Labor is increasingly unlikely to put out a detailed plan on how an Indigenous Voice to parliament would work before next year’s national vote to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal Australians through an advisory body.
Senior Albanese government sources have told The Australian there is growing concern that granular details about how the Voice would be structured and how it would operate – including its membership – could ultimately derail a Yes vote.
The Uluru Dialogue co-chair Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman and Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of NSW, said: “Going out with fully fledged detail is dangerous because the nation needs to vote on the (constitutional) amendment, not the model.”
Professor Davis is a member of the government’s constitutional expert group, which is advising on the final wording of the proposed amendment to guarantee the existence of an Indigenous Voice.
“The purpose of having the amendment is to allow flexibility in the (voice) model,” Prof Davis said.
“There needs to be flexibility in the model, it needs to be able to change, you need agility. The Voice in 2022 is not going to be the same as the Voice in 2052.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/referendum-put-before-vote-on-voice-to-p...This referendum must fail. Asking for a constitutional change vague enough to allow 'flexibility' in all sorts of unforeseen, or rather,
deliberately undisclosed, way is deeply sinister.
"Prof Calma said the Voice would operate in a similar way to existing advisory bodies, including the auditor-general, law reform commission and Commonwealth ombudsman."
Needless to say, none of them are established in the Constitution. Why need a constitutional amendment if the Voice is like all the other 1100 Aboriginal advisory bodies?
There's dirty work at the crossroads.