Peter Dutton’s opening salvo of the political year, demanding more detail on the Indigenous voice, may have sounded like more of the usual complaints.
In a letter to Anthony Albanese, the opposition leader accused the prime minister of an “unreasonable” and “disrespectful” decision to deprive Australians of details about the Indigenous body. A list of 15 questions was attached.
Some of the questions have already been clearly answered by the government. Will the voice be purely advisory? Answer: yes.
Another, about how the government will define Aboriginality, was quickly dismissed by First Nations referendum working group member, Tom Calma, as a “non-issue” because it does so all the time.
Some ask for granular detail (budget, number of members); some for far-sighted judgments (can the government rule out using the body to negotiate a treaty); some reframe Coalition arguments against the body as questions (how will it address “real issues … on the ground”).
All are posed with the awareness that overturning the government’s approach – having a vote on the principle with detailed legislation to follow – would be a win for the opposition and may help turn some Australians against the voice.
Dutton said as much in his Sunday press conference; that if the questions were answered, some voters would conclude they could support the voice while “there would be others who say, ‘well that’s not a model that I think is going to enhance the outcomes, narrow the gap in relation to Indigenous Australians’”.
From the Liberals’ perspective, this tactic is about ensuring voters have complete information. But from the perspective of those who want the body established, it’s a replay of John Howard’s tactic to kill the republican referendum by splitting the votes of those in favour into those who could or could not accept a particular model.
To take one example: the question about treaty is an obvious landmine for the government.
If they refuse to rule out that the voice will be used to “negotiate any national treaty”, the yes campaign could lose the votes of conservatives concerned this is a step towards Indigenous self-determination.
Do the opposite, and those who think self-determination is a great idea – such as the Greens’ Lidia Thorpe – can argue the voice is an organ of a colonial government that will not advance truth-telling and treaty-making, the other core requests in the Uluru statement.
But the real political dynamite, and the next evolution of the Liberals’ shadow campaign of scepticism (which is bordering on hostility, like their Nationals Coalition colleagues) to the voice, is the suggestion that the body “could be enacted when parliament resumes at the beginning of the next month”.
Dutton wrote that this would allow the government to “demonstrate the effectiveness of your preferred voice model in closing the gap”. He reiterated the proposal midweek on ABC’s 7.30.
This is a powerful idea because it adds an extra stop on the reconciliation and constitutional recognition journey – but can be presented by Dutton as no hurdle or roadblock because he need never say that he opposes it, he’d just like to test drive it first.
But legislating the voice first is controversial and nigh on impossible for Labor to agree to.
As Albanese explained on Tuesday while rejecting the proposal: Indigenous people asked for the voice to be constitutionally entrenched in the Uluru statement from the Heart. The whole point of the exercise is constitutional recognition and if that is the agreed destination there is no need for the extra stop.
Labor won an election proposing a referendum this term, so has a mandate for it.
Then there is the delay inherent in the suggestion that the voice must first not only be established but actually start closing the gap of Indigenous disadvantage.
How many years would it be before improvements in consultation manifested in outcomes for complex, intergenerational forms of disadvantage?
And to take the logic through to its conclusion – even if the voice were legislated in February, proved spectacularly successful and could demonstrate immediate material improvements in living standards, wouldn’t the next argument be that it can do its job without constitutional entrenchment?
Legislating first as the preferred option pairs very nicely with the idea that recognition can be achieved with poetry only; some words acknowledging Indigenous people in the constitution but promising nothing.
That’s Tony Abbott’s position and, again, not what Indigenous Australians asked for in the Uluru statement.
Albanese has taken to calling the Uluru statement a “generous offer”, a framing that reminds Australians that it is Indigenous people who have asked for this and that consulting First Nations people affected by government decisions is not an exorbitant demand.
But in Dutton’s framing, in failing to play 20 questions and to legislate the body, it is the government arrogantly imposing the voice on the public.
Conservatives say they dislike the voice because they fear dividing Australians, but they’ve found some clever ways of achieving that themselves.
