PRIME Minister Anthony Albanese has promised Australia a referendum on the Voice in this first term of Parliament. What does this mean?
At this point, we have been provided with no detail by Mr Albanese and yet it feels like we have a blindfold over our eyes and pen in our hands.
We need to be cautious about any change to our Constitution that would divide us by race.
To assume that all Indigenous people have the same desire for the Voice is to ignore the many and varied views raised by people such as Warren Mundine AO, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Senator Kerrynne Liddle, among others.
This week, we saw Peter FitzSimons accuse Senator Price of “empowering racists” because she holds a different view to his own. This once again exposes an inability for open, genuine, and respectful debate.
As I have raised before, too often in politics and media, we are reduced to polarising binary arguments, part of a zero sum game. We have got to do better than this. These issues are important for us to determine as a nation.
While every voice is important, one voice should not be prioritised by default.
In the 47th Parliament, we have 11 Indigenous MPs and senators. This is a wonderful outcome of a free and fair election. The Voice would bring about a permanent change to our democratic system of government and could give veto powers to an unelected Indigenous advisory group or chamber.
As Jacinta Price has articulated, any Voice to Parliament needs to be more than virtue signalling and empty symbolism. Is the Voice required to make the serious and significant changes to closing the gap in terms of health, domestic violence, child abuse and education outcomes? These tragic and entrenched issues need a committed focused approach in order for real change to occur. There is no guarantee that a Voice will achieve that any better than ATSIC did.
