The Indigenous Voice to Parliament

While tomato-less Britains flick hungrily through their latest Jamie Oliver turnip recipe book, Australia ponders its next big mass information gathering exercise which is the referendum for an indigenous voice to parliament.

Australia approaches the referendum with a chequered recent history of data collection. The 2016 Australian census which encouraged 100% online participation flopped due to an utter failure of planning and testing. Assuming some distant out-back camel farmer would be as IT savvy as a public servant rushing from their desk to fill their keep-cup with a 9.30am latte was one thing, but the $10 million system built by IBM crashed on census night in a big way - insufficient ‘load testing’ apparently. The computer certainly did say no. Those who could get through also typically recorded their religion as Jedi beating Catholicism into second place which further screwed up the whole sorry mess.

By the following year in 2017 the Australian government introduced a new word into the vernacular with a national same-sex marriage ‘plebiscite’. Apparently, a plebiscite is kind of like a referendum, but the government has a get out clause in that it can ultimately change the result if it likes at the end of it.  Essentially it is the model that SHOULD have been used for the Brexit referendum, but instead was applied to marriage equality which the majority of Australians were happy to support, but instead the government threw $160 million at the question just to make really really really sure.

Australia now has a further two referendums to consider. An election promise when Labor swept to power in 2022 committed to a vote on an indigenous voice to parliament and assuming they win the next election (which given the somewhat sinister yet comical conservative opposition appears likely) we’ll next have a second referendum for an Australian republic in which the misdemeanours of Charles, Camilla, Andy, Harry and co. get raked over again before the inevitable conclusion that they head off into the sunset and we change our coins to have an effigy of Shane Warne on them. Presumably we’ll then also change the design of the Australian flag which is a little bit dated and embarrassing currently.

So, what exactly IS the indigenous voice to parliament that everyone in Australia will be voting on? Essentially, it’s a body made up of indigenous Australians (Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people) which is recognised in the constitution and allows them to provide advice to Parliament on policies and projects that impact their lives.

It represents the next step in a journey which goes back almost to the European invasion in 1788. A few years following this Governor Richard Bourke declared Australia ‘terra nullius’ (literally belonging to no-one) conveniently forgetting that there were possibly up to one million people living (effectively and efficiently) in the continent before convicts and settlers arrived bringing small-pox and other horrors from the ‘new world’ with them decimating indigenous Australia for ever more.

Electing a Voice to Parliament seems to make sense. The Close the gap campaign which commenced in 2007 becomes increasingly embarrassing every year as the ‘gap’ of indigenous disadvantage widens rather than closes. I was (and remain) optimistic about the Voice. Like the marriage equality plebiscite before it and the republic referendum which will follow it, I suspect it will be voted for by a majority of Australians.

What’s become interesting over the last few weeks though is opposition to it. Peter Dutton, the sinister looking leader of the Liberals has declared that he’s undecided on whether he’ll support it or not and given his previous questionable attitudes toward aboriginal inclusion it’s fairly easy to guess which way he’ll go. Opposition has also come from within the indigenous community. Senator Jacinta Price has declared the Voice as divisive and unfair. The issue she sees is that it’s almost impossible to build a truly representative panel. At the time of colonisation it’s thought that there were almost 500 tribes in Australia, each with their own distinct language and territories. It’s impossible therefore to imagine an advisory body genuinely representing even a fraction of that number. Unlike New Zealand where a treaty (The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi) was signed with the Māori’s no such treaty was ever signed with Australia’s indigenous population. As a result Captain Cook was revered and a copy of the Magna Carta is on display in Parliament House in Canberra.

So the Voice has opposition from two unlikely bed-fellows – the Liberals, trying to avoid the sheen slipping off their arguments to reveal their right-wing racist views and some within the aboriginal community saying that the Voice doesn’t go far enough and is not in the least bit representative.

The result therefore is likely that voters will most likely end up being confused. It could therefore go the same way as Brexit, but more likely will pass and be implemented. My fear for the advisory board then is that it has no real substance and awkward issues for Australia, which have built up over generations such as indigenous suicide and often appalling health and welfare outcomes are simply shunted for someone else to ‘fix’ I guess we’ll see. If nothing else I just hope the technology works this time.