Not all laws of politics are immutable, but there’s one that surely is: if you’re explaining, you’re losing.
On this measure alone, the Albanese government is losing the battle to amend the Australian constitution for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
It’s been eight months this weekend since Anthony Albanese led Labor to a narrow win against a crisis-prone, poorly led Coalition. On election night, he put constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples at the top of his government’s agenda, using it as his first sentence after an Acknowledgment of Country: “And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.”
Since then we’ve had a brief proposal regarding what a constitutional change might look like — outlined in a speech to the Northern Territory Garma Festival at the end of July last year — followed by a semantic squabble over what means what. It’s been duelling detail demands, back and forth between a sniping opposition and a timid, reluctant government.
This “detail duel” heated up at the start of the new year, and the government has made no progress. In fact, the case for change and recognition has been going backwards. This week demonstrated just how weak the campaign to get Indigenous recognition is right now.
Interventions by Albanese in a combative interview on 2GB, and a national TV appearance by Attorney- General Mark Dreyfus, left many senior Labor figures wondering if there was any proactive campaign for success.
Albanese should have known he was parachuting into hostile territory with bombastic radio host Ben Fordham, but he had little to rebut loaded — but not necessarily unfair — questions. The weakness in his responses is central to where the government is losing. From the prime minister down, they are bound up in process.
Government ministers keep referring to the Langton-Calma report, a 272-page document bearing the name of its authors, Indigenous leaders and academics Marcia Langton and Tom Calma. It’s a thoughtful, considered document that answers or expands upon many of the prickly questions Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and others are throwing in the path of change.
However, there are three problems with this “here’s the process, just follow it” approach.
No one knows what the Langton-Calma report is, no one has read it, and neither the report nor the ministers waving it around have a crisp description of what a Voice might mean.
The Voice is a word in search of a sentence. There’s no meaning attached to it beyond what, for the overwhelming majority of Australian voters (who will decide this matter), is a feel-good notion of recognition.
In a lengthy interview with Laura Tingle on the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday, Dreyfus spent most of his time explaining, arguing and selling processes — spanning timelines, legislation and what a beautiful model was being developed. An argument for change it was not. None of this was helped by Dreyfus clearly reading out talking points from a government information sheet or Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney’s Twitter feed.
The government needs to finish a sentence starting with the words “The Voice is…” Then it must develop a considered campaign plan to convince people it’s something that will change Australia and the lives of Indigenous peoples for the better.
Ministers, led by Albanese, need to take the Voice out of the nebulous and attach it to real-life outcomes. These have to be founded in recognition but also encompass economic and educational opportunities, better health and welfare, and a greater sense of belonging and community.
The argument from within the Albanese government is that the referendum will look after itself, that we shouldn’t underestimate the intelligence of the Australian people, and that the culture war negativity of Dutton and his political and media cheer squad is yesterday’s script.
This could be wishful thinking, although Albanese spent much of 2020 and 2021 telling internal party doubters his “kicking into the wind in the last quarter” genius was all going to plan. He even likened himself to US President Joe Biden.
That was a useful analogy only when it worked. Listening to the interviews this week and then examining the conservative political and media reaction should activate flashing red lights in the senior ranks of the government and the Labor Party.
It wasn’t just the mechanised, scripted appearance by Dreyfus (who most voters might think has a handle on the legalities of all this), but also the unprepared way Albanese walked into the issue.
He made himself an easy target for a political attack specialist like Dutton, who is already polishing the ultimate defeat line for a referendum: it’s no wonder Australians are confused, and if Albanese can’t explain it to you, why would you vote for it?
Albanese has also exposed a lack of what should be easy-to-grasp detail (he confessed to 2GB the government hadn’t asked for legal advice from the solicitor-general before releasing the draft detail about the Voice, for example).
When pressed on how the who, what, when, where, how and why might roll out, he fell back on a lazy analogy about the Sydney Harbour Bridge: the referendum was like asking people if they wanted the nation’s most famous bridge — do people in Melbourne’s western suburbs or on the urban fringes of Brisbane really care? — before the Parliament would then decide “how many lanes [there] will be, which will go in what direction, what the toll will be, some of that detail. The question before the Australian people is a really simple one.”
Dutton pounced, saying Albanese didn’t know what he was talking about and was risking defeat for Indigenous recognition.
Here is the bedrock of Albanese’s response, which exposes the weakness of the government’s case.
“Do you recognise Indigenous people in the constitution? That’s the first question,” he says. “And the second is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were asked to have a process. And … they came up with the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017.”
That might start a conversation in a common room at a sandstone university, but it doesn’t finish the sentence beginning with “The Voice is…”
Until the government can do that, and develop a serious campaign to win the backing of a majority of people in a majority of states, it is headed for defeat. Dutton has nothing to lose, which is why he is playing such a clever two-track political game, saying we all want recognition but the government has to set out in fine detail the ingredients and recipe involved.
This is not something that was ever going to look after itself, and if a referendum proposal is defeated, we won’t revisit it for a very long time. Don’t forget: the republic referendum was almost 24 years ago, and its return is nowhere near the far horizon.
It’s pretty bloody simple. Do we want the government to hear from First Nations people about matters that affect them or not? And if yes, do we want to ensure that voice is built into our system so that a grub like Dutton can’t just repeal it if (God help us) he ever dogwhistles his way into power?
Exactly.
Exactly, X2.
“Detail” is just part of the John Howard formula for defeating a referendum. As soon as you yield and start debating on the detail you divide the supporters when the objective is to get approval for the principle and then debate the detail – you have lost.
Yes, but that accusation cannot be just dismissed as not relevant. It has to be responded to, fears have to be allayed, confidence has to be built. If not, then we might as well give the game away now. The rectitude of an issue is no guarantee of its success.
Fears are being stoked by the right wing faster than they can be allayed. It is no coincidence that Dutton and other right wingers are launching in to something similar to his “African gangs” narrative only this time around crime in Alice Springs. He is doing this to discredit Indigenous Australians and create a story that they are “not fit to govern themselves”. It is as false, as destructive and as immoral as his attacks on African Australians prior to the last election. Dutton is a low life.
Okay, Dennis, as you’re so obviously on top of what’s needed here, why don’t you finish the sentence? Where’s your “crisp description of what a Voice might mean”? Enlighten us!
After all, if there’s a “lack of what should be easy-to-grasp detail” it shouldn’t be too hard for you, with your background in journalism, to fill that gap in our understanding. Should it?
This raises a good point. Crikey, get one of your writers to put a brief five-to-ten-point article in one of next week’s editions outlining what the voice is and what it intends to achieve. Write it as if for a typical News Corpse reader (regular Crikey readers please grit your teeth or pass on to the next item), and then send a copy to Albo as an example of how to do this sort of thing properly.
How smug of you.
I think you’ve missed the point of the article, Gazza. It’s not up to the journos to explain the issue for find a simple formula of words, they only report it. It’s up to the Govt to explain it and the Govt is failing badly.
Yes, Dutton is being a disingenuous spoiler – if he were dinkum about wanting the Voice to succeed, he would sit down quietly with Albanese and together they could sort out a bipartisan approach. Has Albanese asked him to do this, I wonder? But Dutton cares more about the politics than the issue and, while Albanese understands that, pointing it out is just falling into the Dutton trap.
Christine Wallace questioned Albanese’s “leadership chops” in last week’s Saturday Paper and I thought the same. Did Albanese win the election or did Morrison lose it to the teals and was Albanese a collateral beneficiary?
There has been much discussion on Twitter of the ABC’s willingness to quote Dutton every day while ignoring Albanese when he was LOTO. But that overlooks that Dutton has gone big target whereas Albanese was playing small target – hence the levels of despair in some quarters during that period, when Albanese was not taking it up to Morrison.
It’s time for Albanese to get out in front, take the initiative and actually lead on this issue. Because at the moment he appears to be all at sea.
It would be par for the course for a Labor leader to do such a thing, but equally so for the Coalition leader to merrily go back on his* word and attack it anyway.
*Is the first female to lead the Coalition to an election even in Parliament? Has she even been born yet?
The Voice, I imagine would be much like the Citizens Assembly in Ireland.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens'_Assembly_(Ireland)
Although in that case questions are put to it by the Parliament for consideration.
Every industry group and many other interest groups consider matters relevant to their area and do research and submit papers to Parliament for consideration. What’s the big deal here with an Indigenous body doing the same.
I think that people of good faith can understand the difference between a legislative body and a consultative one. Why can’t Labor seem to get this simple message out.
Understand it, support it, don’t get a vote on it – but, hey, I’m just a guest worker, I know my place. Struggling to understand how so many Australians don’t get it, or is it they do, they just don’t want it?
From one of Mudroch’s ex-Limited News Party stooges comes advice for Albanese – after all those years spent beavering away in the bowels of Rupert’s Curry or Maul, with King, under her husband, editor Dave Fagan; selling Rupert’s Limited News Party to the voters of Qld – why is that part of his c.v. continually ignored by Crikey? “Full disclosure” and all? All we get is “… freelance journalist based in Brisbane where he was a national political editor during the Howard government”? No more about where, for whom, doing what?.
… How about some advice for Dutton?
…. Or maybe Mudroch’s present crop of opinionated partisan, political PR hacks?
Quite correct. Atkins is hardly an an unbiased pundit if history is any guide. Your suggestion of some advice for Dutton has merit. As with the Nationals opposing the Voice for nothing but political advantage, Dutton “leading” the LNP rabble into oblivion, at the same time as wrecking an Indigenous fair play initiative, must have true Libs grimacing in moral agony. One cant fix stupid.
Dutton and Littleproud for Darwin awards.
If you ever listened to his Grumpy Old Hacks podcast, you might not be so dismissive of Atkins. I didn’t read this article as an attack on The Voice, I read it as a critique of the Government’s failure in letting Dutton dominate the debate.
I had enough of the years of his using his position at Limited News (Brisbane’s Curry or Maul branch – in a one-paper state) of influencer , trying to get the Qld electorate to vote for Rupert’s Limited News Party…. now he’s been “reborn”, and that history of his ‘expunged’?
He was part of the problem, the media has become. Let’s not forget that.
The damage has been done – by the likes of him, and the way they abused their position in our society….
As the “national political editor” of that rag there was never any explanation of the total “editorial” disregard for impartiality and objectivity, in their flat-out pimping campaigning for the Limited News Party?
The habitual ignorance (or distractions) m.o. of(from) Coalition screw-ups.
And when they were too obvious to ignore (“Bloody ABC!”?), their mitigation :- by reflecting on “similar Labor history”.
But when Labor was caught in similar embarrassed straights, there was no reciprocation of Coalition similar history.
It was all one-way PR traffic for the Coalition/Limited News Party : against the left.
From ’93 the only “Vote Labor this time” on the eve of an election was when dogs were barking the Ruddslide.
[I remember vividly the ’93 pimping because of the then broadsheet jettisoning of any vestige of impartiality, urging a vote for Hewson’s Coalition : coinciding with the establishment management (where I was stationed for that rotation) slipping a “Vote for the Liberal Party because ….” note in with their pay-slips the same day….. Pretty funny the Curry or Maul doing much the same thing as a company which made head-lines for all the wrong reasons some years later.
…. 2004 – ‘How close was the contest between Howard and (Pennywise) Latham shaping up’? …. ‘How great was ‘political genius’ Howard’s subsequent victory’???
Then the “Vote for Change/Rudd” (that the dogs were barking) 2007 election eve message, preceded the week before on Tuesday and Thursday, one each editorials devoted to the saving of Boswell’s senatorial arse from the ravages of a possible Green gain, and the other, to the whole state(?), trying to save Brough’s political arse in Longman
…. “Two out of three” :- Rudd and Boswell each won Longman fell to Labor (shame about that) ].