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Keep the Voice referendum simple and get on with it

Instead of getting bogged down in detail, the question for the proposed change to Australia’s Constitution should focus on the big picture, argues Sarah Moulds.

Aug 09, 2022, updated Aug 09, 2022
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Yunupingu at a Garma Festival in Arnhem Land.  Photo: AAP/Aaron Bunch

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Yunupingu at a Garma Festival in Arnhem Land. Photo: AAP/Aaron Bunch

In an opinion piece published by InDaily last Friday, Matthew Abraham criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s approach to advancing the process of holding a referendum to change Australia’s Constitution to entrench an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Voice to Parliament.

Mr Abraham argued that Mr Albanese’s failure to provide the Australian community with a lot more detail about how the Voice would work within the text of draft question he proposed for the constitutional change, “risks jeopardising one of the biggest questions to be put to the Australian community in more than half a century”.

He called for the Prime Minister to “trust voters” to be able to decipher and reflect on a more complex and “nuanced” form of words when contemplating constitutional change.

I share Mr Abraham’s faith in the capacity of Australian voters to understand and engage with a wide range of materials and information relating to the very important question of how our country might heal from the violence and dispossession arising from colonisation.

We are asking Australians to consider one simple change. We are asking Australians to give Parliament to power to set up an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, and to prevent Parliament from removing that Voice in the future.

I also agree with Mr Abraham that it is unhelpful to compare the proposed referendum with past failed attempts at constitutional change, including the 1999 Republic Referendum. This time, things are different. Our shared experiences have changed, our voting demographics have changed, and most importantly the question has changed.

This time we are not asking Australians to consider changes to Australia’s institutional structures and Head of State that necessitate multiple revisions to multiple sections of the Constitution. We are asking Australians to consider one simple change. We are asking Australians to give Parliament to power to set up an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, and to prevent Parliament from removing that Voice in the future.

This is a powerful but textually simple change that can be encapsulated in a simple question. Mr Albanese has recognised this in the way he is approaching his public discourse on the topic.

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The detail about how the Voice will work in practice – including how individuals and groups will be represented and elected, and the processes that will be employed to facilitate communication with Parliament – has been explored for over a decade, with particularly concentrated efforts being brought to bare in the five years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including the detailed report by Professor Marcia Langton and Tom Calma.

It is entirely appropriate that we have a public discussion about these matters. But it would be very strange to be wanting to include this type of detail in the question that is posed to Australian voters at the election. This is because the change that is being made is to invest the Australian Parliament with a new power to do something, not a wholesale alteration of our institutional structure. In this way it is, as Mr Abraham says, much more like the 1967 Referendum than the 1999 Referendum.

So, by all means, let’s talk a lot about the detail of the Voice. But let’s not misunderstand the question we are asking Australians to consider.  Let’s stay focused on the significance of the big picture. With this referendum, we have the chance to accept the generosity offered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through the Uluru Statement from the Heart and start the process of defining our future together.

The work has been done. Let’s get on with it!

Dr Sarah Moulds is Senior Lecturer in Law, Justice and Society, University of South Australia and Director, Rights Resource Network SA.

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