Anthony Albanese has declared the voice to parliament will have no impact on First Nations sovereignty, and has rubbished the idea of having a constitutional convention before the referendum later this year.
With parliament set to resume for the year this week, the prime minister’s position was echoed on Sunday morning by Megan Davis, law professor, member of the expert working group and one of the leaders of the Uluru dialogues. She told the ABC deliberations around constitutional recognition had now entered a second decade.
“This is the second decade, the 12th year of constitutional recognition. So [the proposal] hasn’t just come out of nowhere,” Davis said. “That work has been done and the Uluru statement from the heart is the offer on the table.”
The prime minister was asked after a speech he delivered at the Chifley Research Centre conference on Sunday to respond to concerns that have been expressed about the impact of the voice on First Nations sovereignty.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has asked the Albanese government to supply a guarantee that constitutional recognition won’t impact sovereignty. Albanese said on Sunday the view of the eminent legal advisers doing the preparatory work ahead of the referendum was clear.
“The vote and the referendum will have no impact on the issue of sovereignty,” Albanese said in Sunday. The Greens are expected to resolve their stance on the voice over the coming parliamentary week.
The prime minister said it was time to finish the mechanics required before putting the question of constitutional recognition to the Australian people. “A new argument came up a couple of days ago of a constitutional convention, why aren’t we doing that?”
Albanese said there was no constitutional convention before the 1967 referendum, and he said the issue of constitutional recognition had had more precursor processes than the referendum to determine whether Australia should become a republic.
“This has been going on for years,” the prime minister said. “There’ve been multiple inquiries [and] it is time to have recognition in our constitution.
“We are going to put it to the Australian people.”
Davis told the ABC more information about the advisory body would be released by the expert panel in the coming weeks, ensuring there would be “sufficient information for Australians to make an informed decision”.
The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, has been demanding more detail be supplied before he determines the party’s position on the voice, and wrote to Albanese over the summer break asking 15 questions about the proposal.
Dutton dialled in to a meeting of the expert working group on the referendum last week, and said afterwards his questions remained unanswered.
Davis was asked whether he put his 15 questions to the meeting last week. “No, he didn’t ask those questions,” she said.
“There’s only so far we can go in terms of those questions,” Davis said. “We can’t tell you the address or location of the building of what the voice will be, or what the business cards will look like.”
Davis said the national parliament would ultimately determine the architecture of the body. “We can tell only so much in terms of those questions because, of course, if the voice is successful, what happens in Australian democracy is there is a process that follows.”
Albanese was asked on Sunday whether the campaign to secure the voice to parliament would divert the government from other elements of its agenda.
“This campaign won’t be delivered by parliamentarians, it will be driven by the community,” Albanese said.
The prime minister said he led a government with a “very broad agenda of economic, social and environmental reform” and that remained his focus “but at the same time, how about we get this done as well?”
Sunday’s speech was a scene setter ahead of the opening of the parliamentary year on Monday. The prime minister pitched the voice to parliament referendum as a gesture of trust in the Australian people at a time when increasing polarisation and misinformation means democracy needs to be “nourished, protected, cared for, treated with respect”.
He said the referendum campaign would be a civic exercise in finding “common ground amid differences” and seeking meaningful change while “bringing people with you, empowering and including Australians in the work of progress.”
