Leaders propose path for indigenous voice

Forty of Australia’s most powerful indigenous leaders will present Scott Morrison with a ­detailed pathway for an indigenous voice.

Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson. Picture: AAP

Forty of Australia’s most powerful indigenous leaders will today present Scott Morrison and Ken Wyatt with a proposed and ­detailed pathway for an indigenous voice to parliament that they say can be enshrined in the ­Constitution by the end of 2021.

Cape York leader Noel Pearson, the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council co-chair Roy Ah-See, land council chiefs from around Australia and leaders working with state governmen­ts on treaties in Queensland and Victoria met in Cairns at the weekend for a crisis meeting on the future of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.

In a letter expected to be delivered­ today to the Prime ­Minister and Mr Wyatt, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the leaders propose what The ­Australian understands is a three-stage process that begins by asking indigenous people around Australia what an indigenous voice to parliament should look like.

The leaders are effectively acknow­ledging that one of the stumbling blocks for the voice has been a lack of detail. Under the proposal, consultation with indig­enous people would be similar to the dialogues that led to Uluru — 1200 indigenous people contributed to the Statement from the Heart at 13 meetings.

The leaders suggest the new dia­logues could begin as soon as February and would ultimately design local, regional and national structures for the voice.

To help people at the meetings make informed decisions, they would be given lessons in civics and proposed models to consider.

The leaders want the wider Australian community to be able to participate, possibly at a national convention or through a joint select committee that takes submissions from the public.

Under the proposed timeline, a panel of legal experts would draft the words to go into the Constit­ution. They believe the referen­dum could be held in mid-2021.

The Cairns meeting was a signific­ant gathering of leaders determined that indigenous people­, not the government, should lead the process towards the referendum.

The Morrison government plans to “co-design” some form of indigenous voice but considers this separate to the referendum it intends to hold within three years on constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians. Uluru supporters see a voice in the ­Constitution as integral.

In his first major address as minister at the National Press Club last month, Mr Wyatt left open the option of a constitutionally enshrine­d voice, but in the days and weeks following, urged pragmatism and comprom­ise.

Finally, on August 15, he ruled out the possibility that the referendum would include a question on an indigenous voice to parliament in the Constitution.

His comments during the Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture disappointed Uluru supporters. Their hopes had risen after the government accepted the recommendations of the joint select com­mittee on recognition last year. These included that, after a process of co-design, the government consider “in a ­deliberate and timely manner, legislative, executive and constitutional options to establish The Voice”.

Among the men and women expected to put their names to the letter is Referendum Council co-chair Pat Anderson, law professor Megan Davis — who designed the Uluru dialogues — and Cheryl Axleby, the co-chair of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services.