Marcia Langton appears to be frustrated that there is opposition to enshrining the Voice in our Constitution. Writing in The Saturday Paper (7 Jan 2023), she describes it as a ‘hateful culture war’ of ‘cynicism and redneck opportunism’ based on ‘misinformation’, ‘imagined scenarios’, and ‘diatribes warning of the collapse of democracy’.

‘To these people [who wish to vote “No”] Australia is not a racist country: we are all one people, under one flag, in one nation, and the Voice will utterly destroy the social fabric of this great egalitarian nation.’

And:

‘There is something the “No” camp doesn’t understand – or if they do, they are worse than I think. We will never get this opportunity again. This referendum is a once-in-many-lifetimes event. That is why it is more important than the cynicism and redneck opportunism with which they have tried to frame it.’

With that, Langton vaporises the ‘I am, you are, we are Australian’ spirit of the Seekers song that is one of Australia’s unofficial national anthems and inspires our modern, multicultural nation.

Her resentment of John Howard is visceral as she recalls his speech at the 1997 Australian Reconciliation Convention, where the audience turned on him, his government’s refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generations, and its rejection of a Treaty as ‘divisive’. But her ire is not limited to Howard: ‘All Liberal Prime Ministers since have refused to acknowledge the point of reconciliation.’

Langton says it’s not about blame or guilt-tripping. The Uluru Statement from the Heart, she explains, asks for a right to be consulted (the Voice), and a right to truth-telling and treaties.

‘The bleating about “detail” is clearly a sign of laziness among the opposition parties, but there is another tactic at play. Think George Orwell’s Animal Farm and the pigs. When Andrew Bolt interviewed Price’s father on Sky News, the purpose of the whining about “details” became obvious to me.’

Taking aim at ‘a new creed’ demanding detail about the Voice, she flays conservative voice supporter Greg Craven who wrote in The Australian (2 Jan 2023) that Albanese’s refusal to provide details is dooming the Voice. She points to the Langton-Calma report presented to the Morrison government in 2021 and which Albanese brandished in the Parliament mocking questions about the lack of detail. Yet Langton ignores the substantive point of Craven’s article – the government hasn’t endorsed or responded to it. The tactic appears to be that when pressed for detail, point to Langton-Calma without committing to it.

Langton-Calma is long on waffle, with plenty of ‘coulds’ and ‘mights’ and ‘to-be-determineds’. But there are concrete recommendations.

It proposes there be 35 regional and local voices. The regional boundaries are to be determined later – by whom is unspecified. We don’t know how many members they would have, nor how they would be determined, but they are to have secretariats funded by government. It is asserted that they won’t duplicate or replace any existing bodies or mechanisms but will work ‘cooperatively’ with them. How that will be ensured is unstated. Neither is there any indication of how the nine fine-sounding principles for their operation would be enforced.

The local and regional voices are to work with existing institutions in a ‘co-design’ and ‘partnership’ model involving ‘shared decision-making’ with all levels of government. It is not clear how this would interact with program guidelines. There seems to be a presumption that funds can be moved here and there, for this or that, on the advice of the local and regional voices. There is at least a possibility that Voice participants could fall foul of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. For example, by urging a public official to allocate funds outside of approved guidelines.

There is to be a National Voice of 24 members, 18 being ‘base members’, two from each state and territory and two from the Torres Strait Islands, even though they are part of Queensland. There are to be six additional members, five from remote areas and one to represent Torres Strait Islanders on the mainland. Gender balance is required – the base members from each jurisdiction are to be of different genders, and the others are to be gender-balanced over time. There are to be co-chairs of different genders. Membership of the National Voice is to be determined by the local and regional voices, but how is not specified. Terms are to be four years, with a limit of two consecutive terms, but, it appears, no limit on the number of non-consecutive terms. There is to be an Office of the National Voice to support its activities.

The Federal Parliament would be obliged to consult the National Voice on a defined, limited, range of matters. These are yet to be detailed. There would be an expectation of the Voice being consulted on a wider range of matters based on principles that are again yet to be detailed. But Langton-Calma does not limit what the Voice may wish to advise on, nor what the Parliament might ask it to advise on, although it says the Voice could decline to provide any such advice. The Voice will not administer or deliver programs, nor will it evaluate them, just give advice. The Voice does not do anything, it tells people what to do.

It is not easy to see how this Voice machinery would be accountable should things not turn out as promised. How does ‘shared decision-making’ square with ministerial accountability to Parliaments?

Langton slams as ‘nonsense’ Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s claim the Voice is ‘a new governance structure’ that would be ‘placed with some sort of priority over our current Westminster system’.

‘Joining Craven is Nationals leader David Littleproud and Celtic–Warlpiri Senator Jacinta Price. Price falsely claims the Voice is a “new governance structure” that will be “placed with some sort of priority over our current Westminster system”. This is nonsense and as a new senator she might wish to be briefed on the committee system already established, to which a Voice would likely make reports.’

On my reading, Price is dead right! Langton-Calma does propose a vast additional and apparently unaccountable machinery of governance across the length and breadth of Australia for just 798,365 Australians, only 150,000 of whom live in remote Australia, according to figures in the Langton-Calma report. No wonder Albanese doesn’t want to talk about the detail and Langton shakes her fists at those who demand it.

Langton dismisses the idea that the Voice is racist by saying that: ‘With the mapping of the human genome, it is clear that “race” is a social construct.’ She toggles to identities based on language and clan status.

‘Earlier, I had expressed disappointment that the senator had sought to diminish the Voice and explained there was no biological reality to the concept of race. Only some of my comments were reported. With the mapping of the human genome, it is clear that “race” is a social construct, often used in the way she used it to deny minority groups of colour a meaningful place in society. Given the great cultural and linguistic diversity of First Peoples, the accurate way to describe Indigenous people is by their language, nation or clan status, which is the practice in contemporary Australia.’

But whether she calls it race, language, or clan, it is a total anathema for a modern, multicultural, democratic nation to enshrine in its constitution a body based on such criteria. We are individual citizens, Australians, not races, clans, or language groups.

Some say the Voice is mere symbolism, won’t make a difference, or is a distraction. Albanese calls it ‘a simple courtesy, a common decency’. But Langton makes clear it is foundational, saying that the referendum will determine whether our nation continues to be ‘founded on colonial theft and brutality’ or ‘a new accord’. Make no mistake, the Uluru Statement from the Heart is about creating a Constitutionally enshrined indigenous representative body and the supporting governance structures that would be a de facto government for a quasi-independent indigenous nation that would have a treaty-governed, co-governance relationship with the Commonwealth of Australia.

Langton concludes that comparison with the failed 1999 republic referendum is old-hat because the Liberal-National Coalition is now a spent force. Its opposition to the Voice ‘may well relegate it to an irretrievable status, a place of opprobrium and irrelevance from which it may never recapture an electorate weary of hateful culture wars’.

She may be right, but I don’t think so. In any event, fundamental principles are worth going to the barricades for. In opposing the Constitutionally enshrined Voice and shifting Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to opposition shadow minister for indigenous affairs, Dutton could define his leadership and the future of the Liberal-National Coalition. Take the high moral ground of a single, undifferentiated Australian citizenship, born or sworn, in which Australian is Australian regardless of ancestry; and not having a race-based institution enshrined in the Constitution. Take ‘I am, you are, we are Australian’ as the campaign song.

Dr Michael Green has a PhD in Systems Engineering