Shorten plays with fire in the indigenous referendum debate

The furore over the royal commission into the Northern Territory child protection and detention system is a warning to the political and media class — Australia is facing a dangerous moment in race relations that will culminate in the constitutional recognition issue.

The nation is stumbling towards an emotional and potentially explosive situation in relations between indigenous and other Australians. Nobody can control this process.

Years of indigenous frustration, the collapse of much of the indigenous social and family order, the vicious nature of Aboriginal politics, the manipulation of indigenous issues by party leaders for political gain and the resurrection of Pauline Hanson constitute an incendiary mixture.

Dishonesty and pretence abound as political correctness suffocates true discussion. The debate over constitutional recognition sinks further into an almost unbridgeable chasm as the demands from frustrated indigenous leaders become more radical, Labor leader Bill Shorten fuels the furnace of even more unrealistic indigenous demands, and Malcolm Turnbull seems lost as this issue spins far beyond the limits of any position acceptable to the Coalition government.

Yet nobody is allowed to speak the truth. Describing what is happening in front of your eyes is too impolite. The delusion in politics today is that the nation is moving towards a bipartisan expression of indigenous constitutional recognition. In fact, we are heading ­towards a train wreck.

Unless leadership, honesty and compromise are brought to bear urgently, real damage will be done to this country.

This week there was a crack in the facade when Aboriginal Liberal MP Ken Wyatt told this paper the risk was constitutional recognition would “fall off” the agenda. That’s all. Wyatt should know — he chaired the parliamentary inquiry on the subject.

Wyatt fingered Shorten’s latest statements during his visit to northern Australia and the Garma Festival. Wyatt’s tolerance seems to have finally broken. Shattering the mythology, he posed the critical question: should constitutional recognition stay on the table or be deferred for some time to a sorting-out of the huge, divisive and complex issues that now weigh it down?

The referendum, envisaged by Tony Abbott as a unifying “completion” of the Constitution by offering recognition to the original Australians in a way the entire nation could embrace, is now drowning in a cacophony of anger, self-interest and idealistic dreams.

Without a significant correction, the next event is inevitable — those spokespeople, from politics and media, who claim to represent the mainstream will stir the backlash by asking the perfectly justified questions: why haven’t the Australian people been involved in talks about these proposals to alter significantly their Constitution, or change their system of governance, or sponsor a constitutional bill of rights covering racial non-discrimination, or open the door to a treaty between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, or insert into the Constitution an Aboriginal representative institution, a first nations assembly, to begin the process of negotiating a final settlement between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples?

The Opposition Leader has been beating the drum, step after step, on all these issues for the past couple of years including this week. He has taken the offensive and used his appearances at the Garma Festival to talk up Aboriginal demands and fan indigenous expectations. In the process he has left behind first former PM Abbott, then the Prime Minister.

This is not the constitutional recognition envisaged by Abbott. It is not the constitutional recognition envisaged by John Howard when he took this proposal to the 2007 election, a proposal not supported by Labor at the time. It is not the constitutional recognition envisaged by Turnbull. Labor has never liked the Liberal Party view of constitutional recognition.

Shorten has transformed the politics of the referendum. In effect, he has killed the referendum envisaged by the government while pretending all the time to support it. It is a political execution that has been applauded by most indigenous leaders — their cry was rejection of mere symbolism. They wanted a constitutional change that had substance.

Shorten’s tactics are brazen and relentless. Labor said last year that only “a prohibition against racial discrimination constitutionally” would allow the referendum to pass. It is a fantastic claim. Every sign is that the reverse is true. Labor encouraged indigenous leaders and the leaders encouraged Labor. Some indigenous leaders were scathing in private: they said Abbott’s referendum was worthless.

Turning the referendum into a radical change in our Constitution and system of government by inserting a constitutional ban on racial discrimination means a shift of power to judges and a new era of litigation and policy dispute. Many people dedicated to indigenous recognition would not support this very different referendum.

Shorten’s next step was to tie the idea of a treaty to the referendum. Turnbull felt obliged in the campaign to publicly warn against this. Given the election result, Shorten is undeterred.

Last weekend at the Garma Festival he again linked the treaty to the referendum. In political terms, the linkage is now established. It is rejected by Turnbull and the Coalition.

But Shorten went further: he now sides with indigenous leaders Noel Pearson and Galarrwuy Yunupingu in respect of a strong constitutional reform “hook” to have first nations bodies or a first nations assembly inserted into the Constitution to negotiate on behalf of indigenous people a series of deals or a settlement, an idea that is difficult and contentious.

Shorten’s constant theme is empowerment of Aboriginal people and listening to them. On the principle of constitutional recognition, he said it “needs to be shaped and informed by those whom we are finally and belatedly recognising”.

This is a half-truth. Any referendum needs to be shaped by both sides. Indigenous support is necessary but insufficient.

Shorten insists everything he does will help the referendum. He speaks with a forked tongue. Shorten from opposition has transformed this referendum into a proposal unacceptable to the Liberals, a referendum model they would never sponsor and a referendum, if put, that would surely fail — while declaring his bipartisan support for the idea and confidence it will pass.

The same technique was on display over the Northern Territory royal commission — Shorten declared his support but campaigned against Turnbull’s model. Shorten won, given the government’s failure to realise from the start that an indigenous representative was essential.

What game is Shorten playing? He is asserting Labor’s claim to dominate Aboriginal policy. He has set up Turnbull for a lose-lose scenario: if Turnbull defers the referendum, Shorten will discredit him as a weak, valueless leader hostage to his right-wingers. If Turnbull puts the referendum, Shorten has poisoned the waters and can blame its ignominious failure on Turnbull.

Turnbull said this week he intends to discuss the issue with Shorten. Yet Turnbull is in a weak position. Shorten has softened him up for the kill — depicting Turnbull as a man, unlike him, who fails to consult indigenous people or act on such consultations.

Even if Shorten offers Turnbull some concessions on the referendum model to make its passage more possible, how could Turnbull trust him?

The last successful referendum was 40 years ago.

Most of the current debate is utterly delusional. It is foreign to a wider public guaranteed to react unfavourably to the proposals now being canvassed.

Shorten is serious and has made himself the Labor spokesman for indigenous affairs The stakes are high. This is no ordinary tax-and-spend question; it goes to the soul of the nation. The risk is that Shorten is playing a dangerous political game with race relations in this country.