A boat ramp may seem like an unlikely location for contemplation, but it’s as good a place as any.

On Monday, for instance, I fell into the water after climbing precariously onto the boat trailer to give the stubborn tinny a shove into the welcoming arms of the Outer Harbor waters.

A little more patience, or a different approach, might have been worth a crack.

Many moons ago, the media assembled by the seaside to witness then Liberal Premier John Olsen unveil his grand plans for a big new boat ramp at West Beach. The government’s chosen design looked questionable, with a bridge that was supposed to allow free movement of sand between the shore and the ramp’s rock wall. Premier Olsen was certain this was a brilliant solution to the well-known risks of dumping a solid wall of bloody big rocks out into the sea.

His press secretary at the time, the talented Vicki Thomson, quietly mused to me, and this is paraphrasing, that it’d probably end up being an ecological disaster but that’s the way it was. It wasn’t her job to design a ramp, just the media coverage of the project.

Vicki went on to become chief executive of the Group of Eight, the prestigious outfit that speaks for Australia’s eight leading research-intensive universities.

West Beach boat ramp went on to become an environmental mess. The rusting bridge blocks, rather than helps, sand movement, and the rock wall is a permanent barrier to the south-north movement of sand along the metropolitan coast. As everyone knew it would be. A dredge operates permanently to keep the ramp open.

A recent $5 million upgrade by the previous Marshall Government made things even worse, with the new concrete launch area so slippery cars routinely slide back into the sea and need to be towed out. Boaties call it the “skating rink”.

Even if they have niggling doubts, it’s the job of political leaders and the governments they lead to keep these from ever seeing the light of day. Certainty is the commodity that sells.

The “what if” question is seen as a sign of weakness. But what if our politicians, and the collective geniuses who control our lives, asked more “what if” questions.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and his Attorney-General Kyam Maher are convinced that an Aboriginal Voice to parliament is the solution to the undisputed, chronic disadvantage in the lives of Indigenous South Australians. What if it isn’t? What if the same applies to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with his federal Voice? What then?

The final shape of the Malinauskas-Maher legislation to create an Indigenous voice to parliament – the First Nations Voice Bill 2023 – was unveiled this week.

The 36-page bill reveals an expensive – $10 million allocated over the first four years – and on paper at least, cumbersome and bureaucratically dense structure.

South Australia will be divided into seven local and one statewide region that will elect 46 delegates in elections run by the State Electoral Commission.

To view this in context, the federal seat of Grey covers 92 per cent of our state, some 904,881 square kilometres, and is represented by one person, Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey.

The presiding members of each Local Voice – one male, one female – will form the State Voice.

To be eligible to vote, people will need to declare to the electoral commission that they are a First Nations person.

If a person is self-declaring as being eligible to vote, this creates a potentially tricky issue. If a doubt arises about a voter, how can this be vetted or even questioned?

The Voice Bill states that “nothing in this Act requires a Local First Nations Voice, the State First Nations Voice or any First Nations person to disclose information (however described that should not, according to First Nations tradition, be disclosed (either generally or in particular circumstances)”. That sort of limits the options.

What if Senator Lidia Thorpe, who this week quit the Greens, freeing her to oppose the Voice and campaign for a treaty and sovereignty for First Nations people, is on the right track?

The State Voice will not only have a legislated right to address both houses of parliament on any matter it wishes, but also a guaranteed right to speak to the State Cabinet, and to every CEO of every state government department, twice a year. And this is the Reader’s Digest version of the structures and powers of SA’s Voice.

The Malinauskas-Maher Voice Bill clearly states that the local and state Voices are “independent of direction or control by the Crown or any Minister or officer of the Crown”. We should all be so lucky.

The government will dispute this, but it is creating a fourth tier of government in South Australia, one that is far less accountable than our elected state, federal or local governments. It is hard to read the Voice Bill in any other way.

Is this a good thing? Who knows. Will it improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? It better.

This South Australian Voice was a Labor election promise. It has a clear mandate to create it. But I doubt few voters going to the polls in March last year knew much about a “Voice” or how it would operate.

Its saving grace is that it is being created with legislation that can be amended by state parliament.

Premier Malinauskas has been far more transparent in creating our Voice than PM Anthony Albanese, who has backed himself into an increasingly weird corner with his push for a First Nations Voice. He wants to enshrine the principle of the national Voice in the constitution, needing a referendum, before revealing the mechanics of the legislation that will create the body.

Albanese knows that his chances of winning a Yes vote in the referendum will be boosted by releasing more detail to voters, traditionally gun-shy of mucking around with constitutional reform, but he then risks scuppering support if voters don’t like what they see.

The PM is refusing to fund the Yes and No campaigns equally, but is instead providing de facto funding for the Yes case by granting a peak campaign group tax-free donation status. He was dragged kicking and screaming this week to at least agree to have the Australian Electoral Commission mail a pamphlet to voters to explain the Voice proposal.

He’s so convinced he’s right. But what if he’s not?

What if Senator Lidia Thorpe, who this week quit the Greens, freeing her to oppose the Voice and campaign for a treaty and sovereignty for First Nations people, is on the right track?

The Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe, is convinced he’s right in repeatedly jacking up interest rates, crushing the hopes and dreams of millions of Australians, to control inflation. But what if he’s not? What if he damages the economy so badly it takes years to recover?

A recent essay in the rigorous Jesuit magazine America, argues that the “What if I’m Wrong?” question should be essential for every politician, and voter.

The columnist, Mark Piper, said he first came across the question in Eugene Bardach and Eric M. Patashnik’s book A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis.

“Before we voice a preference on public policy, whether in the voting booth or talking with family members over dinner, we should consider one question with two parts,” he writes.

“First, what are the costs of choosing the wrong policy? And second, who would have to bear those potential costs?”

“If the wrong solution is chosen, a problem will likely persist as before or even be made worse.”

I suspect voters spend more time thinking about these questions than many of the governments they elect. While our leaders move on to higher ground, we’re the ones left in the shallow end with shoes full of water.

Matthew Abraham’s weekly analysis of local politics is published on Fridays.

Matthew can be found on Twitter as @kevcorduroy. It’s a long story.