Let’s suppose that Liberal Leader Peter Dutton has any credibility regarding matters concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, or on matters of race at all. Pretend that his walk-out on the parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations didn’t happen, or that as home affairs minister he didn’t race-bait African-Australians, refugees and Muslims.
Say we take him at face value on his commitment “to being constructive on the issue of reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples. That is what he wrote in his letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the letter he dropped with the media before actually sending it.
Dutton, unlike his Coalition partner, the National Party, professes no fixed position on the proposed referendum to amend the Australian constitution by establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The Nationals have rejected it outright, both complaining about the absence of detail and concluding that they wouldn’t like the detail anyway.
The ostensible purpose of Dutton’s letter is to warn Albanese he is “making a catastrophic mistake” by not supplying sufficient detail on the Voice proposal ahead of the planned first-stage referendum later this year. Australians, he says, “have a right to make a fully informed decision”. Sounds fair.
Dutton goes on: “Your government’s position that detail isn’t needed before a vote and will be contained in subsequent legislation is unreasonable … and undermines the integrity of the process … you are treating the Australian people like mugs.”
Pure of motivation, Dutton is focused on “tangible improvements to the lives of Indigenous Australians”, notwithstanding that on every measure the decade-long government, of which he was a senior member, failed to deliver any improvement whatsoever.
Helpfully, Dutton has provided a list of the details the Australian people need before they can consider the Voice proposal. It is at that point he reveals himself fully, and we can safely predict what happens from here.
Dutton makes Tony Abbott look subtle, so it isn’t difficult to pick up what he’s doing, or whose idea he’s copying. The play is an attempted repeat of John Howard’s successful three-card trick that brought down the 1999 republic referendum: 1) demand the detail; 2) when it’s provided, demand more detail; 3) claim there’s now too much detail and advocate a “No” vote on the basis that, if you don’t understand it, you’re being conned.
The details Dutton says we must have are, in truth, a collection of dogwhistles dressed up as reasonable requests. Who gets to be on the Voice body? What is the “definition of Aboriginality”? How much will it cost? Will it have “decision-making capabilities”? Will it be used to negotiate a “national treaty”?
I get it — Dutton will defend his perfectly reasonable queries all the way to referendum day, and point to any reticence about answering them as an indicator of something sneaky or even malign. How can we decide whether to build an Olympic swimming pool until we know who will be allowed to swim in it?
There are two answers to this ploy, apart from the really obvious one, which I’ll leave for my punchline. First, the government’s design is explicit. What we will be asked, in a first-stage referendum, is the question of principle: do we support the creation of a Voice, as asked for and articulated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart? If yes, then the detail will be legislated.
Secondly, apparently Dutton has forgotten, as have all of his colleagues, that the minister for Indigenous Australians in their own government, Ken Wyatt, prepared and attempted to table in cabinet on two occasions a highly detailed plan for implementation of the Voice. It was ignored; it seems none of them ever read it.
He has also apparently forgotten the exhaustive work carried out by academics including Megan Davis, Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, producing volumes of detailed analysis and explanation of what the Voice would be — and would not be — which are available to anyone who cares to, and can, read.
Detail? That’s not the issue. The issue is whether we choose to listen to Indigenous peoples and respect their carefully considered judgment that the Voice — as Langton and Calma said two years ago — “is an urgent matter for redress on our journey to equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”. Listening, of course, requires shutting up.
Shutting up is not Dutton’s way, nor is it that of any of those who have already declared their opposition: Abbott, Howard, Bolt, Jones, Credlin, Price, Mundine, Joyce, Littleproud — all the names you’d expect to be shouting a loud and reflexive “no”.
The proof of Dutton’s disingenuousness is in the detail of his supposedly open-handed approach. One of the details he demands will suffice: will the Voice body be empowered to make decisions? No, one million times, no. Nobody has ever said, suggested or implied that it will or should be anything more than advisory in construct and effect. It is a big lie, fully known to those who peddle it, to keep pretending otherwise.
Dutton is propagating the lie. He has no intention of engaging sincerely with the Voice. He will, sooner or later, drop the mask and tell us to vote no. And we will know why.
Do you think more detail is needed about the Voice referendum, or is Peter Dutton just stirring division? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
So Peter “on water matters” Dutton is accusing Anthony Albanese of treating us “like mugs” for not releasing more detail about the Indigenous voice to parliament? After we had to put up with nine years of Coalition government that blanketed us in political gobbledygook, broken promises, procrastination, rorts, and outright lies, he has the gall to come out with that? He only wants more detail so he can have more to complain about. As Michael says, Dutton’s “details” are just a collection of dogwhistles.
He must be vying for the Scott Morrison Award for Barefaced Effrontery.
Oh, come on, Gazza, be fair. What about the mountain of detail presented to the nation on the AUKUS arrangement and the subs decision? As minister of defence, Dutts was at the very helm of steering us through a sea of detail about all that, plus the war with China he warned us about, so we could make an informed decision about ‘national security’ at the election; no dog whistle there.
As John Blaxland, ANU Professor of Military Strategy, told LNL last year, “AUKUS is noting more than a press release and glint in Morrison’s eye”.
An Arsehat of the Year award is surely on the cards for Spud this year.
Sigh!
How do we know that the Christmas/New Year holiday season is over again for another year? Mutton pulls his head out his arse long enough for us to have to endure his babble again.
I can tell you one voice we definitely don’t need to our parliament.
His.
Dutton is being his usual thuggish and hypocritical self, and Jane Hume on ABC RN this morning made the total bankrupcy of their position very clear. When challenged she agreed that the answers to just about all the questions asked by Dutton are readily available for anyone who is interested. Although she actually does know the answers, she said it was still necessary to ask basic questions on behalf of ‘all Australians’. Well, she’s certainly not asking on my behalf. Anyway, if she and Dutton are really so very concerned that some Australians need these answers nobody is stopping them from communicating the answers themselves. But that would not serve Dutton’s purpose, would it? As Bradley implies, this is all about disruption and wrecking.
Nailed it.
And I don’t think Dutton’s ploy is going to work.
Australians are generally decent and won’t fall for the lies peddled by the conga line of ratbags listed above.
I really want to believe that, but if it were true we wouldn’t have had to endure all those years of mindlessly destructive coalition government. Sadly, a significant proportion of the Australian public are either stupid or greedy and selfish
Stupid OR greedy and selfish? Comes to the same thing.
Altruism is just enlightened self-interest. Reckon we can find a way to let all the mugs know?
And you forgot to mention racist
A conga line of ratbags, or a hatful of arseholes?
Even after the questions are answered, in true LNP style, Albanese will still have ‘questions to answer’.
Bang-on. There’ll never be enough details of the right kind. Dutton’s going to bet on the Voice as his way to political resurrection, and no matter what, he’s going to oppose it, walk out, whatever.