Peter Dutton gives voice to doubts about Indigenous referendum

Peter Dutton wants to ‘remain open-spirited and generous-minded’ about an Indigenous voice but he is demanding more answers from Labor on how the body would work.

Peter Dutton makes a point during question time at Parliament House, Canberra, on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Peter Dutton wants to “remain open-spirited and generous-minded” about an Indigenous voice to parliament but he is demanding more answers from Labor on how the body would work.

The Opposition Leader used the joint Coalition partyroom meeting on Tuesday to say he would not come to a position on the body until he received more detail from the government.

“Labor seems to be making it up as they’re going along, they can’t answer even the most basic questions,” he told MPs. “They say that the voice will only apply to policies that apply to Indigenous Australians but surely foreign policy and defence policy affects Indigenous Australians.

“We still don’t know what the body is going to look like, how it will be made up, and which communities will be represented and how they will be chosen.”

Liberal MPs told The Australian they did not believe Mr Dutton would ultimately support the voice proposal.

In Labor’s caucus meeting on Tuesday, MPs received a briefing on the voice referendum from Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and West Australian senator Pat Dodson.

Senator Dodson, the special envoy for the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, said “we have narrowed down our task this term to entrench a successful referendum”.

Mr Dreyfus said the “slow build” campaign would work only if it was driven by the community.

Ms Burney was asked by a Labor MP about how to refer to the claim by the Greens that a treaty should come before the voice.

She said the government’s position was for a voice to come in the first instance and noted work would happen concurrently on forming a Makarrata commission to oversee the treaty process.

She also urged MPs against being distracted by what the Greens were proposing.

With Victoria already commencing treaty negotiations, Senator Dodson said the state was “in a different stage of the debate to the rest of Australia”.

“In the voice, representatives will not be from (political) parties. Their point of reference will be First Nations communities.”

Anthony Albanese also stepped up his pitch this week for business to embrace an Indigenous voice to parliament, using his address to the Australian minerals industry dinner on Monday to advance the case.

“A voice to parliament is a matter of common courtesy and common sense,” the Prime Minister told attendees.

“It pays respect to the extraordinary privilege we have to share this ancient continent with the world’s oldest continuous culture. And it recognises the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have a say on the decisions that affect their lives.

“Nothing more – but nothing less.”

He said the voice was a “straightforward act of Australian decency” and “Australian fairness should be above politics.”

“For a referendum to succeed, we will need to recruit and embrace every advocate and ally and supporter, from ‘every point under the southern sky’,” he said.