Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is navigating a "difficult" party room on the Indigenous Voice according to Senator Pat Dodson who is hoping for bipartisan agreement on the upcoming referendum.
The Western Australian senator and Yawuru elder was giving a keynote address on the Voice at the annual Labor-sponsored Chifley conference at the National Press Club on Saturday.
Mr Dodson was speaking about the historical Acts of parliament and moves for constitutional reforms that were leading up the need for a referendum on a Voice.
He pointed to issues around the Howard-era Hindmarsh Bridge Act which removed protections for Traditional Owners under the Heritage Protection Act.
He also cited amendments that were ushered in a "welter of laws" that allowed the Howard government to sustain its "infamous" Northern Territory intervention in 2007.
"I have said it elsewhere before, it was to the discredit of the Labor Opposition that it backed the intervention," Mr Dodson said.
"If ever there needed to be a First Nations' Voice to the Parliament, that was the time."
Mr Dodson said a Voice would provide a "momentous unifying moment" for Australians and would improve the country's international standing.
He harked back to a pledge he made last year to Reconciliation Australia that he would not be attacking anyone arguing against a Voice.
"In the end, they're entitled to their opinions, as wrong-headed as they might be," he said.
"I've held to that pledge, but let me tell you, with so much nonsense and mischief being peddled out there, there've been times when it's been hard to hold my tongue.
"There are some out there for whom more detail will never be enough, and we will not fall into the trap of answering every last question about the shape and function of the Voice."
But on questions relating to opposition to a Voice, he said there would always be "one mob standing in the way" acting as a "rump trying to undermine any good thing that we try to do".
An audience member raised concerns about shadow minister for Indigenous Australians Julian Leeser who last week asked for more consultation on the referendum.
Mr Leeser had been an advocate for recognition and co-chaired later a Joint Select Committee with Mr Dodson on constitutional reform in 2018.
"This was the best we could manage to stop the issue of a Voice to Parliament from being lost under false assertions that it would be a third chamber of Parliament," Mr Dodson said.
Both Mr Dutton and Mr Leeser attended a referendum working group meeting last week.
The federal Liberals are yet to formally state a position on the Voice despite the New South Wales Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet supporting it at National Cabinet.
Mr Dutton said he still had a lot of questions around the Voice and wanted more details, but was committed to further engagement with the working group.
"I don't sit in their party, right, thankfully. I think it's a very difficult room for Mr Dutton to navigate," Mr Dodson said.
"So it's not about what's being said out there in the public ether. It's about something internal within the party. That's causing them to either stay in oblivion.
"They've got some political internals, I don't know. And I'm not interested in trying to solve them."
Mr Dodson said he hoped Mr Dutton would meet with the working group again and come away assured that there was nothing hidden.
"This is not an Albanese magic trick. The working groups invited him to come and talk to them," Mr Dodson said.
"So there's no one trying to hide in a corner and say, we're going to reveal this on the big day."
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