Anthony Albanese must cultivate coherence and party cohesion on Indigenous voice

Labor and Anthony Albanese have got off to a bad and confusing start in the Yes campaign. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

A third, different argument has emerged in as many days into Labor’s campaign to sell the referendum proposal for an Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government as Anthony Albanese is forced to shift ground.

Facing questions in parliament on Tuesday and a rebuke from voice supporters, the Prime Minister had to go into retreat and produced a new form of words and line of attack.

What’s more, Albanese was unable to repeat his clear public declarations on Monday that the voice was “not about” climate change, foreign affairs and defence.

Labor has got off to a bad and confusing start in the Yes campaign after releasing the words and principles for the referendum in a debate that could stretch for months.

Albanese is getting caught between opponents to the referendum fearful of a wide-ranging new layer of bureaucracy reaching into day-to-day government and voice proponents demanding an all-encompassing power to intervene in all policy.

On Monday afternoon, he brusquely dismissed questions on whether representatives of the voice would have the power to seek advice from public servants on foreign affairs, defence policy and carbon emissions controls. “The voice is not about defence policy. It’s not about foreign policy. It’s not about these issues. The voice is about issues that directly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders,” he said.

On Sunday, Mark Dreyfus conceded the voice could challenge government decisions in the High Court and on Monday said the governor-general and foreign and defence policy could be covered by requests from the voice.

Albanese contradicted his Attorney-General as he sought to restrict the remit of the voice and introduced a form of words – not in the referendum proposal – that only matters “directly” affecting Indigenous Australians would be covered.

He became wedged between voice proponents who rebuked him for wanting to exclude policies and opponents who said he could not guarantee excluding carbon emissions, foreign and defence policies.

The Coalition tried to trap Labor on inconvenient details, thrice seeking a repeat of exclusion claims. Albanese refused to respond, saying the original wording of the referendum, which does not include “directly affect”, was a “conservative modest proposal” that gave parliament primacy.

Amid popular support for the voice, Labor still has room to win but it’s going to have to stop dodging questions and produce a coherent argument that lasts more than a day.