Recognition progress ‘up to party leaders’, says indigenous lawyer

‘Point scoring’ by indigenous MPs over constitutional recognition must be countered by leaders, says an ex-candidate.

Indigenous lawyer Geoffrey Winters in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Hollie Adams

Political “point-scoring” by indig­enous MPs over constitutional recognition must be countered by party leaders if the proposed reform­ is to succeed, an Aboriginal lawyer who stood for the Liberal Party against deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek at the last federal election has warned.

Geoffrey Winters, a native-title specialist at Sydney law firm Chalk & Behrendt, criticised the lack of support from both sides of polit­ics after the release of the ­Referendum Council’s report, which proposed a constitutionally enshrined indigenous advisory body to the parliament and an extra-constitutional declaration of ­recognition.

“I was not impressed when last week after the report came out you saw the member for Barton (Labor MP Linda Burney) and subsequently the WA senator (Labor’s Patrick Dodson) come out and express­ ... a pre-emptive defeatist attitu­de — but what might be more sceptically be understood as point-scoring,” he said.

“This is a moment that requires serious confidence that will only come from people of leadership and positions of influence. And for the first statement to come from the member for Barton that she thinks this is more difficult than a non-discrimination clause, I find that ill-thought-out and sadly perhaps­ based on not having read the logic underneath the report.”

Mr Winters, who took almost 30 per cent of votes against Ms Plibersek’s 44 per cent in last year’s election, also targeted his party’s sole indigenous federal MP.

“I must confess Ken Wyatt, the first indigenous member of the frontbench, expressed similar concern­, (so) the greatest thing to watch is to see how the rest of the parties react,” he said. “This is going to need to be led by both parties­. It’s a unique opportunity for us to come together but it’s also an opportunity for some people to play point-scoring.”

Mr Winters spoke at a forum in Sydney held by the conservative Uphold and Recognise organisation, which argues the proposed reform is modest and can satisfy constitutional conservatives.

He said initially he had not supported­ the advisory body model because he had seen it as a “spiritual” concept unsuited to the “mechanical document” of the Constitution, but the “breaking point” for him was that “the only group of Australians that are singularly dealt with by powers of the Constitution are the group that now would like the right to give some advice about how that power’s exercised, either to their benefit or their detriment — and … the common law of procedural fairness says that’s a fundamental, basic right”.

Constitutional lawyer Greg Craven told the forum the greatest danger to the proposed change could be the “hardness of heart” of politicians who were inclined to say: “I understand things that you don’t understand; this is all too hard, this doesn’t look like the sort of thing I usually do.” But he predicted­ once that hurdle was overcome, “this constitutional pro­po­sal is actually likely to gather support as it goes”.