Key Points
- Peter Dutton has described prime minister’s Voice explanation as a ‘trainwreck’.
- Anthony Albanese will not be drawn on plan if the Voice referendum fails.
- Mr Albanese has defended the level of detail on the Voice proposal.
Coalition leader Peter Dutton has demanded to know whether Labor will legislate a Voice to Parliament if its referendum fails, describing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s explanation of the body as a “complete trainwreck”.
The government is pushing ahead with
a move which requires backing from Australians at a referendum.
Mr Albanese would not be drawn on whether he would respond to a
by passing the Voice through Parliament instead.
“One of the things that I’m not doing is leading with a position that assumes a loss of a referendum. That would not be a very sensible thing to do,” he said on radio 2GB on Wednesday.
Anthony Albanese says the in-principle referendum will come before details decided by Parliament. Source: AAP / Aaron Bunch
A Voice enshrined via a referendum would have greater protection than one created by legislation, which future governments could simply reverse in parliament.
Dismissing suggestions that Australians do not yet have enough detail to back the idea, Mr Albanese said the referendum would centre on in-principle support for the Voice, before parliament settles on a model.
He compared the vote, which will take place at the end of this year, to deciding “whether there will be a Sydney Harbour Bridge or not”.
“Then you decide how many lanes it will be, which will go in what direction, what the toll will be, some of that detail. The question before the Australian people is a really simple one,” he said.
“All of the detail will be the subject of legislation that everyone in the parliament [will vote on].”
Mr Albanese also rebuffed questions on detail by referring to a report written by Indigenous academics Tom Calma and Marcia Langton, outlining how a national Voice would link to regional voice groups.
‘Australians are confused’
Mr Dutton accused his counterpart of being “tricky”, stressing Labor had not adopted the 272-page document as its model.
He also demanded Mr Albanese reveal whether Labor would take the parliamentary legislation route if Australians reject the Voice at the referendum.
“Is he saying to the Australian public that if you vote no in the referendum, he will legislate the next day to bring it in? If that’s the case: pass the legislation now and demonstrate to Australians how it can work,” he said on Wednesday.
The Liberal Party has not revealed whether it will follow the Nationals in opposing the Voice, a decision Mr Dutton says requires greater detail.
He said Australians overwhelmingly wanted to improve conditions for First Nations Australians, but said they do not have enough information to “properly understand what it is the prime minister is asking them to vote for”.
“It was a complete train wreck … If you listened to him this morning, the prime minister doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either,” he said.
“It’s no wonder Australians are confused. If Anthony Albanese can’t explain it to you, why would you vote for it?”
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