Last week Peter Dutton ramped up his rhetoric against the Voice in a freezing torrent of negativity that would have done Tony Abbott proud.
On the final day of parliament before the winter break, the leader of the Opposition stood up and spoke about the ‘sanctity’ of the Constitution, a document that originally failed to even mention Australia’s Indigenous people. Mr Dutton said Mr Albanese should legislate the Voice if he was determined to have it, allowing future politicians to scrub it out, rather than seeking to change the Constitution.
He said that everyone craved a ’67 moment’ (the 1967 referendum that made the original Australians into citizens) with a clear majority of Australians coming together ‘at a point of national unity’, but claimed the Voice proposition was doing the exact opposite.
Mr Dutton said that if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would simply water the proposal down to constitutional recognition, and no Voice, he would support it, but suggested the current plan was doomed to failure, with the process likely to divide the nation and set back reconciliation.
‘It is clear that there is a lot of emotion in this debate and the government wants Australians to vote on a vibe,’ he said, digging down on his earlier comments to Sydney radio that the Voice idea was a ‘con job’.
Wedged?
Ignoring the fact that Voice, Truth and Treaty were the three main requests of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Mr Dutton said the whole thing was ‘a wedge opportunity’ for the Prime Minister, which would do nothing to close the gap, and allow him to blame the opposition if the referendum went down. ‘It’s completely shameful,’ he said.
Fulfilling his own prophecy, and failing to recognise the irony in doing so, he said he and his Coalition would continue to oppose the Voice while all the detail was not on the table, even though he has been told multiple times, publicly and privately, that those details would be worked out by the parliament (including his side of the aisle) if the referendum was successful, over six months of consultation.
The Prime Minister derided Peter Dutton’s speech as ‘totally devoid of empathy’ and full of misinformation. Other commentators from the working group on the Voice, who have been meeting with Mr Dutton, said the opposition leader was deliberately misrepresenting the facts around what was planned.
Winter of discontent
Peter Dutton is about to face a by-election on the Gold Coast, in the traditionally safe Liberal seat of Fadden, due to the bad behaviour of the previous member Stuart Robert (he of the famous $38,000 internet bill).
In a doorstop interview Mr Dutton refused to talk about any of that, choosing to focus instead on cost of living issues, a growing Achilles heel of the Albanese government.
‘I think the Prime Minister’s got a real tin ear to what’s happening in the community,’ he said.
It might be a bit of a stretch to imagine Peter Dutton as the battler’s friend, but if cost of living issues continue to worsen, and the Prime Minister can be blamed, Mr Dutton just might have some kind of political future.
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.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
