Bill Shorten ally, Richard Marles, backs Anthony Albanese on January 26

Bill Shorten ally Richard Marles says Anthony Albanese’s joint referendum proposal is “worth thinking through”.

Labor MP Richard Marles. Picture: Kym Smith.

Bill Shorten ally Richard Marles has offered support to former Shorten leadership rival Anthony Albanese’s proposal to hold a joint referendum on the republic and indigenous constitutional recognition on January 26.

Mr Marles said the idea aimed at reframing Australia Day was “really interesting” and “worth thinking through”, after Mr Shorten refused to support it, and Mr Albanese refused to say whether he had discussed the matter with the Labor leader.

Mr Albanese’s idea, revealed in the Weekend Australian, proposed the joint referendum as a way of creating a national “platform of unity” and ending divisions over the date of Australia Day, contradicting Labor’s current policy on the issue.

Mr Shorten’s office yesterday declined to comment on the proposal.

Asked whether Mr Albanese’s idea was a good way of addressing division over Australia Day, Mr Marles told Sky News: “I think it’s a really interesting idea that Anthony’s put forward, and I think it’s worth thinking through.”

“I think dealing with our great questions of national sovereignty and indeed the place of First Australians within the status of Australia are really important, and we’ve been saying for some time now that I think the question of a republic needs to be looked at again,” Mr Marles said.

“Australia came about its independence almost in a haphazard way.

“We don’t actually have an independence day in this country until 1942 with the passage of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act that Australia actually became an independent country, and so I think looking at these key national questions which go to our identity and go to our state as an independent nation are critically important.”

Earlier, Mr Albanese was asked whether he had discussed his proposal with Mr Shorten.

Mr Albanese said he had discussed it “with colleagues and the community”.

“I very consciously made this address, as I do every Australia Day, to a ceremony in Enmore Park. I raise ideas with my local community,” he told ABC radio.

“I don’t want this to be a party political debate. One of the problems with the politics in this country is that Labor or the Coalition come up with an idea, and immediately the other side of politics says no.

“What we need is a debate in civil society. Most importantly of course, you can’t have any resolution of these issues without indigenous people having their say. This is an idea that’s put forward in the spirit of reconciliation, in the spirit of how we engage in a way that addresses Australia Day being about not just the past but the present, the country we are today, and also the future.”

Federal Opposition Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese. Picture: AAP.

Mr Albanese said he had raised the issue on Australia Day in the spirit in which Australia Day commemorations are held.

“This wasn’t very consciously a party political position. This is a position put forward by myself,” Mr Albanese said.

“A number of people have contacted me to express support, some have expressed a lack of support. That’s fine.

“What we need to do is to acknowledge that in this year, the demonstrations and the conflict over Australia Day was bigger than last year. Last year the conflict was bigger than the year before.

“Unless we have a way of actually moving the debate forward, rather than having just the tired old arguments, and what that requires is for people to not have their party political logo on, what that requires is for people who are senior in politics, in civil society, in the indigenous community to put forward ideas.”

Mr Albanese said a proposal by indigenous leader Noel Pearson to observe Australia Day on January 25 and 26 to “straddle the two sovereignties” of the First Nations and British settlers had been raised in the same spirit as his proposal.

“I’m not saying my response is the only response,” he said.

“I am saying it is a response, just like Noel Pearson had a very constructive idea that he put forward in the papers on the weekend as well, I think coming from the same perspective of how do we move on from what is a divisive debate but if you look at how that debate’s developed, if it becomes more and more divisive of whether you’re either for Australia Day or for indigenous recognition, it seems to me that this is a debate that won’t take the country forward.

“It would change the meaning, rather than change the date. It would mean that we were acknowledging that yes, this was the arrival of European settlement and that led to the migration of all those millions of people who’ve come to make Australia the country that it is today, but it’s also about recognising the past and reconciliation.”