Bill Shorten skirts mention of indigenous treaty

Bill Shorten has pledged a ‘bipartisan’ approach to recognising indigenous Australians.

Bill Shorten says the ‘ideal goal’ would be an agreement on a referendum to be held in May next year. Picture: John Feder

Bill Shorten has pledged a “bipartisan” approach to recognising indigenous Australians in the Constitution after emerging from a meeting with Malcolm Turnbull to emphasise the need for the change, while avoiding any ref­erence to a treaty as part of the process.

The Opposition Leader said he had a “civil discussion” with the Prime Minister on indigenous recognition and made no criticism of the government’s handling of the issue, weeks after he took a different approach by backing the idea of a treaty during the election campaign.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten are yet to agree on a unified position, however, as they wait for a Referendum Council chaired by Mark Leibler and Pat Anderson to hand down its recommendation on how the constitutional amendment should be worded. The council has promised to ramp up consultations with indigenous Australians and the wider community over the second half of this year, given the need to build support for a change that will ­require a majority of votes in a majority of states in order to ­succeed.

Mr Shorten said the “ideal goal” would be an agreement on a referendum to be held in May next year.

“I think the next practical step is hear what the Referendum Council comes back to both Mr Turnbull and I in terms of recommendations.

“It is important that we are bipartisan in our goals on this and I believe we both are,” he said.

While the two leaders also discussed a same-sex marriage plebiscite yesterday, there was no plan to hold that vote at the same time as the referendum.

Mr Shorten sent mixed signals on the plebiscite yesterday, suggesting at one point that he was open to the idea but later attacking the $160 million cost and warning of the risk of a divisive public debate.

“The Prime Minister wants us to agree with the plebiscite, absolutely. There’s a lot of detail to go; I said I’d listen. Australians expect me to listen to the Prime Minister, and I’ll do that,” he said.

While Labor appears determined to put a vote on marriage equality to the parliament to avoid the need for a plebiscite, it has not taken a definite stance on whether it would vote in ­parliament in favour of the bill that will be needed to set up the people’s vote.