THE VOICE TO PARLIAMENT: THE CASE FOR

As 2023 – the year of Australia’s referendum on The Voice to Parliament – The Sydney Institute began a series of discussions on what would be the question, the model and the arguments for and against constitutional change with regard to Australia’s first peoples. On Tuesday 24 January 2023, Australian journalist, radio and television presenter Joe Hildebrand, joined Warren Mundine, Executive Chairman at Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd to present the cases for and against a “Yes” vote. It was an unusual event with non-Indigenous Hildebrand arguing “Yes” and Indigenous Mundine arguing for the “No” case. 

THE VOICE TO PARLIAMENT: THE CASE FOR

JOE HILDEBRAND

It is a pleasure to be here. I have been before, but in a spectator’s capacity, so it’s lovely to experience it on this side of the microphone.

I’m glad this is not a knockdown, drag ‘em out debate because, as you’ve probably already guessed, Warren and I are extremely good friends.

I’m glad this is not a knockdown, drag ‘em out debate because, as you’ve probably already guessed, Warren and I are extremely good friends. I absolutely love the man and he loves me even more. We actually agree with each other on virtually everything to do with Indigenous affairs. I’ll come to where we differ on The Voice very shortly.

I would just like to acknowledge that it is deeply ironic that you have a white fella up here arguing for The Voice and a black fella who’s about to argue against it. I would also note that, as a lot of you will know, Gerard is Warren’s father-in-law. So, I’m already at a great advantage.

Getting back to first principles and why the need for a Voice, why I think it will be effective or at least is worth a shot, I think Warren and I see the problems almost exactly the same way; we just see what the Voice would be or could be very differently.

Obviously, there was a debate launched by Prime Minister Tony Abbott with the support of the Labor Party about constitutional recognition. It wasn’t even a debate, it was a push; Tony Abbott was for constitutional recognition. That process led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. When we asked Indigenous Australians what they wanted in terms of constitutional recognition, they didn’t really give us the answer we wanted them to give us. They said, “We want a voice to parliament.” A lot of people, Malcolm Turnbull included, said, “Hang on, that wasn’t part of the discussion, that wasn’t in the brief. We were just going to put a nice little flowery form of words in the Constitution and that was meant to be enough.”

A lot of people, Malcolm Turnbull included, said, “Hang on, that wasn’t part of the discussion, that wasn’t in the brief. We were just going to put a nice little flowery form of words in the Constitution and that was meant to be enough.”

The first dilemma you get when it comes to the Voice is that you can’t consult with people, or ask Indigenous people what they want, and then when they come back with something different to what you’re expecting, say, “No, sorry you can’t have that.” It’s a bit like Henry Ford saying you can have any colour as long as it’s black.

We have to acknowledge that this is something that they have asked for, and that they wanted after a process that was launched by a former prime minister, whom I think most of us very much respect. Even if he doesn’t support The Voice in this form either. There has been a process. Whether you supported the process or not, it was a process initiated by a conservative PM and it produced a result after years of consultation. That is what Indigenous people, on the whole, want.

Obviously, they are not a monolithic group, and it would be outrageously racist to suggest that all Indigenous people thought the same way or supported The Voice. Clearly, they don’t, but that was what the process produced. I initially did share some concerns about The Voice being a third chamber, but I have had those concerns utterly disabused. The Voice will be – if anything – deliberately designed to be powerless, in terms of legislative power.  From the form of words that’s already been put out there – and it might not be the final form of words – The Voice will be an advisory body only, and parliament will be in all ways sovereign.

The Voice will be – if anything – deliberately designed to be powerless, in terms of legislative power.

The more I’ve thought about it and the more I’ve been involved in the campaign or spoken to the people who are directly involved in the campaign, I’ve actually come to realise that we were the fools in the first place. We were the fools when we were talking about just having constitutional recognition and that being enough. Take the situation in Alice Springs, which I’m very familiar with having been there myself and seen the town camps and perhaps quite famously been attacked in the streets of Alice Springs. What we asked Indigenous people to do was to actually come up with something that was, in fact, entirely symbolic. That was, in fact, the ultimate form of foundational virtue signalling in our national document. What they came back with was something that said, “No, there’s no point having that unless we have an actual, practical instrument that can fix the problems, that can close the gap.” I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of you how big and how chasmic the gap is. It’s probably one of the widest, if not the widest, gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people anywhere in the world. Life expectancy alone is about ten years or so.

We also know that we throw enormous amounts of money at this problem. Warren rightly observed this on Q+A a few years ago – and people couldn’t believe it. The dirty little hipsters tried to fact check him. He was absolutely correct; was it $33 billion, the figure that was put around? That is a huge amount of money. And if you’re spending that amount of money and not only is the Gap not narrowing, but in many cases widening, then clearly whatever we are doing at the moment isn’t working. From the outset, there’s about three major things.

We also know that we throw enormous amounts of money at this problem. Warren rightly observed this on Q+A a few years ago – and people couldn’t believe it.

Firstly, this is what the process produced and what was asked for. Secondly, it actually is a practical solution whether it works or not, or whether it’s a silver bullet. But they have asked for practical action. Thirdly, what we are doing now simply isn’t working. Alice Springs is proof of that.

You can say, “Well, they shouldn’t have lifted the booze bans.” That’s perfectly legitimate in terms of the acute crisis they’re facing. We should send in the army – again, perfectly legitimate in terms of the acute crisis. There are kids roaming the streets looking for fights, attacking people, attacking property, because it’s actually safer on the streets than it is at home. If you’ve seen some of these homes, you can see that with your own eyes. Yes, that does need an acute response.

No form of words, no advisory body is going to fix what’s happening in Alice Springs right now.

No form of words, no advisory body is going to fix what’s happening in Alice Springs right now. But the idea that sending in the army is a long-term solution for any Australian community, even one as crisis plagued as some of the remote communities and town camps in remote and regional Australia. It’s clearly not a long-term solution. Saying that you’re banned from drinking alcohol, you’re banned from even having alcohol in your town and your community forever and ever – that is clearly not a long-term solution. Because you’re very quickly getting into a situation where there are in fact two different rules for two different types of Australian.

That gets to the argument where people say The Voice will just create a racial divide, or will create two sets of rights, two sets of people in Australia based on race. That divide is already there. You can see it in the news in Alice Springs. You can see it in the fact that Aboriginal people die ten years earlier on average than the rest of us. The idea that The Voice will create a racial divide – there’s already a racial divide in Australia that is far more profound and far more vital and deadly at the same time than anything The Voice could or couldn’t be. Far from what’s happening in Alice Springs being an argument against the creation of a Voice, surely that is proof that what we are doing now is not working and that we need to try something else. If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all for it. But that is the one idea that has come forward after exhaustive consultation with Indigenous people themselves. And a lot of people say that Indigenous people have to take responsibility for their communities and what’s happening in their communities.

Far from what’s happening in Alice Springs being an argument against the creation of a Voice, surely that is proof that what we are doing now is not working and that we need to try something else.

I’ve been accused of everything under the sun; of being an horrendous racist, for example, for pointing out the outrageously high domestic violence rates in Indigenous communities, especially in remote and regional Australia. We have hospitalisation rates for Indigenous women, in some areas, 30 times higher than non-Indigenous women. I believe in one area it’s actually 80 times higher in a particular place in Western Australia. To pretend there isn’t a problem specific to these communities is simply to ignore the fact and the stats. Not stats as presented by activists – ironically, one of the great disgraceful metamorphoses of what I call the New Left, or you might call it the Woke Left, has been to say that even to raise questions or concerns about the disadvantage that Indigenous people suffer is racist. Apparently, the non-racist thing to do is to just sit back, let the women and children die and blame it all on colonialism, white oppression and white power.

If it’s all racism, colonialism and white people making bad decisions for black people’s lives, over to you. You tell us the solution. We will consult you on these laws

Why don’t we accept that view? Why don’t we say alright, fine? If it’s all racism, colonialism and white people making bad decisions for black people’s lives, over to you. You tell us the solution. We will consult you on these laws and while there will be no legislative constitutionally binding requirement to follow that advice, there will obviously be moral imperative. I think the Prime Minister said it would be a brave government that didn’t do it. More importantly, it will be all out there in the domain. The suggestions made by The Voice will be on the public record, in the public domain. They will hopefully be coming from people in those town camps in Alice Springs, from the aunties in Wilcannia. Instead of the activists on Twitter, instead of the activists on university campus’ who blame everything on neo-colonialism or intersectional theory.

It’s the people on the ground in Alice Springs, for example – they’re the Voice that hasn’t been heard. They are the people who this body is attempting to get representation from, instead of the usual suspects in the corridors of Canberra or in university tutorial rooms. Speak to them, ask them what the problem is, ask them what they think the solution is. If it’s ridiculous, the parliament doesn’t have to do it. If it’s something that no one’s thought of before and it could actually work, we’ll give it a go. But if it doesn’t work, that is that responsibility the people talk about. You want self-determination – take responsibility for your own communities. You can’t very much say that while at the same time saying but we’re not going to give you any instruments to do.

But if it doesn’t work, that is that responsibility the people talk about. You want self-determination – take responsibility for your own communities.

If anyone has been to any of these communities, the idea that people should just stop drinking or send kids to school or just stop hitting the wife is fanciful. These are communities in a complete breakdown. I have seen them, I have been on a school run. The reason I was on a school run is because there was a bus that goes round all the local camps to take all the kids to school, because all the cars are on bricks in the front yard. Again, for all the money and the resources that we throw at it, there is simply not the physical infrastructure, let alone the broader infrastructure, jobs, schooling. Once these kids get to school, the things that are happening at school are incredible, programs to help retain the kids including feeding them, clothing them, providing for all their needs, and providing incentives to show up. These are communities on a knife edge.

So, we need to do something to fix the problem. Nothing we have done so far has worked. This is what Indigenous people have told us they want and need, and they have asked for a practical solution instead of a symbolic one. As Donald Trump said to the black voters of America, “What have you got to lose? Vote for me; it couldn’t get any worse because for all the people who said they have your interests at heart, your lot in life, it has actually gotten worse.” And that’s what’s happening here.

Yes, there are historical wrongs, I don’t deny that. There have been complete screw ups in the past, I don’t deny that. And there have been well intentioned policies that have failed spectacularly. There’s no question of any of that. But the point is, either we keep doing what we’re doing, expecting a different result – which is Einstein’s definition of insanity; or we say, “Alright, we’ve tried everything in our wheelhouse; everything we can think of, everything our institution’s use. It might work for every other avenue of society, every other branch, every other community, but it’s not working here. You’re the ones living here, what do you think we should do?” And if they tell us and it works, we win. If they tell us and it doesn’t work, then the parliament has the capacity to try something else or to ignore that advice and try something else anyway. Or the capacity to reconstitute or tweak The Voice.

If they tell us and it doesn’t work, then the parliament has the capacity to try something else or to ignore that advice and try something else anyway. Or the capacity to reconstitute or tweak The Voice.

My suggestion is to forget any suggestion that The Voice would be enshrining a racial divide in the constitution – to some extent it exists anyway. The previous referendum, ironically enough, gave the Commonwealth the power to make laws for Indigenous people in particular. That was one of the great victories; ninety per cent of us or more voted for that. That racial divide exists in the constitution already, or that racial specification. But you could simply have a catch all phrase in The Voice that says “…and the Parliament shall have the power to dissolve and reconstitute The Voice”. In other words, if it gets bedevilled by corruption as ATSIC did, the parliament can say “You’re all fired, we’re going to hold a fresh set of elections or we’re going to tweak the way that the body is made up and run it again and see if that works. Or change the level of representation.”

There seems to be a weird parallel argument that’s being run which is that, it’s dangerous to have The Voice enshrined in the constitution. And if we do enshrine it in the constitution, we have to have a really specifically detailed version of The Voice set in the constitution. Those two arguments actually cancel each other out even though they’re being run in tandem by the same people. The beauty of the Australian constitution is that it’s an incredibly flexible document, unlike the American constitution. It just provides a skeleton. And then you let legislators figure it out. That’s why we don’t have a prime minister in our constitution, for example.

And then you let legislators figure it out. That’s why we don’t have a prime minister in our constitution, for example.

But what we do have is an incredibly stable system of government that has evolved out of a document that was made to be deliberately flexible and deliberately able to allow the government to change as needs and times required. That is exactly what The Voice can and should be as well. You actually want it to be something that can be changed by the parliament of the day and therefore indirectly the people of the day. To make sure that it works and make sure that it does what it is supposed to do.