Voice referendum: ‘States to find their own voices’, says Peter Malinauskas
The expected victory of the No vote at Saturday’s referendum will not stop the rollout of legislated state-based voices, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has predicted.
The expected victory of the No vote at Saturday’s referendum will not stop the rollout of legislated state-based voices to parliament similar to that launching in South Australia next year, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has predicted.
Mr Malinauskas told The Weekend Australian that whatever the result on Saturday, SA would be holding elections in March for delegates to its own voice to parliament, which he hoped would become a model for other states.
While the SA model is the only voice that follows the recommendations of the Uluru Statement with elected delegates, the Victorian parliament also has an Indigenous advisory body and NSW Premier Chris Minns said last month he would look at creating one in NSW.
The SA Premier – who promised to implement a voice prior to his election win last year – said a key difference between the SA voice and the national model was that SA’s involved no change to the Constitution.
He said the operation of the SA voice would show fears around the federal proposal were baseless, in that its inability to force the hand of parliament meant it posed no threat to government authority.
“The South Australian voice will get on with the task next year and at that time people will see the value of having an advisory committee to parliament of Aboriginal people on matters that affect Aboriginal people,” Mr Malinauskas told The Weekend Australian.
“The Closing the Gap challenge is so substantial and so complex that one advisory body isn’t going to fix it, but I certainly don’t think it’s going to hurt it. So the opportunity we have in SA is to take what we hear out of the state voice and see if we can translate it into building momentum towards closing the gap.”
“When the state voice is established and people see that it is a non-binding advisory committee, and they see on occasion the parliament accept the voice advice and on occasion reject the voice advice, I think in the context of the referendum people will wonder what all the fuss was about.”
Mr Malinauskas said he believed other states would look closely at the SA model to see how it worked, what results it achieved and whether it could be implemented elsewhere.
“There will be interest around the country in how the state voice operates,” he said.
“The best-case scenario is that the voice offers advice that enhances outcomes, and people in other states may choose to follow suit. A lot will depend on the outcome of the weekend. But as far as we are concerned it is happening here anyway.
“What we have got in SA is different by the fact that it is legislated. So it’s a different question to what’s being asked on the weekend. I do think people will pay attention. There are a lot of drawbacks in the structure of our federation but one of its strengths is that when one state does something well that becomes the model and can be replicated elsewhere.”
The SA government is spending $10m over the next four years to cover the cost of statewide elections for 46 voice delegates, their remuneration, and an unspecified number of support and administrative staff.
Delegates will be elected in a two-tiered model, with a series of local First Nations voices each having two presiding officers, one male and one female, who will then make up the state First Nations voice, which will formally address parliament once a year.
The geographic division of the Local First Nations Voices will be based around six existing Indigenous boundaries such as Kaurna for the Adelaide Plains and Fleurieu, Ngarrindjeri for the Coorong and Murraylands, and Pitjantjatjara for the northern desert country.
The Kaurna/Adelaide Local Voice will have 11 members, reflecting the bigger Aboriginal city population, while the five regional voices will have seven members, with 12 being appointed from that pool of 46 to create the state voice.
The SA Liberals voted against the state voice this year, with SA Opposition Leader and No vote advocate David Speirs accusing the Premier of confusing people.
“Assuming people are going to vote no on Saturday – and I think they will – they will be very confused when the state voice rolls out,” Mr Speirs told The Weekend Australian. “That puts Peter Malinauskas in a difficult position. It is an experimental concept and he is going to have to explain very carefully how this all works.
“When we come to those state voice elections next March, I think a lot of people will be saying ‘didn’t we vote against this on October 14th?’. They will be very confused, they may be a little bit angry.”
Mr Speirs said the SA government had already delayed the implementation of the voice for fear that unanswered questions around its workings would have damaged the Yes campaign.
“We know it was delayed in SA because it was going to be an almighty distraction. These elections were going to have a range of challenges around self-identification of Aboriginality. There will be challenges as to how people end up getting elected and the turnout in elections.”
The comments came as strategists from both the Yes and No campaign predicted the No vote would prevail comfortably in SA, despite Yes campaigners having earmarked the state as a must-win for the referendum to succeed.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and voice co-architect Noel Pearson chose Adelaide’s northern suburbs for the official campaign launch in August but the latest polling by UK firm focaldata predicted on Thursday that just one of SA’s 10 electorates, the affluent city seat of Adelaide, would be returning a Yes vote.
Mr Speirs said this gelled with his assessment after spending much of the past fortnight on pre-poll booths in his mortgage-belt seat in outer southern Adelaide.
“In the conversations I am having at booths it’s been a steady stream of people all day trending very strongly in the direction of the No vote,” he said. “In the face of a cost-of-living crisis and with division based on race, people are turning against it. The two issues that keep coming up are the lack of information, that people feel like they’re being played for mugs by Anthony Albanese, and they do not like division based on race.”
Mr Malinauskas made no predictions but said he believed the alleged divisiveness of the referendum had been overblown for political ends by the No campaign.
“The catastrophisation of a country spilt in two is a bit overstated. When I see the word ‘division’ in campaign material on the voice it is only ever from the No side. It has been used to harness a political outcome. But after the vote has been done and that doesn’t manifest itself the country will move on pretty quickly. I do genuinely feel for Indigenous people who invested a lot of hope in this outcome.”
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