Anthony Albanese is keen to move on a referendum on the First Nations Voice to Parliament as soon as possible. To quote a traditional second nations’ phrase, tell him he’s dreaming. Quite aside from the strategic foolishness of rushing into a vote where the basic odds of the set-up are against you, there is now the not-so-small problem of a First Nations opposition to the process from within Parliament.
The election of Jacinta Price as senator from the Northern Territory, present together with Lidia Thorpe and Dorinda Cox from the Greens, must surely complicate and cause to be reassessed the whole issue of the Voice reassessed. Price opposes the Voice altogether, and the Greens specify that a Voice to Parliament can only come after a truth process leading to treaty negotiations. There are of course several Labor First Nations MPs who support it. But are the politics of it now so unanimous that it deserves no consideration before Labor tries to ram it through with a big dose of emotional blackmail?
The Voice was conceived years ago, at a time when the number of First Nations MPs was shamefully small. There are now 10 First Nations MPs. That is substantial representation, and it puts the Voice movement in a strange position. Because in order to forward it, a white settler government will be negotiating with a group of First Nations leaders who haven’t been elected, chiefly Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, to get through a proposal that a number of 10 First Nations MPs may oppose.
How can the pretence be made that the 2022 election has changed nothing about the relationship between Parliament and this process? The only way that can be done, in pursuit of a thing called “the Voice”, is to ignore all the First Nations voices being raised against it. The Voice’s proponents will argue that such leaders were part of the 2017 National Convention on Constitutional Recognition. They could also argue that these leaders were selected by First Nations peoples. But the process of selection appears somewhat mysterious, and certainly more ad hoc than a federal election.
So we now have a split, dual-power situation: a number of First Nations politicians, elected by both First Nations and non-Indigenous people but in a guaranteed process, versus a leadership elected solely by First Nations people but with some questions as to how it was done. The recognition by the state of that latter group does not undermine the Australian Parliament as a whole, but it does undermine the legitimacy of First Nations MPs, since they, and they alone, are subject to a competing legitimated group. Paradoxically, non-Indigenous recognition of the Voice group turns First Nations MPs into second-class citizens.
That must surely also be considered in the light of the particular nature of the Voice proposal — as an assembly to be written into the constitution, which is designed to be powerless. That would seem to be undermining the real power that First Nations people have just achieved.
Let’s say the Voice is created and offers advice to governments. And let’s say First Nations senators, on certain votes, form a cross-party bloc to oppose the government’s Voice, with real votes and real power. There would thus be a powerless advisory group, constituted in a process of byzantine complexity, as set out by the Calma-Langton 2021 report. The proposed National Voice to Parliament won’t be elected by a national poll of all First Nations people. Its 24-member body will be selected by regional and local Voice groups, whose membership will be selected by, well:
Each Local & Regional Voice will be different but all will be community-designed and led. Broadly, each is expected to include: a leadership group at the regional level (the size, composition and method of representation will be decided by communities and stakeholders across the region).
This process is obviously circular. Local leaders and stakeholders will select the leaders of a Local Voice group representing stakeholders and community. Thus, at the root of the National Voice will be a process in which no actual vote has taken place. First Nations MPs will be competing for legitimacy with people no one has elected. How will they have any authority in Parliament?
And these basic structural political contradictions occur before we even get to the question of a referendum campaign. The opponents of this idea from the right have a simple slogan: “no third chamber”. How on earth is the current Voice proposal to be explained by its advocates? Well, if they’re honest, they will have to affirm this:
Legislation (at both Commonwealth and state and territory levels) and cross-jurisdictional agreements will be needed to set out governments’ commitments and enable Local & Regional Voice arrangements, including collaboration across the levels of government. This will be progressed through intergovernmental discussions … Consideration of detailed boundaries will be based primarily on cultural groupings and existing regions. Regions will generally align with state/territory boundaries, but cross-border arrangements will be considered where needed.
So how do these unelected bodies relate to local and state government authority? The Voice’s proponents have come up with this design, in part to avoid national First Nations elections, which would require a commission to determine who is and isn’t eligible to vote, and would be a nightmare. But in order to do that, legislation will incorporate them into government structures in ways not made clear.
The truth may be that the Voice is already a victim of the political success of First Nations people getting the idea of colonialism and dual sovereignty to the centre of political debate. Paradoxically, “the Voice” is the sort of thing that could lose the political craps game of a referendum, while a strong treaty with simple consequences and a path to forms of real sovereignty could win it.
Whatever the pros and cons, and unless the Greens fold, the dreamt-of path to getting a Voice referendum by simple acclamation has been removed by the very election that many people thought would make it possible. There is now no alternative but for its proponents to resort to, gasp, actual politics.
No, it won’t undermine first people representatives. Why? Because they are elected to represent electorates based on the ideology of the party they also belong to. Their ethnicity is irrelevant. It’s like saying any non-Anglo pollie represents their ethnic grouping. Does Albo represent Italian Australians? No, of course not, it’s Nonsense. The voice would be to represent first peoples. A treaty represents first peoples. Party owned pollies represent electorates and the party..
Yes, but the only group of MPs who will be second-guessed by an outside group will be first nations people. Not anglos, not chinese-australians, not women, not lgbtq, etc, just first nations. Was that the effect intended?
I really doubt this was thought through. But for the reasons you say, it definitely has to be thought through now
Normally insightful work by Guy Rundle, this opinion piece is the opposite, ignores certain factors – that is, Indigenous parliamentarians represent their electorates and their parties, not exclusively Indigenous people. Also suggesting these very distinguished politicians would become ‘second class citizens’ is emotive and deliberately devisive language, (given our experience of being second class citizens in our own land for so long). It is also an incorrect analysis of how they would work with the voice. The voice would give advice to them as members of parliament. Then they would have the decision making power on legislation as part of the party driven democracy of Australia’s political process. The fact that we finally (its only taken 120 years) have significant representation in parliament across all parties should not be a reason for our constitution to not reflect the recognition of its first people in the way Indigenous Australians have asked for it to be done.
Furthermore to undermine the process by which Indigenous people articulated the Uluru Statement is to undermine the multitude of existing representative bodies, created through self-determining processes, that nominated people to attend the constitutional conventions and regional dialogues. These were grass roots organisations representatives with delegates also drawn from traditional owner groups. I was present at these meetings. Yes there was and still is and will continue to be a minority of dissenters as there is any group, (just 7 delegates walked out, out of more than three hundred at the national convention ). Why don’t we focus on the overwhelming unity of the Uluru Statement?
Guy specifically invoked a specific situation: ‘Let’s say the Voice is created and offers advice to governments. And let’s say First Nations senators, on certain votes, form a cross-party bloc to oppose the government’s Voice, with real votes and real power.’ Not the normal run of parliamentary business, but not far-fetched either, if the senators are doing their job properly. If they blindly followed whatever the Voice said then the Voice would no longer be just giving advice.
I would love to support the “voice” but I am concerned that having a referendum on it before all the ifs and buts are sorted out will cause it to fail. Failure in referendums is common and it generally draws a big line in the sand that is never crossed again.
Its a pity the CLP put up Jacinta Price for the senate. Whoever got that spot would have been elected so they should have put up a sensible candidate, not a Sky News After Dark panelist.
This is not a useful commentary. First nation communities have their own ways of ensuring their collective views are included, despite a few dissenters and will ensure they are heard. Voting is our model, not theirs.
I agree that a fixation on voting is not always useful, particularly in more traditional areas where there are clear governance and accountability structures in place, however the Voice process does seem to be lacking in legitimacy – as the many Aboriginal people speaking against the Voice attest.
At least Rundle’s commentary takes account of the reality that any Voice has to be set up and operate within the context of Australia as a whole. Your the observation that ‘Voting is our model, not theirs’ answers nothing and takes us nowhere. His commentary is lot more useful than your observation.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand “Voting is our model, not theirs.”. Dorinda Cox, Jacinta Price and Lidia Thorpe were all elected in 2022, and they are not happy with the current model of the Voice (or in Price’s case, the Voice itself). Voting seems to be working out fine.
They were elected to represent their entire constituency, not just the Indigenous subset.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms Thorpe’s problems with Voice first are more about Greens maintaining the outrage for the sake of brand differentiation, and Senator Price’s problems with Voice might be based in the assimilationism that pervades the CLP and, for that matter, One Nation.
There is surely an issue about how a national assembly, ie the Voice, will be composed, when it sits beside a parliament with 10 (hopefully more) first nations MPs who were voted in. No other MPs will be second-guessed in that way
It’s an advisory assembly, not sitting beside the Parliament but making suggestions.
If you need to envisage it in whitefella terms, think of it as a lobby group that can’t afford to actually buy a Party.
Except it will be entrenched in the Constitution. Like the House of Reps, the Senate, the High Court and the Governor-General. And we don’t actually know whether it will be advisory or something else until we see a concrete proposal
50,000 years of theocratic, misogynistic and undemocratic government. So much better than democracy based on universal suffrage. Boo! So last century.
You might want to check on that alleged “…theocratic, misogynistic…” aspect – the works of the Berndts, especially Dr Catherine (née Webb) put paid to that skewed perception half a century ago.
(A dictionary should suffice for ‘democracy’.)
She observed and documented “the fundamental principle of gender relationships in Aboriginal society as being the independence of the sexes within the overarching societal framework of interdependence.”
The theocratic misogyny was another unwanted gift forced onto the First Nation peoples by those exemplars of such evil, missionaries.
thank you
We asked them what they wanted. They conferred, at length and nation-wide, and came back to say they want the voice. And it was beautiful. But immediately the rug was pulled out from under them by a fool who claimed to represent us. This voice thing is perfectly reasonable. Considering our history it is moderate and wise. Had it been enacted 100 years ago many of the mistakes which white Australia has made would have been avoided, I believe. We asked them what they want, so now we should let them have it. It will be an improvement. For all of us.
But some of ‘them’ – senators Thorpe and Price, possibly two more – are against the Voice, in current form, or at all. How can you not listen to someone in pursuit of giving them a voice?
What about rachel@blackfellafilms.com.au comment above Guy – that this is a minority view?
How would anyone tell if it’s a minority view? And does it matter, if we accept that voting is not the point or even appropriate, as some insist? This is going to go around in circles forever.
Less circles than an inward spiral.
We all know where that ends
How can you say ‘This voice thing is perfectly reasonable’ when we don’t even know what it is yet?