SA voice ‘similar’ to Dutton’s push for regional model

The South Australian First Nations voice is ‘very, very similar’ to the local and regional voices Peter Dutton pushed for last year, SA Indigenous Affairs Minister Kyam Maher has claimed.

The newly established South Australian First Nations voice is “very, very similar” to the local and regional voices that Peter Dutton pushed for last year, SA Indigenous Affairs Minister Kyam Maher has claimed.

He told The Australian the six local voices, each representing a geographical region, were almost identical to what the Opposition Leader offered as an LNP policy platform last April.

At the time, Mr Dutton had bound his frontbench to the No side in the debate over a constitutionally enshrined national voice, although he advanced an alternative – the creation of local and regional voices through legislation, arguing this approach would more effectively advocate for Aboriginal communities.

SA Indigenous Affairs Minister Kyam Maher. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Naomi Jellicoe

In Glenelg on Sunday, Mr Maher said this is what his government had just done. “We saw many conservative politicians – Peter Dutton and former prime minister Tony Abbott – come out in support of local voices in the lead-up to last year’s referendum,” he said.

“And that’s exactly what we have in South Australia – a series of local voices where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are really representing their communities at a local level and also selecting their representatives for our statewide voice.”

Mr Abbott told The Australian he did not recall ever supporting local voices. As prime minister, he supported the Empowered Communities initiative in which Indigenous leaders from remote, rural and urban areas consulted their communities and then spoke directly to decision makers to cut waste and redirect spending. This project continues but is not legislated.

Australians emphatically voted No to the national voice on October 14 last year.

The two-tiered voice in SA is established in legislation and will “engage with and provide advice to the South Australian parliament and the South Australian government on matters of interest to First Nations people”.

The state voice can engage with other levels of government, including the commonwealth, at its discretion, according to the SA Law Handbook.

Mr Dutton’s previous remarks on local and regional voices indicate he intended to impose strict limits on the topics on which it could advise.

“The Liberal Party model will limit the local and regional bodies to issues specific to improving lives and outcomes locally,” Mr Dutton told The Australian on April 8 last year.

Voice member TJ Thomas said he hoped the local voices could work with government to create job opportunities.

Mr Thomas, from Port Augusta, said programs that encouraged people into trades was one example.

He said he expected the SA voice would be judged unfairly by some. “I think some people’s understanding of the voice is that it was going to be like a silver bullet,” he said.

“It’s not the silver bullet. But it is the incremental change that it will enable.”