Nationals Announce They Will Not Support the Indigenous Voice to Parliament

Nationals leader David Littleproud with Nationals members and senators at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Monday, November 28, 2022. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

The National party has announced it will not support the federal Labor government’s move to create a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

In Australia, the National Party typically represents regional and rural Australians, including many of the outback Indigenous communities.

Speaking at a press conference, National Party leader David Littleproud said that his party had consulted with Indigenous regional communities across the country and had come to the conclusion that the Voice would not provide any actual real-world benefits to Indigenous communities in Australia.

“As the men and women that represent regional, rural and remote Indigenous Australians, it was important that we got comfort with the fact that this would close the gap, and unfortunately, we’ve got to a position where we don’t believe that this will genuinely close the gap,” Littleproud said.

“We believe in empowering local indigenous communities, giving them the power at a local level n0t create another layer of bureaucracy here in Canberra, but to give those communities the opportunities that those in metropolitan Australia enjoy every day.”

Although there has been no concrete discussions on what form the Indigenous Voice to parliament would take, supporters say it would be a body enshrined in the Constitution that would enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to provide advice to the Parliament on policies and projects that impact their lives.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfuss has said he is disappointed in the National’s decision, but that he won’t give up on changing their minds.

“It’s very disappointing that the National Party have announced this position, but I’m not going to give up on convincing them, and every other Australian, that they should be supporting The Voice to Parliament in the Constitution,” he said.

“This is what the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia called for at Uluru in May 2017. We spent years and years before then discussing and debating what form of recognition of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was appropriate for the Constitution.”

Additionally, voice advocate, From the Heart, said in a post on Twitter that the Nationals had been too premature in their rejection.

“The Nationals have jumped the gun on constitutional recognition through a Voice to Parliament. It’s important that all Australians understand that the status quo is not working to Close the Gap. Only by listening to on-the-ground voices will we get effective outcomes,” they said.

Critics Argue Voice Will Divide Australia by Race

Meanwhile, Indigenous National Party Senator Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price, a Warlpiri-Celtic woman, thanked her parliamentary colleagues for all the work they had undertaken to speak with the Indigenous communities on the ground and find out what it was that they wanted and called on parliamentarians to stop dividing the country around the issue of race.

“We are part of a liberal democratic Australia, and one of our fundamental principles is that we are all regarded as equal under the law despite race, despite gender, despite anything else,” she said.

Price also questioned why she, “as an indigenous Australian,” should be governed separately from the rest of Australia because of her race.

“It is not right to divide us along the lines of race, especially within our Australia, our Australian founding document,” she said.

National's Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price prior to being interviewed by television at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 28, 2022. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Price noted that in her discussions with Voice advocates that they had suggested it be modelled on the failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) which ran from 1990 until 2004.

The senator said she was deeply concerned about this proposition, adding ATSIC was a very flawed model that should not be allowed into Australia’s constitution.

ATSIC was shut down in 2004 after the body was investigated for corruption and the embezzlement of funds intended for service delivery to help Aboriginal peoples. Former ATSIC Chairperson Geoff Clark is currently facing 380 charges of fraud and deception for allegedly misappropriating $2 million of government funds for Indigenous groups between 2000 and 2010. Clark has denied the charges.

Government Out of Touch With Real Needs of Indigenous Communities

The senator noted that she had spoken to people throughout communities in the Northern Territory whose first language is not English and that they had told her they did not understand what the voice proposal is about.

She said they are more concerned about how to not encounter violence in their lives, how to manage their affairs without being cheated by their relatives who are dealing with alcohol and substance abuse or worrying about how to ensure their kids are actually going to get to school because their remote community is swamped by alcohol-fueled violence.

“These are the issues that people are concerned with them concerned with,” Price said.

Price also said the Labor government’s Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Linda Burney, a Wiradjuri woman, was out of touch with Indigenous communities and that there were many Indigenous Australians who did not support the Voice.

“Minister Burney might be able to take a private jet out to a remote community dripping with Gucci and tell people in the dirt, what’s good for them, but they are in the dark, and they have been in the dark,” Price said.

Greens Also Concerned About Voice Proposal

The decision by the Nationals comes after the Greens Party also voiced their concerns about the government’s plan, with Greens Indigenous spokesperson Lydia Thorpe commenting that Labor needed to implement grassroots changes for Indigenous communities.

“Labor needs to stop tinkering around the edges with new so-called solutions. I’m seeing a lot of time and energy being put towards laying out a pathway to the Voice while neglecting work that is decades overdue,” Thorpe said.

“This is not the first time Labor has been in government and ignored the self-determined solutions our old people gave them in favour of photo ops. Is this a government that takes Black Lives Matter seriously? Will they implement the remaining recommendations? Clock’s ticking, Labor.”