WA Nationals withdraw support for Indigenous voice to parliament

The WA Nationals’ decision to withdraw official support for the voice is not a rejection of reconciliation, rather a lack of faith and trust in the Albanese government.

Peter Rundle, Bridget McKenzie, Shane Love and David Littleproud at the Nationals WA state conference in Perth at the weekend.

The West Australian Nationals’ decision to withdraw official support for the voice is not a rejection of reconciliation, rather a lack of faith and trust in the Albanese government being able to enact any positive change for Indigenous Australians.

After the Nationals’ WA state conference at the weekend, leader Shane Love, the WA Opposition Leader, confirmed to The Australian the party will not actively campaign against enshrining a voice to parliament, but there will not be “ramifications” should officials and MPs wish to get involved in either side of the debate when the official countdown to the vote kicks off this week.

“If individual members of the party want to campaign either way, that’s their prerogative. And there’s no way we would try to, as a party, stop members who felt strongly on an issue like this from having their own position or to make public statements on it as they see fit,” Mr Love said.

Under former leader Mia Davies, the WA arm of the Nationals was one of the first to publicly support the Yes vote, which followed a decision made at the 2019 state conference to support the intent of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Mr Love said the lack of detail about how the body of the voice will work meant he and the party had to reconsider their position.

“If this were a question of constitutional recognition, it would have overwhelming support from National Party members right across Australia, that I have no doubt. But Labor have chosen to hold the country to ransom,” he said.

The Nationals’ conference carried the motion: “That this state convention of the Nationals WA does not support the constitutional amendment as proposed by the federal Labor government for the ‘voice’ referendum.”

Mr Love said the backflip on the party’s previous support “was in no way unanimous”, but he was pleased the debate – which lasted about 45 minutes – was civil and heard from many rank-and-file members.

“While the majority who voted to not support it, there was still a sizeable number of people who voted the other way. There certainly wasn’t a unanimous view, which I think probably pretty well reflects where the vote is at in Western Australia generally,” Mr Love said.

The party also elected to revise its position on the voice after a campaign by the WA Pastoral and Graziers Association to frame unpopular state Aboriginal cultural heritage laws as a sign of things to come if the voice referendum succeeded. The laws were scrapped by new Premier Roger Cook.

Mr Love will not be joining any campaigns for or against the voice; instead he will be focusing on his role as the alternate premier of WA.