewsWire

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has suggested an Indigenous voice is inevitable and Australians will one day be incredulous there was ever an argument about it.

In an episode of the Betoota Talks podcast released on Monday, Senator Wong said Anthony Albanese went ahead with the voice referendum in 2023 because “he is not a pull-the-pin kind of guy”, he thought it was the right thing to do and “a lot of First Nations leaders wanted the ­opportunity”.

“I think we’ll look back on it in 10 years’ time and it’ll be a bit like marriage equality,” she said. “I ­always used to say, marriage equality, which took us such a bloody fight to get that done, and I thought, all this fuss. It’ll become something, it’ll be like, people go ‘did we even have an argument about that?’

“Like, kids today, or even adults today, barely kind of clock that it used to be an issue. Remember how big an issue that was in the culture wars? Blimey, just endless.”

On October 14, 2023, 60.1 per cent of Australians voted no to an Indigenous advisory body ­enshrined in the Constitution.

When Mr Albanese was questioned about the voice in the leaders debate, he repeated his long-stated position that he respects the outcome. Asked if he still believed in it, Mr Albanese replied: “It is gone.”

Asked again for his personal view on the voice, he said: “We need to find different paths to ­affect reconciliation.”

Jim Chalmers also said Labor will not be reviving the Indigenous voice to parliament in a second term. The Treasurer was asked to rule out the prospect of an Indigenous voice to parliament in Labor’s second term.

“I think the Prime Minister has already done that,” Dr Chalmers told Channel 9. “You know, we’re looking forwards, not backwards. We were disappointed about the outcome back then, but we’ve been looking forwards and not backwards. And it’s not part of our agenda.”

It comes as the Returned Servicemen’s League in Western Australia said an acknowledgment of country would remain part of the dawn service in Perth – where a racist taunt from the crowd interrupted an Indigenous veteran as she spoke on Friday – so long as it continued to be apolitical and supported by members.

RSL state president Duncan Anderson, a sheep farmer from Donnybrook, south of Perth, agreed with Ben Wyatt, Australia’s first Indigenous treasurer, who on Tuesday backed welcome ceremonies but said some went too long and others veered into “political diatribe”.

“It’s true, some welcome to countries can be a bit political,” Mr Anderson said. “We want to avoid that. There is nothing more that we are trying to protect Anzac Day from than politics.”

Tony Abbott on Tuesday described welcome to country ceremonies as an “exercise in virtue-signalling” akin to wearing masks during the Covid pandemic.

Referring to acknowledgments of traditional owners and lands that are read aloud to passengers on Qantas flights, he said: “I’ve found the notion of having country acknowledged when you land in Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane absolutely grating.”

Mr Abbott praised Peter Dutton for saying during the final leaders debate at the weekend that welcomes were overdone.

“Peter Dutton has done us all a favour by acknowledging that these things are overdone, and they certainly can be very out of place at things like Anzac Day ceremonies,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Dutton condemned ugly scenes at Melbourne’s dawn service where self-declared neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant was filmed booing and shouting at Uncle Mark Brown while he delivered a welcome to country.

Asked if the welcomes should be part of dawn services, Mr Dutton said he believed the majority of veterans did not support them.

The furore just days before the federal election prompted Indigenous leader Pat Anderson to say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were again being used as a political football.

Malcolm Turnbull accused Mr Dutton of resorting to culture warfare in the final week of the campaign. “This will work for him in some areas but it is just pure culture war stuff and I think it turns a lot of people off. I think it’s a mistake to go down that route,” Mr Turnbull told ABC TV.

The Anzac Day disruptions in Perth and Melbourne come after what some Indigenous leaders have described as a pushback on Aboriginal Australians since the defeat of the voice referendum in 2023.

In Perth on Anzac Day, Indigenous veteran Di Ryder delivered an acknowledgment of country rather than a welcome. She was momentarily put off by shouting from the crowd.

Mr Anderson described Ms Ryder’s acknowledgment as solemn and appropriate, and said he believed his members were supportive.

An acknowledgment is generally shorter than a welcome and can be performed by any person.

Indigenous leader and researcher Marcia Langton says many critics profoundly misunderstand what a welcome to country is. It is not a welcome to Australia the nation. Professor Langton, who wrote the 2023 book Welcome to Country as a travel guide to Indigenous Australia, says the word “country” is used to describe a particular place, often home.