Parliament to rule on Indigenous voice, says Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese says parliament will decide what the voice can consider and make representations on.

Anthony Albanese during question time in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Anthony Albanese says parliament will decide what the voice can consider and make representations on, as he tries to cut off questions about which policies will fit within the advisory body’s remit.

The Prime Minister also refused to repeat on Tuesday that defence and foreign affairs policies would be excluded from the voice’s scope, a day after he said the advisory body was “not about” those issues.

Attempting to address confusion over what the voice will consult on, Mr Albanese said there had been two key changes to the third clause of the government’s proposed constitutional amendment, which states: “The parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

In a fiery answer to the ­Coalition during question time, Mr Albanese said of the clause: “This is an assertion of the primacy of the parliament for what the voice will consider. That is why it is consistent with the views put forward by constitutional conservatives.

“This is a conservative, modest proposal that has been made even tighter as a result of the additional words that were added between the Garma speech and last Thursday and in the legislation that will be introduced. The two key words there are ‘matters’ and then ‘including’ … So the primacy of the parliament is made very clear by those words.”

Constitutional lawyers have argued the scope of the voice was broad and would include matters directly and indirectly relating to Indigenous Australians, which ultimately would be determined by future court challenges.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the voice would “of course” be able to consult the government about the safeguard mechanism if it was deemed important to Indigenous Australians, after Mr Albanese dismissed such a suggestion on Monday and said the advisory body would make representations only on matters that “directly” impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The Prime Minister labelled questioning on whether the voice could make representations on the safeguard mechanism a “distraction” and “strange” but was rebuked by the Greens, who believe the government’s signature climate policy should be within the advisory body’s remit.

Mr Bowen said attempts by the Coalition and others to make the voice appear “more complicated” were “cheap and pathetic”.

Ahead of the government introducing the Constitutional Alteration Bill to the House of Representatives on Thursday, which lays out the government’s proposed referendum question and constitutional amendment, Mr Albanese told his MPs that being on the same page as the referendum working group was a precondition for success.

The government’s referendum engagement group, which includes the 21 members of the referendum working group, will be in Parliament House on Thursday for the bill’s introduction.

Labor opted to maintain the voice’s power to consult executive government as well as the parliament following months of meetings with the referendum working group, despite concerns from conservatives that this opens up the voice to legal challenges.