New hope for Indigenous voice as ‘vision of unity’

One of the most effective champions of an Indigenous voice calls path to constitutional enshrinement ‘inextinguishable’.

University of NSW Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law Megan Davis.

One of the most effective champions of an Indigenous Voice to the Australian parliament has ­described the path to constitutional enshrinement as “inextinguishable”.

As Australians prepare their responses to an interim report on the Indigenous voice, Cobble Cobble Aboriginal woman Megan Davis — the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of NSW — has ­offered praise for its proposal to allow communities themselves to deliberate and design how they want to be heard.

The 239-page report explores how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote and ­regional communities can talk to governments about the programs and policies that affect them. By sharing in decisions, governments and Indigenous people can ensure better results.

Professor Davis designed dialogues around Australia that ­resulted in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart. Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull rejected the statement’s call for a constitutionally-­enshrined voice by likening it to a “third chamber of parliament”.

However, some Uluru supporters who see a voice that lacks constitutional protection as unacceptable have chosen to take an optimistic view of the Morrison government’s approach. At the 2019 election, the Coalition made a commitment to fund the design of an Indigenous Voice and make decisions about whether it should be in the constitution later, after the Australian people got to see what the voice was.

The Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, appointed 52 Australians, most of them Indigenous, to produce proposals for the voice that are now open to public comment.

Professor Davis sees the ­voice report as progress after more than a decade of important work in Australia on constitutional reform.

“The Interim Report provides an opportunity for all Australians to have a say and is a welcome next step on the inextinguishable road to constitutional enshrinement,” Professor Davis writes in Inquirer on Saturday.

“The Interim Voice report has its genesis in the Uluru Statement which calls for ‘the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.’’

Professor Davis said the ­options for the voice in the report made public last week “do not contemplate the driving sentiment of the grassroots dialogues (at Uluru) which is to not be a political football, subject to the whim of the government of the day”.

“These factors such as insecurity and uncertainty are key drivers in Indigenous disadvantage. And although it enlists the language of ‘voice to parliament’ in the report, the measures and mechanisms suggested to provide that voice ‘to parliament’ are ­either mediated by the government of the day or are based on existing parliamentary ways and means, which when assessed by their efficacy today in terms of ­accountability and voice, are ­arguably ineffectual.’’

However, Professor Davis ­believes the report is not in itself a death knell to the Uluru Statement. “There is nothing in the ­Interim Voice report that forecloses on this vision of unity,” she said.