It did not specify when the referendum would be held, but Labour’s plan is to hold the national vote well before the next election, which is due in 2025.
The Garma Festival has not been held since 2019 due to the pandemic. Credit: Getty Images Asia Pacific
Albanese is also directly addressing critics of the proposed Voice, including new Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Liberals Tony Pasin, Claire Chandler and Phillip Thompson, who have warned that a Voice could divide Australia and demanded more details on how would work
In his speech, the prime minister criticizes “the idea that it is a good symbolism, but that it will not have any practical benefit. Or that somehow advocating for a voice comes at the expense of expanding economic opportunity, or improving community safety, or raising educational standards, or helping people get the health care they deserve or find the housing they need”.
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“Australia does not have to choose between improving people’s lives and amending the constitution. We can do both, and we must. Because 121 years of Commonwealth governments arrogantly believing they know enough to impose their own solutions on Aboriginal people has brought us here. This torment of impotence.”
In a rallying cry to all Australians to support constitutional change, the prime minister will argue that “a voice enshrined in the constitution cannot be silenced” and cannot be revoked by a change of government.
“It recognizes the century-old failure that Paul Keating talked about in Redfern, the failure to ask the most basic human question: How would I feel if this were done to me?”
Voice in Parliament was proposed in the 2017 Uluru Declaration from the Heart, which also proposed a Makarrata Commission to oversee treaty-making and truth-telling, and has been endorsed by hundreds of Indigenous leaders. It would provide advice on laws and policies affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. On the night of the elections, Albanese pledged to consecrate the Voice to the Constitution.
The coalition government supported the creation of this body, but opposed the holding of a referendum.
Albanese will argue that a constitutionally enshrined voice will mean that it “will exist and endure beyond the ups and downs of electoral cycles and the malaise of short-term politics.”
A report by Indigenous leaders Marcia Langton and Tom Calma for the former government recommended the creation of a 24-member national voice in parliament. It would be composed of two members from each state and territory and the Torres Strait Islands, plus a third member from remote areas of NSW, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia and one member for the population mainland of Torres Strait.
Mutitjulu Elders Roley Mintuma and Pat Anderson of the Referendum Council with a piti holding the Uluru Declaration from the heart during a ceremony at the First Nations National Convention in May 2017 when it was first proposed the voice in parliament. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Langton rejected the anti-voice arguments on Friday, telling ABC Radio National that while there are now 11 Indigenous members of federal parliament, “Indigenous peoples across the country will live in electorates where they don’t have an Aboriginal member of parliament”. .
“They want a formal guarantee that the government will make decisions together with them on issues that affect their daily lives, such as essential services, drinking water, housing, schools, health clinics,” he said.
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Only eight of Australia’s 44 referendums have been successful and, without a bipartisan consensus in favor of the Voice, the proposal faces an uphill battle.
Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Julian Leeser has traveled with the Prime Minister to the Garma Festival for the speech and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has left open the possibility of bipartisan support for one voice.
Acknowledging the importance of cross-party support, Albanese will point out that the full parliament passed the 1967 referendum on whether the federal government should be able to make laws for Indigenous Australians and whether they should be counted in the census.
“In the same spirit, I hope the opposition and crossbench will support the proposal, join the Yes campaign and bring their supporters to the cause.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, opinion and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can subscribe to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.