Albanese wants a quick resolution of the Voice question. He’s dreaming

Anthony Albanese is keen to move on a referendum on the First Nations Voice to Parliament as soon as possible. To quote a traditional second nations’ phrase, tell him he’s dreaming. Quite aside from the strategic foolishness of rushing into a vote where the basic odds of the set-up are against you, there is now the not-so-small problem of a First Nations opposition to the process from within Parliament. 

The election of Jacinta Price as senator from the Northern Territory, present together with Lidia Thorpe and Dorinda Cox from the Greens, must surely complicate and cause to be reassessed the whole issue of the Voice reassessed. Price opposes the Voice altogether, and the Greens specify that a Voice to Parliament can only come after a truth process leading to treaty negotiations. There are of course several Labor First Nations MPs who support it. But are the politics of it now so unanimous that it deserves no consideration before Labor tries to ram it through with a big dose of emotional blackmail?

The Voice was conceived years ago, at a time when the number of First Nations MPs was shamefully small. There are now 10 First Nations MPs. That is substantial representation, and it puts the Voice movement in a strange position. Because in order to forward it, a white settler government will be negotiating with a group of First Nations leaders who haven’t been elected, chiefly Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, to get through a proposal that a number of 10 First Nations MPs may oppose.

How can the pretence be made that the 2022 election has changed nothing about the relationship between Parliament and this process? The only way that can be done, in pursuit of a thing called “the Voice”, is to ignore all the First Nations voices being raised against it. The Voice’s proponents will argue that such leaders were part of the 2017 National Convention on Constitutional Recognition. They could also argue that these leaders were selected by First Nations peoples. But the process of selection appears somewhat mysterious, and certainly more ad hoc than a federal election.

So we now have a split, dual-power situation: a number of First Nations politicians, elected by both First Nations and non-Indigenous people but in a guaranteed process, versus a leadership elected solely by First Nations people but with some questions as to how it was done. The recognition by the state of that latter group does not undermine the Australian Parliament as a whole, but it does undermine the legitimacy of First Nations MPs, since they, and they alone, are subject to a competing legitimated group. Paradoxically, non-Indigenous recognition of the Voice group turns First Nations MPs into second-class citizens. 

That must surely also be considered in the light of the particular nature of the Voice proposal — as an assembly to be written into the constitution, which is designed to be powerless. That would seem to be undermining the real power that First Nations people have just achieved.

Let’s say the Voice is created and offers advice to governments. And let’s say First Nations senators, on certain votes, form a cross-party bloc to oppose the government’s Voice, with real votes and real power. There would thus be a powerless advisory group, constituted in a process of byzantine complexity, as set out by the Calma-Langton 2021 report. The proposed National Voice to Parliament won’t be elected by a national poll of all First Nations people. Its 24-member body will be selected by regional and local Voice groups, whose membership will be selected by, well:

Each Local & Regional Voice will be different but all will be community-designed and led. Broadly, each is expected to include: a leadership group at the regional level (the size, composition and method of representation will be decided by communities and stakeholders across the region).

This process is obviously circular. Local leaders and stakeholders will select the leaders of a Local Voice group representing stakeholders and community. Thus, at the root of the National Voice will be a process in which no actual vote has taken place. First Nations MPs will be competing for legitimacy with people no one has elected. How will they have any authority in Parliament?

And these basic structural political contradictions occur before we even get to the question of a referendum campaign. The opponents of this idea from the right have a simple slogan: “no third chamber”. How on earth is the current Voice proposal to be explained by its advocates? Well, if they’re honest, they will have to affirm this:

Legislation (at both Commonwealth and state and territory levels) and cross-jurisdictional agreements will be needed to set out governments’ commitments and enable Local & Regional Voice arrangements, including collaboration across the levels of government. This will be progressed through intergovernmental discussions … Consideration of detailed boundaries will be based primarily on cultural groupings and existing regions. Regions will generally align with state/territory boundaries, but cross-border arrangements will be considered where needed.

So how do these unelected bodies relate to local and state government authority? The Voice’s proponents have come up with this design, in part to avoid national First Nations elections, which would require a commission to determine who is and isn’t eligible to vote, and would be a nightmare. But in order to do that, legislation will incorporate them into government structures in ways not made clear. 

The truth may be that the Voice is already a victim of the political success of First Nations people getting the idea of colonialism and dual sovereignty to the centre of political debate. Paradoxically, “the Voice” is the sort of thing that could lose the political craps game of a referendum, while a strong treaty with simple consequences and a path to forms of real sovereignty could win it. 

Whatever the pros and cons, and unless the Greens fold, the dreamt-of path to getting a Voice referendum by simple acclamation has been removed by the very election that many people thought would make it possible. There is now no alternative but for its proponents to resort to, gasp, actual politics.