Explained What is the Indigenous Voice to parliament and what will the referendum entail?
Australia will head to the polls on October 14 to vote on the referendum on whether to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution.
Details of the Voice and the wording of the referendum question have also been confirmed by the Australian government.
Any change to Australia’s Constitution is a historic moment, as there have only been eight changes to it since 1901.
Let’s unpack what the Indigenous Voice to parliament would look like, and what it means for Australia.
What is the Indigenous Voice to parliament?
The Indigenous Voice to parliament was a key part of 2017’s Uluru Statement from the Heart (which you can read in full further down this page).
The Voice would be a national group of about 20 members who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
This body would be a balanced mix of genders, and include a Youth and Disability Advisory Group.
The Voice would give advice to parliament on matters that are important to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the group would be “an unflinching source of advice and accountability, not a third chamber, not a rolling veto, not a blank cheque, but a body with the perspective and the power and the platform to tell the government and the parliament the truth about what is working and what is not”.
What that means is the group would have input, but elected members of parliament would be the ones accountable to make any changes – and there’s no requirement for the government to actually listen to what the Voice says.
Albanese announced his proposal at the 2022 Garma Indigenous Cultural Festival in the Northern Territory.
When will the Voice referendum be held?
Albanese has announced the date for the Voice to parliament referendum is October 14, 2023.
Just like any election, all Australians aged 18 and over are required to vote in the referendum.
What areas would the Voice be able to advise government on?
The Voice would provide advice about issues affecting Indigenous peoples and communities.
That’s fairly wide-ranging, but there would not be any compulsion on the government to listen to the advice if it didn’t think it was relevant.
Indigenous Australians Minister and Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney gave a few examples of issues the Voice could advise on in a speech in July, including school attendance, community jobs and birthing on country.
Burney said if the Yes vote succeeded at the referendum, she would encourage the Voice to provide advice on four areas.
“From day one, the Voice will have a full in-tray,” she said.
“I will ask the Voice to consider four main priority areas: health, education, jobs and housing.
“The Voice will be tasked with taking the long view.
“Unlike government, it won’t be distracted by the three-year election cycles.
“It will plan for the next generation, not the next term. It will be focused on making a better future for the next generation.
“The time to make a generational difference is now.”
How would the Constitution change?
The proposal would add four sentences to the Constitution:
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
- There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
- The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
- The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”
What will the referendum question be?
The question for the referendum will be:
“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
“Do you approve this proposed alteration?”
Why does the Voice have to be enshrined in the Constitution? Can’t the government just create it?
The government could legislate a body like the Voice, but believes a constitutionally enshrined version would be more appropriate.
Burney said creating the Voice via a referendum would allow the body to give honest advice without fear of retaliation.
“A Voice or advisory body cannot be truly independent or give frank advice to the government of the day if the government of the day can abolish it with a stroke of a pattern,” she said in a speech to the National Press Club.
“And we have seen that.”
She added that a constitutional body is what was requested in the Uluru Statement.
Creating the Voice via a referendum also allows recognition of First Nations peoples to be inserted into the Constitution.
What is the government saying about the Indigenous Voice?
Albanese urged Australians to vote yes on the referendum.
“This is an opportunity to recognise that, firstly, to recognise First Nations people in our Constitution. That this is about closing the gap and showing respect to First Nations people, making a practical difference,” he said.
“I say to non-Indigenous Australians, this is also about you because it’s about how our nation sees ourselves.”
Burney said the process of developing the proposed Voice had been a “rigorous and comprehensive process”.
“Australians can be confident that the work has been done to ensure this is a Voice that works,” she said.
“A Voice that will make a practical difference. A Voice that will work for you.”
What is the opposition saying about the Indigenous Voice?
The Liberal Party is opposed to the Voice, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said he will actively campaign for the No vote.
Dutton announced the party’s position in early April, saying he doesn’t think the model proposed “is in our country’s best interests”.
He said the Liberals will support constitutional recognition for First Nations peoples at the same time as opposing the Voice referendum.
However, he admitted the Liberals will not ask the government to split the two proposals into separate questions in the referendum, meaning Australians will only be given the option of voting on the one question later this year.
The Liberal position, in line with party policy, is only binding on frontbenchers, meaning backbenchers are able to advocate for the Yes vote.
Julian Leeser, the former shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and shadow attorney-general, quit the Liberals’ shadow cabinet so he could campaign in the Yes camp, while backbencher Bridget Archer also supports the Voice.
Former Liberal MP Ken Wyatt, who became the first Indigenous person to be Indigenous Australians minister when he held the portfolio during the Morrison government, quit the party over its opposition to the Voice.
The Liberals’ decision came after the junior Coalition partner, the Nationals, announced it would oppose the proposition.
Indigenous parliamentarians Senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (a Northern Territory Senator who sits with the Nationals in federal parliament and the new shadow minister for Indigenous Australians) and Lidia Thorpe are on essentially opposite ends of the political spectrum but both oppose a Voice.
Thorpe left the Greens over their support for it, saying she wanted to pursue Black sovereignty – a position a number of other Indigenous activists also hold, as seen at the Invasion Day protests on January 26, 2023.
The full details of the Indigenous Voice Discussion Papers can be accessed here.
Are there similar bodies already established?
In South Australia, the state Labor government committed in early 2023 to establishing a state-based Voice to parliament through legislation.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said it was a “whole-heartedly good thing to do”.
As with the proposed federal body, the state body would be advisory and consist of Indigenous representatives elected across South Australia.
In Victoria, the First Peoples’ Assembly, elected in 2019, advocates for Indigenous issues to the government.
Its members are taken from traditional owner corporations around the state.
What happens next and what will you need to do?
Any change to the Constitution needs to be agreed on by the Australian people via a referendum.
A referendum needs the majority of people and the majority of states (what’s known as a double majority) to vote in favour of a Yes-No proposal.
A referendum for the Indigenous Voice to parliament will happen on October 14.
Albanese has said that if the referendum succeeds, the government will propose legislation for the Voice this parliamentary term.
How do referendums work?
Many Australians will have never voted in a referendum.
While the postal survey plebiscite on the issue of same-sex marriage asked Australians a Yes-No question on an issue before parliament, it did not operate in the same way.
A referendum works in the same way as an election day.
All voters must go to a polling place and fill in a ballot, although the ballot is less complicated than numbering boxes on a vote for parliamentarians.
Instead, voters simply have to pick Yes or No.
The last referendum was in 1999 when Australians voted against becoming a republic.
The last time voters chose to amend the Constitution was in 1977, when three amendments were approved.
Those votes required Senate vacancies to be filled by a member of the same party, allowed residents of territories to vote in referendums and set a mandatory retirement age for federal judges.
What does the Uluru Statement from the Heart say?
This is the full statement:
We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors.
This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country.
When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
