Whose voice, and what can it say?

Later this year, all Australians of voting age will be asked to have their say on whether the Constitution should be altered to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

PM Anthony Albanese has described this as a ‘modest request’ and an opportunity to ‘take up the generous invitation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart’, but the road to a successful yes vote is looking increasingly rocky, with opposition from those who would prefer a treaty with teeth on one side, and those who would prefer no constitutional change on the other.

Historically, no Australian referendum has succeeded without bipartisan support (and only eight have succeeded from 44 attempts), but rarely has the federal opposition been in such disarray.

This week the fallout continued, with Voice supporter and Shadow Attorney General Julian Leeser resigning from the front bench so he can ‘keep faith’ with an issue he says he’s been working on for almost a decade. Liberal Tasmanian backbencher Bridget Archer has also said she will continue to campaign for the Voice, along with Tasmania’s Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockcliff, in spite of Peter Dutton’s vow to block the constitutional change.

The minister for Indigenous Affairs in the Morrison Government, Ken Wyatt, went even further, quitting the Liberal Party less than a day after Mr Dutton formalised his party’s no position on the Voice. Mr Wyatt criticised Mr Dutton’s description of the proposed Voice as a ‘Canberra’ voice. ‘That’s far from the truth,’ he said. ‘It is not elite. It is people from the grassroots.’

Mr Wyatt said he would be deeply saddened if the Voice was defeated at referendum.

Voice or treaty?

At the other political extreme, there’s a different kind of no case against the Voice, represented most vocally in recent weeks by former Greens senator Lidia Thorpe.

This position has its origins with the walkout from the 2017 national First People’s summit, near Uluru, of a number of delegates from Victoria and NSW who described constitutional recognition as ‘selling out our mob’.

At the time, Lidia Thorpe said, ‘We do not recognise occupying power or their sovereignty, because it serves to disempower, and takes away our voice.’ This position was later supported by a statement from three Wiradjuri leaders, on behalf of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra, demanding a truth and treaty process.

Referendum Council chairwoman Pat Anderson played down the Uluru walkout, noting that it only involved seven out of 250 delegates. Anangu traditional owner and delegate Alison Hunt said, ‘We have to be united… this is sacred land that you are standing on, and we are asking the members to please respect that and to get a message with us, supported by traditional owners of this land, to get it to the prime minister.’

It’s taken a few years to find a prime minister who was prepared to listen, but Anthony Albanese has shown genuine passion about the Voice in recent months, with the issue set to become one of his signature reforms, if it succeeds.

Will the Voice help?

Indigenous Australia is facing a number of crises, as has been the case since this land was invaded, and will probably continue to be the situation no matter how much tinkering happens around the edges of the Constitution. While a treaty is undoubtedly needed, it also appears to be politically impossible to achieve at this point in Australia’s history.

Peter Dutton is correct to say that there are mysteries surrounding how the Voice would work in practice. We don’t know whether members would be democratically elected or appointed, or how long the terms of members would be. Mr Albanese has said the group of contributors will be gender-balanced, include young people and representatives from all states and territories, including remote communities.

Beyond that, the details are yet to be figured out, but it does seem clear that the Voice will be just that, providing the opportunity to offer advice to government but containing no real power to change laws affecting Aboriginal people, or threaten High Court challenges. Academic Marcia Langton has described the referendum as a ‘line in the sand’ moment.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said this week that the government is open to tweaking the final wording to get the yes vote over the line, while emphasising that ‘the wording hasn’t come out of thin air; the government has taken its direction from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country.’

For Peter Dutton, this referendum is a different kind of line in the sand, with his newfound interest in Alice Springs’ crime problem this week showing both the limits of his leadership and his attempt to turn a national conversation into an old-fashioned political fight. Can he ever become a statesman, or will he remain at heart a Queensland cop?

With both leaders staking their futures on the referendum, hopefully the real issue won’t be lost in the melee.

Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.

Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.