Greens look to kill Voice — and hand Labor a potent weapon against them

Until recently the Australian Greens’ position was that the Uluru Statement from the Heart had things round the wrong way. The statement calls for an Indigenous Voice to be enshrined in the constitution, and then — as a “culmination” — a Makarrata Commission “to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.

The Greens decided last year that this was wrong, and that instead “the establishment of a Truth and Justice Commission is one of this country’s first priorities”.

Indeed, the “First Nations representation to Parliament and/or government” appears almost as an afterthought in its “Truth, Treaty, Voice” policy. “Voice” only gets a look-in at the very end of the document.

Now the Greens seem to have decided that it’s just Truth, Treaty, and no Voice. Greens spokesperson on Indigenous issues Senator Lidia Thorpe says a referendum on the Voice is a “waste of money” and a “wasted exercise”. “You don’t need a referendum to have a treaty,” Thorpe says, again indicating just how low a priority a Voice referendum is for the Greens.

That leaves the Greens now looking as though they’ll align with far-right fringe dwellers like One Nation, and racist dead-enders in the Coalition, in opposing a Voice referendum — with a more hardline position that the opposition, which is yet to formally oppose it. And Thorpe has made clear either way that the Greens will not be supporting a referendum in 2023, saying the government is “kidding themselves to think that they’re going to a referendum next year”.

Given Greens’ support in the Senate will be required for the referendum if the Coalition blocks it, it could spell the end of any hope for a referendum happening in this term — leaving Indigenous recognition yet again to be put off, well into the second decade after it was first agreed by both sides of politics.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the Greens are still committed to “good faith” negotiations on the referendum, but that statement appears fundamentally at odds with Thorpe’s expressed views that there’s no point to a referendum, that money shouldn’t be wasted on it, and that it won’t happen next year anyway — before we even get the Greens’ policy position that the Voice is an afterthought.

It does however raise the serious question of what support Bandt can deliver if he decides to back a referendum. How many senators will he be able to count on in a party where the leader is so profoundly at odds with the relevant opposition minister? What can Bandt offer beyond a divided party where his own senators contradict him? For every Greens senator that refuses to support a referendum, the government will have to find another vote to establish a referendum at all.

Facing the possible refusal of the Greens to even permit a referendum to happen, the only upside for Labor is that the Greens are thus handing Labor a useful weapon in the 2025 election. In every inner-city electorate, Labor candidates will be able to tell voters they support an Indigenous Voice and wanted a referendum to have already happened — but the Greens blocked it and don’t seem to even support a Voice at all.

It will be up to Bandt and the Greens to explain to voters something they got away with not explaining in the 2022 election: why they think so many Indigenous groups got it wrong in the development of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Few things could be more helpful in Labor’s quest to portray the Greens as outside the mainstream, extremists committed to purity politics over effective delivery, bitterly divided ideologues who will disappoint mainstream voters who’ve been tempted by disillusion to back them. But the price will be extraordinarily expensive for a nation centuries too late already in recognising the people that invasion and occupation dispossessed.

Is the Greens’ position on the Voice to Parliament justified? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.