Internal warfare: SA Liberals split over plan to axe state voice
Vincent Tarzia's leadership faces fresh scrutiny as the South Australian Liberals fail to agree on promising to scrap the state’s Indigenous voice for the March state election.
The South Australian Liberals are in disarray over the Indigenous voice to parliament with rival factions failing to agree on whether to axe or retain the contentious advisory body.
The chaos is fuelling fresh speculation about Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia’s grip on the job, with the proximity of the March 21 state election now the only thing saving him from being replaced.
The latest trigger for internal ructions is the party’s inability to take a clear stance on the future of the state’s voice, with the leader and his Indigenous affairs spokesman offering different and convoluted positions in separate radio interviews on Tuesday.
The Australian revealed on Monday that Mr Tarzia believed the SA Voice had been a failure and that the Liberals would replace it with a smaller advisory group known as the Aboriginal Representative Body.
But amid two days of confusion, it has now emerged that the ARB would exist in addition to the voice and that the SA Liberals do not have a policy of scrapping the existing arrangement, but possibly adding to it.
The Australian has also learnt that the future of the voice has not been discussed formally by the SA Liberal party room despite the fact that it is hugely unpopular with many voters and the state election is less than four months away.
It is now clear that while every SA Liberal conservative wants to promise that the voice will be axed, many party moderates – and also apparently Mr Tarzia – are worried that a clear promise to abolish the voice will cost the party seats in middle-class suburbs.
This is despite the fact that Mr Tarzia could not have been clearer in his comments to The Australian when he said: “We have struggled to find a single piece of legislation that has had meaningful engagement with the current voice under Labor, proving it is a defective model that won’t achieve practical outcomes.
“A Liberal state government would reform the current version of the First Nations voice to re-establish the Aboriginal Affairs Committee of the SA parliament and pursue a more representative and accountable model of engagement than Labor’s voice.”
Since The Australian ran that article on Monday Mr Tarzia ducked requests to explain his stance on commercial radio, with the job falling to his Indigenous affairs spokesman Josh Teague to try to outline the Liberal position.
Listeners were bombarding the program with complaints as Mr Teague tried to explain that the voice would not be abolished but “reformed and improved” through the creation of an Aboriginal Representative Body.
“Our position hasn’t changed, our position has been the same throughout: that is that we want a body that is representing Aboriginal people in SA to government and parliament to be workable and productive for Aboriginal people,” Mr Teague told Radio FIVEaa.
Asked if this meant the voice would stay, Mr Teague said: “We will improve and render productive the body that’s there. What we will do first is to ensure that if it is called a voice to parliament that it actually has a means of engagement with parliament.
“I would say that that will certainly occur. What will happen is that you will have a body that is able to inspire confidence not only among the broader South Australian community but Aboriginal people themselves.”
Asked if there would still be an elected body of six regional voices and a state voice under a Liberal government, Mr Teague said: “Yes there will. But the magic is not in the name; the magic is in the work the work that it does.”
After Mr Teague’s interview, Mr Tarzia went on ABC Radio 891 where he said he believed the voice might cease to exist, but would not say whether the Liberals were promising to axe it.
“I have always had an issue with this voice model, I’ve always had an issue with it,” Mr Tarzia said.
“There is a review mechanism on the voice. I think it’s after year three, and we are past year two, so from my point of view, let me be very clear, what we want to see is we want to see outcomes for Aboriginal people in this state. We want to see them improve.
“When I saw that (voice) presentation to the parliament I’ve got to say I was not impressed, I think it’s been overly bureaucratic, and I can’t see a situation where long term the voice continues.”
Asked if he would be campaigning on a promise to repeal the voice, Mr Tarzia replied: “Well as I said there’s a review in year three and we are coming into year two. I think that to be honest the days of the voice are going to be short-lived because it’s not achieving what it set out to do.”
Asked again if as premier he would axe the voice, Mr Tarzia said: “If I had the power to do so, it would absolutely be something that I would contemplate.”
MPs listening to the two interviews told The Australian they could not believe the party was unable to take a stand on something that “should be an obvious vote winner”.
“I would have been laughing listening to those interviews if I wasn’t so f..king angry,” one MP said.
Another said: “Vincent and Josh have stuffed the whole thing up. It’s a no-brainer, the No results here in the referendum were the highest in the land, and this just makes us look like we have got no idea because we are too afraid to take a stand.”
The division over the voice follows the SA Liberals’ confusion over net zero where the state party’s rank and file passed a motion in June ditching net zero, but the parliamentary party remains wedded to the emissions target for fear of losing votes in its few remaining inner-city suburban seats.
Sources said there was no expectation that Mr Tarzia would be challenged by his health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn who despite not making a play for the job is being pushed by others as a furniture-saving candidate amid polling showing the Liberals might hold just three of the 47 state seats in March.
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