Passing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is about fixing the discrimination of the past and a “moral question” of who Australia is as a country and what the people want it to be in the future, says constitutional law expert Shireen Morris from Macquarie University.
“A Voice isn’t about erasing Indigenous diversity, it’s about empowering the Wik, the Yolngu ... It’s about enabling local solutions to local problems through partnership and mutual responsibility,” she said during a debate on The Voice hosted by the Centre of Independent on March 4.
Morris said The Voice was continuing the work of the 1967 referendum and would ensure Indigenous communities would have fair input into laws and policies made about them.
“Top-down ineffective policymaking continues. Today, governments in far-off Canberra still misinterpret Indigenous needs and deliver few practical outcomes despite goodwill and money spent,” she said. “Australia is failing abysmally to close the gap because governments don’t partner with Indigenous communities.”
She noted Alice Springs as an example—despite having 11 Indigenous senators in Parliament urging the government not to lift alcohol laws, the restrictions were lifted, and deep-rooted issues were exacerbated.
“If communities had a guaranteed Voice in their own affairs, maybe they would have been heard, and much suffering could have been avoided,” Morris said.
Different Indigenous communities also have different needs, so it was important to have a “bottom up Voice that truly empowers grassroots Indigenous communities” and respects their different views.
“There were 11 Indigenous parliamentarians in [Parliament], yet nobody could get the government to listen to those communities pleading, pleading to have their voices heard and to have a better plan,” Morris said.
Hearing Local Voices
Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine agreed that governments at all levels—federal, state, territory, and local—needed to speak directly with Indigenous voices but argued that The Voice proposal would not deliver this outcome.“[The Voice] is going to have a huge bureaucracy because if they’re going to be looking at all legislation and policies, they’re going to need experts in every different area, they’re going to need support services. We’re just going to build this massive bureaucracy,” he said.
Mundine believes that economic empowerment was the answer to crime and poverty in Indigenous communities.
“Yes, we have a problem of disparity between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. But that’s nothing compared to the disparity between regional and remote Aboriginals and Aboriginals in cities, in large provincial towns,” he said. “It is a disaster, and it’s going backwards.”
He noted that the situation in Alice Springs was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of issues in need of addressing within the Indigenous community.
“I’m a First Nations person; I believe in First Nations. I’m not a great fan of people sitting in Canberra, making decisions about Aboriginal people, Torres Strait Islanders,” Mundine said.
“For me, having voices, which have been there since 1973, have not made a difference.”
Mundine said he “found it strange” that proponents of The Voice argue it was only about things that affect Aboriginal people.
“We are recognised in the Constitution because we’re citizens of this country. As citizens of this country, everything about the Constitution affects us just as it affects everyone else,” he said.
Opposition to The Voice
Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton revealed on April 5 that the party would join its coalition partners in opposing the addition of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament into the Constitution.“We’ve been clear that we don’t support [Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s] ‘Canberra Voice.’ It’s divisive, and it’s not going to deliver the outcomes to people on the ground,” he said.
“Our proposal is a local and regional Voice so that we can listen to those women and listen to those elders on the ground and get a better outcome.”
Dutton also criticised the government for failing to answer his requests for greater detail on the structure of the advisory body and its extent of powers.
Critics of The Voice are wary that the advisory body would have the power to veto all proposed legislation and bring to court any laws that fails to be in line with The Voice’s suggestions.
“If there is an overreach on what the prime minister is proposing,” Dutton said. “If it does go too far, and the High Court’s interpretation is more liberal … Does the prime minister then go back to the Australian people to seek to narrow the words?”
He said he was willing to work with the government on legislation that would enable local Indigenous voices to be heard but believes that The Voice would change Australia’s system of government.
Meanwhile, Senator Lidia Thorpe, who famously quit the Greens party over The Voice, has also opposed the proposal, warning Australians that no advisory body would deliver the practical outcomes that Indigenous communities needed.
“Here we are with yet another advisory body to make this government feel better about the ongoing colonisation of this country and the genocide being perpetrated against our people,” she said.
“High-paid, hand-picked members of the government’s campaign continue to advocate for a powerless body they will call the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, whilst our communities’ voices are being ignored all around the country.”
Thorpe said it would go against the traditional governing structures of the Indigenous people and instead pursues a Treaty between Australia and Indigenous communities, akin to what Canada and New Zealand have.
