Anthony Albanese rejects Peter Dutton’s request to delay or change the referendum
Peter Dutton said Australians had been ‘starved’ of detail and weren’t ready to vote on the voice.
Anthony Albanese has rejected Peter Dutton’s “offer of friendship” to delay or change the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, ramping up a scathing personal attack against the Opposition Leader in a bid to counter accusations Australians are being starved of detail.
As the final parliamentary sitting week before the winter break came to a close, Mr Dutton declared Australians weren’t ready to vote on the voice because of a lack of detail.
He called for the Prime Minister to delay the referendum if he believed it was going to fail so reconciliation was not set back and used a matter of public importance to demand Mr Albanese recalibrate by working on a legislated advisory body and pursuing constitutional recognition separately, in a bid to unify the country.
The Yes campaign is banking on just four more sitting weeks between now and polling day, expected in October, after Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney faced days of intense parliamentary questioning over what the voice would and would not offer advice on.
“What we’re seeing at the moment is a government that deliberately is keeping information from the Australian public, hoping that because of their goodwill that you seek to exploit, and hoping because of the vibe of the thing that it will pass. This will be the most significant change to the way in which our government operates in our country’s history,” Mr Dutton said.
“The Prime Minister of the day has the option before him now to work with us to say to the Australian public that we will go forward in a unifying, not dividing, moment in October of this year. That is the hand of friendship that we extend to the government today.
“We propose to legislate the voice. Let’s do that. Let’s sit down and work together on the drafting of that and make sure that Australians can understand how it works, good and bad, but let them be informed. Don’t treat the Australian public with such contempt. That’s the duty of the Prime Minister of the day. And at the moment he’s sadly lacking his fundamental teaching to the Australian people.”
Mr Albanese rubbished the 10-minute speech, saying it was “totally devoid of empathy”, labelling it misinformation and accusing Mr Dutton of trying to stoke confusion and division.
He has said he was open to changes to the government’s chosen wording for the voice constitutional amendment while parliament was debating the provisions, but ultimately no formal submission was personally put to him by the Coalition – though the Liberal Party provided alternative options in a dissenting report.
“In 2017, Indigenous Australians met and agreed on the Uluru Statement from the heart. The Leader of the Opposition has just given a statement without a heart,” the Prime Minister said.
“The question that Australians will be asked at this referendum is clear. The exact wording of the constitutional provisions is clear. The eight design principles explaining what the voice will do and what it won’t do are clear. All of this information has been available, in some cases for many years, most of it developed when the former Coalition was in government.
“What’s just as clear is that those opposite, some, are not interested in answers. They were always set on saying no.”
Quoting Mr Dutton from 2008 ahead of Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations - when he said “Australians deserved to know the full details of the implications of this policy, including the financial ones” and warned of serious damages claims – the Prime Minister hit out at what he said was a similar “completely unworthy” scare campaign on the voice.
“The Leader of the Opposition didn’t just sit there and tell Brendan Nelson that he was opposed to it (the apology). He actually stood up and walked out,” Mr Albanese said.
That’s the Peter Dutton I know, that’s the Peter Dutton that Australians know. And we’re seeing it played out again.”
Mr Dutton said the government had been peddling a “legal nonsense” in parliament, after Mr Albanese sought to place legal limits on the scope of the voice and assured Australians its remit would be restricted to issues that “specifically or differently” affect Aboriginal people.
The Prime Minister doubled down on the argument on Thursday, after constitutional law experts said the voice’s scope could be broader.
The constitutional amendment says the voice may make representations to the parliament and the executive government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. Mr Dreyfus’s speech says those matters can “include” issues that specifically or differently impact Indigenous Australians.
The four land council chiefs from the Northern Territory were in parliament on Thursday to present Mr Albanese with the 2023 Barunga declaration, which calls for “the recognition of our peoples in our still young Constitution by enshrining our voice to the parliament and executive government, never to be rendered silent with the stroke of a pen again”.
Ms Burney invoked former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, saying Australians should grab the voice to parliament with both hands as she was asked if the government would follow the voice’s advice if it said Australia Day should be changed or abolished.
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