Following the defeat of the Voice to Parliament in Saturday’s referendum, the path to closing the gap of First Nations disadvantage is unknown.
If the Labor government has a Plan B, it hasn’t spelled it out yet. It isn’t even clear if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intends to honour his commitment to the full Uluru Statement from the Heart, something he promised on election night in May last year.
The opposition, while successful in defeating the referendum, has offered little in terms of concrete plans for how to tackle Indigenous disadvantage.
The Coalition partyroom, which met on Tuesday morning, did not hear a single argument about closing the gap, Crikey understands — the only practical ideas raised were proposals for an audit of government spending on Indigenous peoples and a royal commission into alleged child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said in a speech on referendum night the resounding No vote was “not the end of reconciliation”.
“In the months ahead I will have more to say about our government’s renewed commitment to closing the gap,” she said.
Albanese, in question time on Monday, said the country would have to find new solutions, but acknowledged the government didn’t know what those would be yet.
“Australians did not accept the constitutional change that was proposed. But no-one is arguing for the status quo. No-one can say that ‘just keep on doing the same thing’ is good enough for Australia,” he said.
“What has occurred in recent times is now a much greater national awareness. We need to channel that into a national purpose to find the answers.”
But the prime minister avoided a question on whether he would support other tenets of the Uluru statement: Treaty and a truth-telling commission.
Yes supporter and Greens First Nations spokesperson Dorinda Cox said Albanese shouldn’t forget his election night promise.
“My advice to the prime minister is: don’t abandon our people,” Cox told Crikey.
“Albanese committed to the full Uluru statement, they were the first words out of his mouth when he was elected. Don’t abandon us now.”
Cox said that in her view, the best way forward would be a truth-telling and justice commission, a project she said would be able to heal the nation and allow Australians to move forward together.
“Looking at the system through the truth-telling process will enable us to see if the current closing the gap targets are the right ones, the ones that represent the causal factors of so much of the disadvantage.”
A Treaty process, she said, would allow for “agreement and reconciliation about what happened in the past”.
Australia’s state, territory and federal governments have agreed on a national agreement on closing the gap, but have so far had limited success. The Productivity Commission warned in July only four out of 19 targets were on track, and that some governments were making choices that “disregard or contradict” their commitments to the agreement.
On the No side, the path forward isn’t any clearer. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Monday seemingly walked back his commitment to holding a second referendum on Indigenous recognition in the constitution.
“All of our policy, obviously as I said on Saturday night, is going to be reviewed in the process that [senators] Kerrynne [Liddle] and Jacinta [Price] will lead now. I think that’s important, but I think it’s clear that the Australian public is probably over the referendum process for some time,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Asked directly in an interview with Nine’s 60 Minutes program what he proposed should be done to “address the disparity in life expectancy, health care, and incarceration rates”, Dutton did not give a straight answer.
“I think the narrative around an Aboriginal voice not being heard, it’s just not the reality … we live in the greatest country in the world. We should celebrate the success that we’ve got within Indigenous communities now,” he said.
When Dutton chaired the meeting of Coalition MPs at Parliament on Tuesday, his colleagues praised Price and Liddle for their work on the No campaign, according to a partyroom source. Three or four MPs spoke on the referendum, but no-one brought up Dutton’s idea for a second vote.
Liddle recently wrote in an opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald that the “hard work must begin” after the vote.
“On October 15, regardless of the result, the hard work must begin. This referendum has wasted much time, with the most disadvantaged people struggling disproportionately in a cost-of-living crisis,” she wrote.
“The Coalition will continue to push for improved accountability and better outcomes.”
One concrete suggestion Liddle argued for was an inquiry into organisations that receive federal funding to provide services to disadvantaged Indigenous communities.
“The inquiry would look at any maladministration, fraud or poor performance and hear from organisations and programs that are delivering positive change, so they can be recognised, applauded and their work expanded and replicated,” she wrote.
One No supporter who has outlined what she thinks should be the next step forward is Senator Lidia Thorpe.
“There is a Plan B, and it’s treaty,” she said in a statement.
“We must continue to pressure the federal government to begin treaty-making, implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and implement in full the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report that have been ignored for decades.”
She said there was “no excuse” for the Labor government not to pursue truth and Treaty.
Following the referendum, a group of leading Yes campaigners asked for a week of silence in order to process the outcome. The Australian Human Rights Commission, which counts closing the gap as one of its aims, said it would respect that request and declined to comment when contacted by Crikey.
Some states have begun their own work towards Indigenous reconciliation, which will continue independently of the referendum result. Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly is engaged in Treaty negotiations and the Yooruk Justice Commission is involved in a truth-telling process.
South Australia has passed legislation to establish a state-based Voice to Parliament, while Queensland and NSW have appointed ministers for Treaty.
