Peter Dutton says reconciliation ‘may be set back’ if referendum fails

Peter Dutton on the consequences of a failed referendum, the Coalition’s policy agenda and his image.

Peter Dutton says conceded ­reconciliation may be set back if the referendum fails, and it will be on Anthony Albanese for failing to provide enough details.

Peter Dutton has conceded ­reconciliation may be set back if the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government fails, but declares it will be the fault of Anthony Albanese who has “starved” Australians of detail.

As the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader set out political battlelines for the Yes and No campaigns in speeches to parliament, Mr Dutton told The Weekend Australian he didn’t believe the country was ready for the voice and voters weren’t “going to be strongarmed into a position”.

“The first outcome (of a failed referendum) is that our country has been saved from a significant disruption to our form of government and our democracy,” he said.

“But I do believe that the Prime Minister will have a lot of questions to answer because he’s made a deliberate decision to starve the detail from the Australian people.”

In an interview to mark his first 12 months as Liberal leader, Mr Dutton revealed the Coalition had costed about 15 policies and would decide which ones to take to the next election and which ones were unaffordable or would “fall away”.

Vowing not to lead a small-target opposition, Mr Dutton said the Coalition would not be “over the top or brazen or extravagant” and would focus on policy alternatives across energy, taxation, welfare reform, the environment, resources and industrial relations.

Mr Dutton rejected the Prime Minister’s warning that a failed referendum would damage relations with regional partners and said Australians would not be seen as racist. But he acknowledged there would be consequences. “Does it set back reconciliation? I think there is a chance that it sets back reconciliation because there are a lot of people who have had their hopes built up by the Prime Minister,” he said. “And I know that there are a lot of Indigenous leaders who believe that the Prime Minister, when he says that this is not his baby, he’s just carrying it for others, that he’s not giving it his all.

“There is significant legal doubt about the wording that’s been put forward. The government itself believes the wording is too broad but instead has taken a decision to take the legal advice from the referendum working group over the solicitor-general and that will worry Australians. But they’re the decisions the Prime Minister is making right now and he’ll have to face up to the consequences if it fails.”

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has warned “reconciliation will die” if a No vote prevails.

Mr Albanese this week quoted solicitor-general Stephen Donaghue’s opinion – in which he said the government’s proposed constitutional amendment was “not just compatible with the system of representative and responsible government prescribed by the Constitution, but an enhancement of that system” – as proof it was legally sound and should be put to the people.

He gave no ground on calls from some within the Liberal Party to minimise the constitutional risk through alternative forms of words, such as by removing “executive government”, replacing the term with “ministers of state” or clarifying further that it would be up to parliament to decide what obligations the executive government has to consider and respond to the voice’s representations.

Both Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton have sought to blame each other for a No result, with the Prime Minister accusing the ­Liberal leader of waging a scare campaign in order to divide the country and cast doubt over the voice. Mr Dutton said the government was launching personal attacks rather than attacking the “indisputable” substance of what he was saying, after the Prime Minister on Thursday said the Opposition Leader’s second reading speech on the referendum was “simply unworthy of the alternative prime minister of this nation”.

“It’s a matter of fact that the six-months design process of the voice doesn’t start until after the vote has taken place,” Mr Dutton said.

“It’s a matter of fact that there is strong bipartisan support for constitutional recognition and to legislate a local and regional voice, as recommended by (Tom) Calma and (Marcia) Langton, in legislation but not in the Constitution.

“The pathway is there for the Prime Minister to unite the country and for us to come together but the Prime Minister, when he won office, made a deliberate decision that he was going to use this as a wedge issue. That’s the decision he’s made. And it’s a cross that he’ll have to bear when the Australian public vote No to the voice.

“The Prime Minister is looking for his Redfern moment, but instead he’s dividing a country that has in its heart a goodwill and, from all of us, a burning desire to see the lives of Indigenous Australians improve.”

Mr Dutton says the PM made a deliberate decision that he was going to use the voice as a wedge issue.

The Calma-Langton co-design report, from July 2021, recommended pursuing local and regional voices and a national voice, while acknowledging there was “strong support” for enshrining a voice in the Constitution.

Mr Dutton pointed out the voice referendum, due between October and December, would mark the halfway point of the parliamentary term. Policy announcements, he said, would be delivered in the second half of the term as the election neared.

The Opposition Leader, who is in effect the leading No campaigner, said his reasons to vote down the referendum would feature prominently in conversations with Australians as he travelled around the country this year, but they were rightly asking why every moment was not being spent talking about cost-of-living pressures”

With the government portraying Mr Dutton as an angry man leading a so-called Noalition, the Liberal leader said he would continue to call out “mischaracterisations and lies”.

“I find as I go around the country and I meet people, the most common refrain is ‘you’re nothing like what we thought you were or who we see on TV’,” he said.

“And we’ve supported 70 bills that the government has put forward in 12 months.

“Far from being a ‘no opposition’, we’ve engaged constructively and I’ve deliberately done that so that we can we can concentrate our efforts on the real points of difference. We’re not opposing for opposing’s sake.”