ALP referendum on ‘voice’: vote now, get details later

Labor is considering a referendum on an indigenous ‘voice’, with voters asked to endorse a proposal without a fully formed model.

Labor senator Pat Dodson. Picture: Kym Smith

Labor is considering a Brexit-style referendum on an indigenous “voice to parliament”, with voters asked to endorse a proposal without a fully formed model.

Pat Dodson, set to be the indigenous affairs minister under a Shorten government, said voters would be given a guide on how a voice “may work” but its final form would be decided by parliament if a referendum was successful.

Senator Dodson also declared an ambition to implement ­“regional assemblies” if Labor wins power, giving indigenous communities across Australia an input into the body that would advise parliament on indigenous issues.

The move would see Labor junk its support of the recommendations of a bipartisan parlia­mentary committee — of which Senator Dodson was a co-chair — which suggested a model should be decided before a decision to go to a referendum. Bill Shorten vowed this year to fast-track a voice referendum and hold it in the first term of his prime ministership, after indigenous leaders and unions opposed delaying a public vote until a model was negotiated between the government and ­Aboriginal communities.

“You are not enshrining the model in the Constitution.

“Any model you come up with is always going to be subject to the parliament for modification,” Senator Dodson said.

“So the model is simply ‘This is how it may work’. The fully legislated entity that sets the model into place is a matter for the parliament to determine. That will ­always be the case. So we are not entrenching a model once and for all in the Constitution.

“What people are asking for is a head of power in the Constitution that requires a voice to be set up and how you frame that is going to be critical.”

A vote without a model opens the voice proposal up to a similar attack used against a republic in the 1999 referendum, when Tony Abbott led a campaign that warned of uncertainty if the British monarch was dropped as ­Australia’s head of state.

Senator Dodson said the public would be given a clear idea of how a potential voice would work.

“If you haven’t got a fully blown model then you will have the design principles around which the legislation will be set up,” Senator Dodson said.

He said the creation of regional assemblies — similar to those under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission — was an ambition of a future Shorten government and should be “implicit” in any design guidelines.

In ATSIC, which was abolished by the Howard government, there were 35 regional arms that had elected indigenous members. They were grouped into 16 “zones” that elected a commissioner to sit on the commission’s board.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said going to a referendum without a clear model was the “height of stupidity”. “To suggest that the Australian people will support the establishment of a body in the Constitution that not even Senator Dodson himself can explain demonstrates the absurdity of his proposition,” Senator Scullion said. “What Senator Dodson is suggesting Labor will do if elected will set back the cause of reconciliation.”

Indigenous academic Megan Davis said Senator Dodson’s ­approach was common in referendums votes around the world. “The idea of enshrinement without detail is not new,” Professor Davis said. “Labor has maintained, and I agree, there needs to be some detail provided to the Australian people whether through a detailed design process that follows the referendum or pre-referendum ­design of some key features of the voice. This is no Brexit. No thought had been put into Brexit. There’s been years of work done on the concept, design and operation of a voice.”

Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who helped write “a road map” for an indigenous voice, said this month Labor risked a Brexit-like failure if it rushed to a referendum.