Dutton: Referendums on Indigenous recognition and fixed four year terms won’t happen

Peter Dutton says referendums recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution and creating fixed four-year terms will not proceed under a Coalition government without bipartisan support.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton on the campaign trail in Sydney. Picture Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

Referendums recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution and creating fixed four-year terms will not proceed under a Coalition government without the promise of bipartisan support, Peter Dutton says, leaving both ideas unlikely to progress given Anthony Albanese’s opposition to having another referendum take place next term.

Despite on Saturday confirming a desire to hold a referendum to include a preamble in the Constitution to recognise Indigenous Australians and fix parlia­mentary terms on a four-year basis, the Coalition on Sunday admitted both could feasibly be done only with the Labor Party guaranteeing its support first.

“There will be no referendum until there’s a position of bipartisanship, and clearly there’s no bipartisanship on this issue,” Mr Dutton said on the matter of recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.

“So there will be no referendum over the course of the next term of parliament, the Prime Minister’s made that very clear.”

Mr Dutton left the door open to a referendum that would allow for dual nationals to be stripped of citizenship should they commit a serious crime.

The Coalition leader floated the idea for three separate referendums despite having claimed “the Australian public is probably over the referendum process for some time” following the vote on the Indigenous voice to parliament in late 2023.

Mr Albanese said he was not interested in pursuing a referendum on any topic in the next term of parliament.