Albanese in ‘damage control’ after realising the Voice is in ‘big trouble’

but first with the parliament now over for the winter break the PM signature policy is indigenous voice to everyone and everything well it's in big trouble and he knows it the basic difficulty is it offends against Bob Hawke's 1988 Australia Day speech declaration that here in Australia said hawk we have no hierarchy of descent we have no privilege of origin now I'll repeat that again no hierarchy of dissent no privilege of origin Bob Hawk and the voice well it embodies both this week the Prime Minister has switched into damage control repeatedly including in the parliament today he's tried to insist that the voice will only be able to make representations to the Parliament and executive I met as relating directly to Aboriginal people or issues that impact them differently to everyone else now this is based of course on the Attorney General's second reading speech which says in our quote again matters related to indigenous people that would include matter specific to them and matters relevant to the Australian Community which affect indigenous people differently now note that term would include because it would include those specific matters but that doesn't mean it would exclude other matters so this is the Fig Leaf the PM's now relying on to retrofit his referendum act just a few days after it's passed the parliament the plain words of the proposed amendment give the voice a constitutionally guaranteed right to make representations to the Parliament and executive on quote matters relating to indigenous people that's what the referendum says black and white not the words Mark Dreyfus has used in a second reading speech to try and make a purse out of a sales ear and as the PM must know the plain wording of the Constitution the exact words that go in or they Trump any legislation that gets passed down the track let alone any utterances in a second reading speech expert after expert has said today on this that the prime minister is just wrong Sydney University constitutional lawyer Professor Ann Toby a voice supporter I might add so that the PM was correct to say the high court could take into account the attorney's speech but that it was impossible to say definitively how the court would interpret the wording quote says Professor Toomey it will look at the second reading speech but it's not conclusive another pro-voice expert Professor George Williams said the voice would have quite a broad remit to make decisions of course it will because if it gets up that's the whole point of it what do the voice activist Professor Marshall Langton say people who are opposing The Voice referendum she said are saying that we are destroying the fabric of their sacred Constitution that's right yes that's right that's exactly what we're doing then there was the indigenous affairs minister Linda Bernie well she's been under pressure all week over her claims that the voice would not be able to recommend the abolition of Australia Day well now she's quoting that the voice will not be required to make a representation on every law policy or program sure it won't be required to do that but it will be able to do that because that's the power that Labor's amendment gives the voice and no labor government is going to ignore the voice or any representation from it because the PM said that at the outset last year at Gamma don't forget a brave government only a brave company said would ignore the voice now for months the PM's tried to pretend that the voice is no more than just being polite and gracious to Aboriginal people and yet is the last couple of weeks have shown you it's now a legal Quagmire a political mess Our Own Dentist Shanahan said today that the government's legal defense looks thin and under pressure now it'll be interesting to see the next round of polling because on something as important to our national Unity is this it would be reckless in the extreme of any prime minister to put up a referendum that was doomed to fail today Peter Dutton advised the PM call it off he said if you think this is going to go down you've got a duty to call it off I'll leave the last word now to the opposition leader would it either four fathers put together the Constitution the nation's rule book which has given us uh peace and security people fought in uniform for this country uh to say that they don't deserve to live here or that they should be paying rent is a disgrace and and they should be called out for it and that radical element is a very small part of the population but it's being heard because of social media and as I say that a lot of Australians just want to get on with their lives frankly I think the prime minister's at a point where if he realizes that the voice is going down and that's what all of the polling's indicating at the moment then he should make it a decision that's in our country's best interests and say look you know I'm going to call it off because it's just going to divide the country down the middle it's not going to achieve the outcome that we're talking about and there are other ways that we can provide practical support and consideration to indigenous Australians

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Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023