Referendum put before vote on Voice to parliament

Labor is unlikely to put out details on how a Voice to parliament would work before a vote to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal Australians.

Marcia Langton, a co-author of the proposed Voice report. Picture: Arsineh Houspian.

Labor is increasingly unlikely to put out a detailed plan on how an Indigenous Voice to parliament would work before next year’s national vote to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal Australians through an advisory body.

Senior Albanese government sources have told The Australian there is growing concern that granular details about how the Voice would be structured and how it would operate – including its membership – could ultimately derail a Yes vote.

The Uluru Dialogue co-chair Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman and Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of NSW, said: “Going out with fully fledged detail is dangerous because the nation needs to vote on the (constitutional) amendment, not the model.”

Professor Davis is a member of the government’s constitutional expert group, which is advising on the final wording of the proposed amendment to guarantee the existence of an Indigenous Voice.

“The purpose of having the amendment is to allow flexibility in the (voice) model,” Prof Davis said.

“There needs to be flexibility in the model, it needs to be able to change, you need agility. The Voice in 2022 is not going to be the same as the Voice in 2052.”

 

A “civics campaign” about the purpose of the Voice and what it would mean to guarantee its existence through a constitutional amendment is likely to begin in late summer or autumn.

However, sources inside government said there was increasing concern that publishing a final proposal for the Voice’s structure in coming months could distract from a campaign that is supposed to be about the principle of an Indigenous advisory body to parliament.

On Monday Tom Calma, the Indigenous professor appointed by the Morrison government to co-chair a proposal for what the Voice could look like, said he expected the final model to be agreed on after the referendum. Prof Calma is now a member of the referendum working group advising government.

“The working group ... will consider it and then parliament will make the final decision once the referendum passes, by way of structure,” he told ABC Radio National.

“We must remember that the government of the day will propose a bill post the referendum which will then go through both houses of parliament and be debated on what the structure will be ...”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s draft wording announced in July does not dictate the structure of the Voice. He has repeatedly said that will be a matter for parliament.

Some Voice proponents inside Labor see demands for final detail from Voice opponents as a ploy. They do not want to repeat the republic referendum debate over detail in 1999 when disagreement about how the head of state should be appointed became the focus, rather than whether or not Australia should become a republic.

The government’s decisions about the level of detail it proposes ahead of the referendum will be informed by the recommendations of its First Nations Referendum Working Group, which is yet to discuss the matter.

Prof Calma said the issues of the Voice design and the referendum should be considered separately.

“What we’ve got to do is to really separate the two things. One is referendum that’s being proposed and the second is what the Voice will be into the future,” he said.

“The referendum is ... an enabler to allow ... the structures to form into the future.

“The referendum is about saying let’s change the Constitution so this can be a standard practice rather than an ad hoc practice.”

Opposition spokesman on Indigenous Australians Julian Leeser raised alarm with the government’s “evasiveness” and said legislation “gives people certainty”.

When pressed on the Coalition’s position, Mr Leeser said he would not weigh into “hypotheticals” and that it was still possible the government might “change its mind” and present a Bill before a referendum.

Prof Calma said the Voice would operate in a similar way to existing advisory bodies, including the auditor-general, law reform commission and Commonwealth ombuds-man. Prof Calma said that while he did not expect legislation to come before a referendum, there would be more detail to come out about the Voice “early in the new year”.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said at the weekend that the 262-page proposed Voice report by Prof Calma and Prof Marcia Langton would be “absolutely fundamental” to what Labor took to parliament as a proposed Voice design.