Linda Burney knows referendums usually fail, here's her plan

“It’s about making sure that the outcomes that are so dreadful for Aboriginal people now don’t continue to be... dreadful.” 

“It’s about making sure that the outcomes that are so dreadful for Aboriginal people now don’t continue to be... dreadful.” 

When Australia holds a referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, we will be asked just one, clear question.

“Should Australia adopt an Indigenous Voice to Parliament?”

Or something along those lines, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney told The Oz on Thursday.

She doesn’t want the referendum question to get bogged down in what the Voice would look like. Instead, she wants the Australian population to simply decide whether they want the Voice.

Burney is facing an uphill battle: Our last referendum in 1999, deciding whether Australia should become a Republic, failed.

“What happened with that referendum was that instead of the question being ‘Should Australia be a Republic’... it became about the model,” she told The Oz.

The simplicity of the question was lost, Burney said, and the Australian public voted no. She doesn’t want the same fate to occur for this vote.

“The (1999) debate was around the model, not whether or not we should be a Republic. And I want to avoid that in this referendum.“It’s really important that the question be about whether there should be a Voice, not about what sort of Voice it will be.”

She “won’t be rushed” on choosing a date to hold a referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament because she wants to make sure Australians aren't harried when it comes to voting. 

But that doesn't mean there isn't urgency. It's a delicate act. A big one that she has been tasked by the Prime Minister to perform.

What will we be voting on?

An Indigenous Voice to Parliament - shorthand "the Voice" - would mean a group of Indigenous people are chosen specifically to have a say on laws, policies and programs that directly affect them.

It would be enshrined in the Constitution, meaning it could only be implemented through a referendum.

Speaking exclusively to The Oz, Burney said the Voice was “symbolically really important” because it would be the first time Australians recognise First Nations people in “our country’s birth certificate.”

"We will finally have recognition of first peoples in the Constitution. If the voice is enshrined and protected by the Constitution, it cannot be arbitrarily dismissed by any government. It’s also in my mind very much about getting good clear advice on policies, legislation and programmes that affect First Nations people that come to us in the Australian Parliament.”

“It’s all about getting clear advice on policies, legislation and programmes that affect First Nations people,” she said. “It’s about making sure that the outcomes that are so dreadful for Aboriginal people now don’t continue to be... dreadful.” 

The outcomes Burney referred to were high incarceration rates, high suicide rates and high levels of heart disease. If the Voice were to be implemented, First Nations people would have a say on laws that affect them, she said.

This may be the first time you vote in a referendum

And they're quite different from a plebiscite, like the one in 2017 that saw gay marriage legalised. 

A referendum is only passed if it is approved by a majority of voters across the nation and a majority of voters in a majority of states— known as a double majority.

Historically, more referendums have failed than succeeded.

The last referendum was held in 1998, and asked Australians whether they wanted to get rid of the Queen and become a Republic. Needless to say, we still celebrate the Queen's birthday (and royal weddings).

The last successful referendum was in 1967, when the population agreed that, like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them.

When would the referendum likely happen?

As early as next May.

Indigenous leaders have proposed two dates on when to hold a referendum for an Indigenous voice to parliament - either May 27 next year or January 27, 2024. While seemingly random, the dates are no accident.

Next May would be the 56th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. January 27, 2024 marks 236 years and one day since the establishment of a British colony in Sydney Cove.

Pressure has been mounting on Burney to set a date for the referendum, but she said there was “consultation” to be done before determining a time. 

"I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” she said. “Setting an arbitrary date and working back from it isn’t necessarily the best way to do it.”

Anthony Albanese has promised Labor will prioritise a referendum within its first three years in government.

Not everyone is in favour

Some Indigenous people are actually opposed to the Voice, claiming it doesn’t accurately reflect the breadth of Indigenous people.

They say only traditional owners can speak for their country. Wiradjuri people can speak for Wiradjuri people. Guringdai people can speak for Guringdai people. A national voice, compiling hundreds of Indigenous countries, can’t speak for all people at the same time.

"The Voice to Parliament won't work at all, because you look at how many Indigenous countries there are in Australia, there's over 200," Kaleb Mabo, grandson of the Eddie Mabo who pioneered the country’s most monumental Indigenous land rights case, told The Oz.

"So in order for that to happen, you need over 200 traditional leaders in this voice to Parliament, because not one person can speak on behalf of another."

Others believe the Voice will not go far enough, and instead a Treaty between the government and First Nations Australians which would have legal outcomes and recognise Indigenous histories and prior occupation of the land.

Burney said she was supportive of a Treaty, but believed the Voice should come first.

"I am very supportive of a treaty but treaties take a long time to negotiate they, they are not things that can be done in 12 months or two years or three years," she said.

"The most recent contemporary treaty that I'm aware of was in British Columbia and that took something like I think it was 13 years to negotiate."

Where is the Opposition on this?

Opposition Indigenous Affairs Minister Julian Leeser is apprehensive about what the Voice will look like in practice, but said it has to address systemic issues in Indigenous communities.

“Because of alcoholism, because of substance abuse, because of pornography, we see these scenarios of domestic and family violence and child sexual abuse,” Mr Leeser said on Thursday.

“Can the Voice be designed in such a way which can help address some of those issues? And that's really the challenge for the government in their design of the voice proposals, and that's what we’ll be looking at when they bring their proposals back to us.”

“We’ve said we’ll keep an open mind but we’ll wait to see the detail.”