The federal government has a laser-like focus on the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which includes a Voice to Parliament recognised in the constitution, truth-telling and a treaty.
It’s a list of milestones leading the national discourse about the merits, demerits and challenges of implementing a Voice. What isn’t a key focus right now is whether our institutions are fit for purpose if a Voice comes into being. Can Parliament do the job required?
There is no reason to doubt its possibility, but an additional tweak might be needed to ensure the system has ongoing symmetry.
A question that needs answering is exactly who will be doing the “listening”, and whether the same structures will be in place to listen to those that form the Voice in years to come. Parliament is the obvious answer, but its conventions are not entirely suitable and require some rethinking.
As the constitutional amendments take further shape during the debate, let’s reflect on one example: the structure of committees that hold inquiries and review legislation in federal Parliament.
There has been a committee dealing with Indigenous affairs in Parliament for some time, but its status has shifted over the past 12 months. The Coalition government had a House of Representatives committee for Indigenous affairs, but it was a committee only of the lower house.
Only lower house members could participate in inquiries, meaning Senate members could not partake except through liaising with or briefing political colleagues who might be on the committee.
Labor’s 2022 election saw the status of a committee dealing with Indigenous matters elevated to that of a joint parliamentary committee. Members and senators are able to serve on this committee as it is a committee of the whole Parliament.
It raises an important question in the context of the referendum to enshrine a Voice to Parliament in the constitution, given that the status of such a committee as a body of one or both chambers appears to be dependent on the whims of an incumbent administration.
The constitution provides for both chambers of Parliament to make rules for the behaviour and conduct of parliamentary business. This is good, proper and necessary, but does the permanent nature of a Voice as envisaged in the referendum necessitate a permanent joint committee also constitutionally enshrined?
A strong case can be made for a specific joint committee hardwired in the constitution so that the Voice has a permanent body with which it can communicate. There is nothing to say the constitution cannot specify Parliament must have a specific committee. A general scope of its activities can be inserted with a provision for Parliament to add further items as required.
Such incorporation of a committee for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in the constitution would also ensure there would be no vacillating on the status of the committee based on the preferences of the government of the day.
Issues related to Indigenous communities in this country are too important for the creation of committees to be the subject of political whim.
The article makes a fair point that a Voice would need somebody in federal parliament that listens, and it’s right that “There is nothing to say the constitution cannot specify Parliament must have a specific committee.” Even so, as supporters of the Voice have been explaining over and over in the face of demands for more detail, the constitution is written to give an outline or skeleton only with all the detail added later by parliament.
This aims to give a balance between a fixed and dependable semi-permanent structure and the flexibility to change when circumstances or political demands change. A requirement for a parliamentary committee looks very much something that should be determined as parliament sees fit rather than embedded in the constitution. If one committee is prescribed by the constitution, why not more or even all of them? (It is a fact that plenty of MPs, particularly when not in the governing party, would dearly like to reduce the government’s control and dominance of committees.) If we do that, how many other parts of government should be detailed in the constitution if there is to be any consistency? How big would the constitution be once this is done?
As well as that general point, if such a committee is embedded in the constitution the proposal must either be included in the Voice referendum, where it will add a complication and open up more routes to attack the proposal, or else it will require its own referendum. Can anyone see the government wanting that?
There needs to be some mechanism to ensure that the Voice is listened and their views acted upon – by the politicians AND the public servants – given that the latter tend to develop policy first and consult afterwards, by which stage they are wedded to their policy and don’t want changes.
If the parliament won’t listen to the voice, why would they listen to this committee? Silly idea IMO. If you like a committee how about the Cabinet?
But getting the government of the day to listen will be easy compared to levering action out of the various government departments that will have the actual power, as always, over the lives of aboriginals. Making the bureaucrats change their ways is the old conundrum wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an impossibility. Aboriginals, judging by the Uluru statement, believe that politicians don’t listen; but it could be that government bureaucrats don’t listen to the politicians (or anybody else).
I would prefer a Treaty along the lines of NZ’s Treaty of Waitangi instead of the Voice because I just do not trust government to deliver whatever Parliament decides the Voice is, in a fair and consistent way. Governments come and go and so do their political ideologies. Imagine a far right dominated parliament and its treatment of the ideals of the Voice. Remember that the Republican referendum failed precisely because Parliament would run the show and the Australian people did not trust it to do a good job in the national interest. A treaty would have direct legislative effect especially if, later, it could be incorporated into the Australian Constitution by way of a referendum which, by that time, the Australian electorate would have a good idea what was involved.
Waitangi is certainly not a perfect solution. For example, successful claims to the Waitangi Tribunal are not binding on the Crown and there is no requirement for Parliament to report on progress in addressing the issues of any successful claim. Not good – no teeth. Easily remedied with a legislated requirement that the Tribunal (which is staffed and funded in a fully transparent way) publish annual reports on progress of claims AND the government of the day has to publish a concurrent report on its progress – similar to the Closing the Gap legislation. Not perfect but at least some information on goernment progress or otherwise will be available to the electorate to cast their political judgement and/or exert pressure for more action or ambition or both.