Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has refused to say if he was making a political statement against the Indigenous Voice when he and most of his Coalition colleagues were absent when it was introduced to parliament on Thursday.
The constitutional amendment bill introduced on Thursday morning was the “first step” towards a First Nations Voice referendum process, the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said.
It was standing room only on the government’s side for the milestone on Thursday. But only a dozen Coalition MPs were in Parliament for what government leaders said was a moment in national history.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said a group of 60 Indigenous elders had gathered in the public gallery to make a clear and short statement in response to the bill’s introduction.
“Yes,” she told Parliament.
“Yes to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Yes to constitutional recognition. Yes to a voice to the parliament.”
Mr Dutton did not respond to questions from TND about whether his absence from the bill’s introduction was also intended as a statement – but to the opposite effect.
Nor did he shed much light during his regular spot on the Ray Hadley program on Sydney’s radio 2GB later on Thursday. Instead, Mr Dutton repeated his criticism of the government’s proposal as lacking in detail as a reason for not attending the bill’s introduction.
“I think there are a lot of questions that are still out there that reasonable Australians have and that they want answered,” he said.
“They want a better outcome for Indigenous Australians, particularly in places like the Northern Territory, but they want to know what the Voice is about.
“It’s obvious now that it applies to all areas of public policy, whereas the Prime Minister at one point was saying, ‘well, it’s only about health and education and law and order’.
“It clearly goes into defence and budget priorities.
“When the Prime Minister stands up in Parliament, he should be answering the questions.”
The ABC reported later that Mr Dutton’s office said he had a meeting on Thursday that he could not reschedule.
In February, Mr Dutton apologised publicly for skipping another significant Indigenous milestone – then PM Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations 10 years ago.
In a speech to the House marking the milestone, he said he “failed to grasp at the time the symbolic significance to the Stolen Generations of the apology”.
He was also recently mocked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for what the PM said was a “game” of asking for more details on the Voice referendum without intending to offer his support.
“We know from the republic playbook that occurred last century that it is nothing more than a tactic, and it lacks genuineness to just continue to say, ‘We don’t have the detail’,” Mr Albanese said last week.
“No matter how detail is put out, Peter Dutton will say,’What about more detail’. That’s the game that’s being played here, and he should make a decision of where he stands on the issue.”
The Liberals are yet to declare a position on the Voice. The junior Coalition partner, the Nationals, moved late last year to oppose the creation of an advisory body.
That decision prompted MP Andrew Gee to quit the Nationals. He, along with most other crossbenchers, was in the House when Mr Dreyfus introduced the Voice legislation on Thursday.
