Asked what his message was to opponents of the Voice Coalition, Mr Wyatt said “no government in Australia has provided continuity of advisory structures for Indigenous Australians”.
“They change with every government and we’ve seen organization after organization come and go and the advice they give to make a difference to the quality of life never changes. We need to have something that’s more permanent so a minister or government can’t abolish it “, has said.
Liberal MP James Stevens said he was in favor of enshrining the Voice constitutionally, but disagreed with the government’s view that the Australian people should be asked to vote in a referendum on the principle without the detail of how it would work.
“We cannot risk holding a referendum that is not successful. That would be a disaster for reconciliation in this country,” Stevens said.
“My view is that it is much more likely to happen if we are very clear with the people of Australia what the voice they will vote to create will be.
“Whether people like it or not, Indigenous Australians have lived on this continent for 60,000 years and they need certainty, they need to be part of the co-design process at community and regional level. This includes having an impact on federal thinking to find solutions to address the 17 goals to close the gap.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the Garma Festival. Credit: Getty
Wyatt said he did not support directly electing representatives to the proposed 24-member Voice and supported the 2021 report by professors Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, which recommends selecting them from among the bodies regional and local Voices across the country.
However, in an appearance on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday evening, Australian Indigenous Minister Linda Burney indicated a directly elected model would be on the table.
“What is the Leeser-Dodson [2018 parliamentary] report [on constitutional recognition] It is said that the Voice will be representative. The point I was trying to make was, in fact, that obviously, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, there needs to be consultation, particularly with First Nations people, about how a Voice would be constituted.” Burney said Monday on ABC.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted details of how the voice would work were available.
“Marcia Langton and Tom Calma have worked through hundreds of pages of detail – it’s all there for people to see,” Premier Anthony Albanese told The Project on the Ten Network on Monday night.
Noel Pearson threw his support behind Mr Albanese’s weekend speech on Monday, telling ABC TV’s 7.30 the proposed three-sentence addition to the constitution was “the detail we’ve been waiting for”.
Pearson, an Indigenous lawyer, academic and land rights activist, said Australia needed to rally behind the proposal.
“To be successful we have to rise above the culture wars, we have to rise above our tribal divisions and see that this is the one question that requires Australians to make common cause. Because if let’s make common cause in this, we will make our country better,” he said.
“I think this is a modest proposal, modest but profound, capable of being consistent with liberal and conservative thinking.”
Professors Megan Davis and Pat Anderson, who co-chaired the Uluru Dialogue, which produced the Uluru Declaration from the Heart proposing a voice model, said more details about the proposed model would need to be published before it was held the referendum But there would be no need to specify the model or draft the bill.
Anderson said that “we won’t have all the ‘i’s’ dotted and ‘t’s crossed before we go to the referendum”, but “governments have held referendums in the past without all the background information”.
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“This national conversation will require a level of sophistication and maturity. This is an opportunity for Australia to decide what kind of country we are, what our principles and values are. This can change the country, this is nation building, let’s ‘call attitude and raise this debate,’ he said.
Davis said there didn’t need to be a “full structure” for the proposed vote before the referendum was held, but there was enough detail for people to make an informed decision.
Both women rejected claims by opponents in the Voice that there was insufficient detail on the proposed model, pointing to the Uluru statement, the 2019 parliamentary inquiry and the 2021 Langton-Calma report.