John Howard calls on No Indigenous voice to parliament supporters to maintain their rage

John Howard has suggested the voice defies what makes us Australian and urged no voters to resist the Yes campaign in coming weeks.

Former Prime Minister John Howard says the voice will be divisive. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

John Howard has urged Australians intending to vote no at the voice referendum to “maintain the rage” throughout the six-week campaign.

The former prime minister weighed in on the decision by sporting codes to support the voice, saying he had personally appealed to the heads of two codes to stay neutral. “If the voice gets up, there will be plenty of people saying the next thing is a treaty,” Mr Howard told Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson.

“I think that of all the absurdities coming out of this debate, there is nothing more absurd than the notion of making a treaty with Indigenous.

“How can you make a treaty with yourself? Treaties are made between sovereign nations.”

Mr Howard is well known to be emphatically against the Indigenous voice to parliament but his remarks on the eve of Anthony ­Albanese’s announcement of the date of the referendum go further than ever.

The Liberal prime minister from 1996 to 2007 said: “If you are intending to vote no, hold hard to that intention. Don’t be blinded by an avalanche of publicity.”

Mr Howard insisted the constitutional amendment on which Australians would soon vote divided the nation by race. “However you slice and dice, it does do that,” he said. “It does create a body that will be inevitably composed of ­Indigenous people and the electorate for that body will be composed by Indigenous Australians.”

Mr Howard then said the proposal for an Indigenous advisory body went against what made ­people Australian.

“I have often thought of a speech I’ve heard Bob Hawke make in 1988 when he said the only thing that define(s) you as an Australian was your commitment to Australia,” he said.

“No matter where you came from, whether you were Anglo Celtic, you were Italian, Greek, Christian, Jewish, Atheist whatever. It didn’t matter. That’s how it should be.

“You were defined by your commitment to Australia.

“Yet this proposal defies that. Defies the declaration of the person I regard as the most successful Labor – and I stress the adjective – prime minister that Australia has had.”

Mr Howard said he hoped the voice was defeated resoundingly in every state.

“I would encourage no voters to maintain the rage,” he said.

Mr Howard’s criticisms of the proposal to enshrine the voice in the Constitution included that it would ultimately coerce and not advise.

“Whatever the government might say in the next six weeks, the truth is that any pronouncement of this body will have a coercive ­effect on the government of the day,” he said.

“You’ve gone through all this trouble to insert it in the Con­stitution and now you are going to ignore their advice?”