Referendum to add new Voice to parliament will take place on Oct 14 but issue proves controversial
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during the Yes23 official campaign launch in Adelaide, Australia, Aug 30, 2023. (PHOTO / AP)
Australians are set to cast their votes on Oct 14 in a decisive referendum that will either unite the country or bitterly divide it.
Voters will be polled on the addition of a line into the Constitution, recognizing the country’s First Nations people by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to the Federal Parliament.
For Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Voice has been his key policy objective and will define his rule.
Albanese announced the referendum date at a packed meeting in Elizabeth, a working-class suburb near Adelaide, South Australia on Aug 30.
“Our Australian story goes back 65,000 years,” Albanese said in a speech. “And what a privilege we have of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth. But our story is not finished yet. It’s up to all of us to write the next chapter together. And we can start by writing one word — yes.”
However, the referendum has left Australians across the country — indigenous and nonindigenous alike — bitterly divided.
The opposition Liberal National Party is formally against the Voice, with its leader Peter Dutton saying Albanese has set Australia “on a course to division”.
On Oct 14, Australians will be asked to vote “yes” or “no” on this single question: “A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to recognize the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”
What the Voice will look like remains uncertain.
The government has said it will be a body elected by First Nations people, which will advise Parliament and the government on matters relating purely to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It will not have the power to make or change laws.
Those pushing for a “no” vote claimed the Voice would become a third chamber of the Australian Parliament, sitting beside the House of Representatives and the Senate making its own laws.
Opinion polls showed that a “yes” vote is not a done deal.
According to constitutional law professor Cheryl Saunders from the University of Melbourne, the vote requires dual majorities to succeed.
First, it demands a majority national vote from the six key states — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. Second, it needs majorities in four of those states.
NSW and Victoria will likely lean toward a “yes” vote, while Queensland and Western Australia are expected to vote “no”. South Australia and Tasmania are largely uncertain and could decide the referendum.
Nyunggai Warren Mundine, a well-known Aboriginal businessman, is one of the more prominent opponents of the Voice. He said the Voice will “divide Aboriginal people and our great democratic nation”.
“I well understand the racism, discrimination, and abuse Aboriginals experienced under colonization, segregation, and in other dark corners of Australia’s history. I’ve personally experienced it,” he wrote in a recent opinion piece.
“In the past 60 years, I’ve also witnessed a complete turnaround in the position of Aboriginal people in Australia — in our daily lives, in our opportunities, in the laws that govern us, and in the attitude of other Australians.”
Another prominent Aboriginal opponent to the Voice is the Opposition’s Indigenous Affairs Minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. She described the Voice as an “elite concept, an elite experiment that people in remote communities are completely detached from”.
Speaking on 2GB radio on Aug 30, she said: “Those pushing it are completely detached from their (First Nations people) lives and an understanding of what their day-to-day, in fact, looks like.”
The Federal Assistant Minister for Indigenous Affairs Malarndirri McCarthy said the government acknowledges that it is an “uphill battle” to garner “yes” votes.
“I feel that whatever we do, no matter how much or how long it would take, it was always going to be tough,” she told ABC News Breakfast on Aug 30.
