Don’t let ‘culture wars’ distract from Voice priorities: Linda Burney

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has urged Australians not to be side-tracked by “culture wars” about the Voice’s ability to influence the date of Australia Day, insisting the body will focus on serious issues such as disadvantage in an impassioned appeal from the floor of the parliament.

The opposition trained its question time attack on Burney for the third consecutive day on Wednesday, demanding clarity on how the Voice would operate and whether its remit would extend to advising the government to abolish Australia Day.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney urged Australians not to be side-tracked by “culture wars”.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Voice architect Megan Davis, a constitutional law professor at UNSW, said the Voice would have more urgent priorities, and the political debate subsumed by “gotcha games between politicians” proved why the body was needed.

“Our lives continue to be a political football,” Davis said.

“Every day our people die in disproportionate numbers from preventable causes, are jailed when others would rarely be, and are denied basic necessities like clean running water – all with solutions in plain sight. We have so many problems and the date of Australia Day is nowhere near the most wicked.”

The Coalition sees Burney as a weak link in government efforts to explain the Voice to voters after she told the chamber on Tuesday it “won’t be giving advice on changing Australia Day”. The view was later contradicted by some Indigenous leaders and legal experts.

Deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley, who earlier in the day called on Burney to correct the parliamentary record, asked whether the Voice would “have the power to advise the government to abolish Australia Day”.

But the minister doubled down, saying the Voice “will not be bothered by culture wars”. Delivering a heartfelt plea, she described the terrible living conditions and poor life expectancy outcomes experienced by many Indigenous people in remote communities.

“I have been to communities that are crying out for a different way of doing things. I have been to communities where there are 30 people living in two-bedroom homes. I have been to communities where babies are drinking sweet cordial instead of water because it is cheaper,” Burney said.

“I am not interested in culture wars. I am interested in closing the gap.”

She said the parliament had primacy over any advice given by the Voice, adding: “It is not the policy of this government to change the date of Australia Day.”

The government and the Yes campaign have been dogged this week by years-old tweets by leading Voice campaigner Thomas Mayo that linked the Voice to the pursuit of reparations. Separately, The Australian reported comments made by Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin in 2020 to a religious forum, in which he said the Voice would give Indigenous people “a real opportunity to actually influence change” on issues such as January 26 and “any other issues” affecting them.

They have both since distanced themselves from those remarks.

Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey, who was among a group of legal experts involved in the drafting of the amendment to enshrine the Voice in the Constitution, said the body would be able to make representations about Australia Day if it chose to. However, the government was not bound to follow its advice.

“The argument here is not really a matter of law. It’s a matter of politics. My understanding of what Minister Burney has been saying is that as a matter of politics, the Voice will be wanting to concentrate on far more important things than worrying about Australia Day,” Twomey said.

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