Prime Minister Scott Morrison insists his position on constitutional recognition of Australia’s indigenous people has not changed and hopes to make progress in a “good faith way”.
But says he does not want to raise expectations of what can be achieved.
“I am a constitutional conservative on these issues, which should come as no surprise,” he told reporters after addressing the state LNP convention in Queensland on Saturday.
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“I am not going to raise peoples expectations on this, I am going to be very clear about where we are and provide a space, which we have done ... that can hopefully see this progress.”
.@ScottMorrisonMP: Our position on constitutional recognition goes back to the time of John Howard … My views have always very much aligned with that, and we’ve had a very consistent position on that.
MORE: https://t.co/kbnDrio5px #WeekendLive pic.twitter.com/wMLjfOF6Mf
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 13, 2019
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt committed to holding a referendum on constitutional recognition within the next three years this week. But he and the prime minister will not support a constitutionally enshrined indigenous voice to parliament, as proposed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Conservative Liberals and Nationals have also raised concerns an indigenous advisory body could become a “third chamber” of federal parliament, with one MP threatening to campaign on the “no” side of a referendum..
Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman concedes it is going to be hard to find the right model for constitutional recognition but it will be a process that does involve more consultation.
“What I’d encourage everyone to do is to sometimes ‘sit back and take a breath’,” he told ABC television.
“What we don’t need is a knee-jerk reaction to every proposal or proposition that comes along.” He is also conscious of the tricky road that constitutional referendums have had in Australia.
“The majority of Australians - anyone under 40 - will never have seen a successful referendum passed in the country, which gives rise to a little bit of caution,” he said.
Labor opposition frontbencher Amanda Rishworth says any discussion has got to start from the principle that Australia’s first people got together and put forward the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
“We do have to respect that,” she told ABC television.
“In saying that, I think we need to keep an open mind. We want to achieve this. And so we need to go forward with making sure that people aren’t closing off to where we can get to with this.”
Mr Morrison says he is focused on young indigenous people committing suicide in remote regional communities and making sure enough kids are turning up at school every day to get the education to set them up for the future.
“It’s these very practical issues that are my top priority,” he says.
Labor pushes on with indigenous ‘voice’ proposal
Labor and key Aboriginal leaders have stared down Scott Morrison’s rejection of a constitutionally enshrined “voice to parliament”, declaring they would keep pushing the government to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Opposition indigenous Australians spokeswoman Linda Burney yesterday said it was “too early” to give up on a constitutionally enshrined voice after The Australian reported the Prime Minister would veto a referendum on the proposal.
“I have (seen) what the Prime Minister has said and I have heard what a number of people in the Coalition have said, but Labor’s position is crystal clear. We embrace the Uluru statement and I will continue to work in a collaborative bipartisan way towards what the Uluru statement says,” Ms Burney said.
“It doesn’t take away for one minute — whether the Prime Minister has said what he has said or not — the collaborative nature of how I want to move forward.’’
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt on Wednesday committed himself to a referendum in this term of parliament on the recognition of indigenous Australians in the Constitution.
Mr Wyatt left the door open to the model of a constitutionally enshrined voice but warned he would only proceed with a “pragmatic” model that would receive broad public support. He said yesterday that legislating a voice to parliament could be a “better way” than enshrining it in the Constitution. “If the voice fails in any referendum … then it is folly. We cannot do that, we have to look at practical solutions that realise better outcomes for our people,’’ he told ABC radio.
Senior government sources said on Thursday that Mr Morrison was opposed to the voice proposal and it would not be part of the government’s push for indigenous constitutional recognition.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton yesterday said the government did not support a “third chamber or a separate voice”.
Three members of the Referendum Council — Noel Pearson, Patricia Anderson and Megan Davis — responded yesterday by declaring “there is nothing to fear from the voice”.
“It is not a third chamber in parliament and would have no veto or legislative power. The legislation that establishes the body of the voice will be capable of change, so it is not about cementing into the Constitution a static body,” they said in a statement.
“The details around the voice were purposely unfinished as it was always intended that they would be defined through a consultation process with the Australian people and it is through the government’s commitment to a co-design process that this can be achieved.”
The three indigenous leaders said the government’s commitment to a referendum was a “great step forward” in achieving constitutional recognition.
Former Liberal indigenous affairs minister Fred Chaney said the voice would be a “natural, appropriate and measured” change to the Constitution. “Properly constructed, there will be little to worry about. The change to the Constitution will be but an authorising provision empowering the federal government to establish the voice,” he writes in The Weekend Australian today.
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