Friday essay: how an unholy alliance of the separatist left and reactionary right rejected the Voice’s ‘sensible middle way’

Shireen Morris worked for 12 years on Indigenous constitutional recognition, with Noel Pearson. Julian Smith/AAP

The Voice as a ‘third way’ solution

The Uluru Statement peacefully posited that Indigenous peoples’ “spiritual sovereignty” could “shine through” Australia’s constitutional arrangements in a way that fully respected parliamentary supremacy and the dominant authority of Australian governments. Its aims were integrationist and unifying, not separatist or assimilationist.

A constitutional Voice was the inclusive “third way” solution that reconciled Indigenous difference with national unity, offering a form of constitutional recognition deeply in keeping with Australian constitutional tradition. The approach enmeshed the best instincts of progressivism and conservatism: it was innovation grounded in tradition.

Its conservatism was underappreciated. In 2022, journalist Paul Kelly asked whether the “practical conservatism enunciated by Edmund Burke” had been “consigned to the dustbin” of Australian history.

What he, as a Voice opponent, and too many others failed to understand was that although pragmatic conservatism was being repudiated by the reactionary right, it was nonetheless being kept alive by Indigenous peoples through their middle ground proposal for a Voice, as developed with constitutional conservatives.

That this was not understood raises serious questions about Australia’s ability to conduct rational debates to sensibly evolve our constitutional institutions. Intransigence entails risks. As Burke recognised, a structure that cannot bend can become brittle.

After the Voice was championed by Indigenous people through the Uluru Statement, it became framed as an Indigenous proposal. Its Indigenous credentials were valid and to be celebrated: Indigenous Australians had been asking for a stronger voice in their affairs for decades, and the Uluru Statement was the culmination of that advocacy.

After the Voice was championed through the Uluru Statement, it was framed as an Indigenous proposal. Murray McCloskey/AAP

It was Indigenous self-determination in action. But the concept of a constitutional Voice had also benefited from the input of non-Indigenous constitutional conservatives. This fact could have been more of a selling point for broader Australia. Any resultant loss of progressive brownie points could have been accepted as part of efforts to encourage bipartisanship.

However, the Voice’s conservative history was undersold as the Indigenous campaign gathered steam – a tendency encouraged by political advisers telling campaigners that the Voice needed to be seen as an Indigenous proposal if it were to succeed.

Parts of the leftist media spun the radical centre origins of the Voice as a narrative of sneaky conservatives manipulating unsuspecting Indigenous people – a spin we at Cape York Institute rebutted as condescending and untrue.

In The Saturday Paper, for example, Karen Middleton suggested some would “see the behind-the-scenes negotiations” with constitutional conservatives in 2014 as “sinister”. The collaborations were neither “behind-the-scenes” nor “sinister” – they were detailed publicly on numerous occasions – but such framing caused concern among progressive elements of the Indigenous leadership, who passionately advocated a constitutional Voice but viewed the involvement of conservatives with suspicion.

Given how some of these conservatives behaved in later years, I now concede such suspicion was justified. But this tension led to a denial of conservative involvement by some parts of the Indigenous leadership.

Becoming Labor’s Indigenous-led referendum

The Indigenous-owned Voice became automatically viewed as progressive, which risked alienating the right. This was a weakness in the framing, but also reflected the relative quietness of its conservative co-creators, who in the face of Coalition resistance did not always loudly celebrate their contributions to the reform, nor the national opportunity the Indigenous–conservative convergence had created – though at times they tried.

The fact that prominent conservatives, including Liberal Party parliamentarian Julian Leeser, had helped conceive of the Voice was not widely appreciated. Even by 2023, many Coalition politicians we spoke to did not know of Leeser’s involvement. This history was also often lost to the public, which had political ramifications.

Conservative Australians might have found the involvement of old fuddy-duddy white conservatives comforting, whereas something that came from Indigenous people alone may have been viewed as scary and automatically radical. The leftist framing was amplified when successive Liberal leaders rejected Indigenous people’s call for a Voice.

Liberal member for Berowra Julian Leeser (second right) and Nationals MP Andrew Gee (right) were prominent, active conservative supporters of the Voice. Mick Tsikas/AAP

It solidified when Anthony Albanese won the May 2022 election for Labor and made the Voice referendum an election-night commitment. From that moment, the proposal was officially owned by the left, and the radical centre vanished almost entirely from view.

This became Labor’s Indigenous-led referendum, which further enhanced its progressive credentials. The government established a Referendum Working Group: “a broad cross-section of representatives from First Nations communities across Australia” charged with providing advice on “successfully implementing a referendum within this term of Parliament”.

The 21-person group – assisted by a small committee comprising Indigenous and non-Indigenous constitutional experts, including Anne Twomey, Greg Craven and Noel – gave advice on timing, what information to provide to the public and how to refine the constitutional amendment and referendum question.

Forming part of a broader 61-member Referendum Engagement Group – again an Indigenous-only committee – tasked with advising the government on building community support for the referendum, it was co-chaired by Linda Burney, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and Senator Patrick Dodson, Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Dean Lewins/AAP

‘Why is this not part of the mainstream message?’

It is unclear how the decision was made to create Indigenous-only working groups, given past Indigenous recognition committees had all consisted of both Indigenous and white leaders.

Noel occasionally expressed incredulity that – apart from the small expert committee – only Indigenous advice was formally sought by the government on the best way to win a referendum that the non-Indigenous majority would ultimately decide.

The consequences of underselling non-Indigenous and conservative input into the Voice hit home during the final weeks of the campaign. I was addressing a gathering in a wealthy suburb of Melbourne. The attendees were sceptical Liberal voters, but by the end of our discussion many said they were switching from soft “No” to “Yes”.

As usual, I had explained how we at Cape York Institute had collaborated with constitutional conservatives in 2014 to develop a compromise proposal, which was then endorsed by Indigenous people through the Uluru Statement.

One woman said:

I am now voting “Yes”, but I’m confused. You’ve used several key words: compromise, collaboration, conservatives, pragmatism, middle ground. This is all crucial, but why am I just hearing it now? Why is this not part of the mainstream message? No one knows about it.

She was right.

It reflected a perennial problem for the radical centre. Though there were moments of productive collaboration across divides, political partisanship kicked in as the Voice proposal got legs: ultimately, neither side could tolerate the involvement of the other.

The participation of conservatives made progressives and some Indigenous people wary. But when Indigenous people took ownership of the Voice through the Uluru Statement, and it was tragically rejected by Turnbull, the proposal became cast as progressive, providing increased fodder for the right’s opposition.

Eventually, when Labor took charge of the Voice, even some of its conservative co-designers began to attack their own creation, anxious not to be fully associated with what was by then viewed as an overly ambitious and progressive reform.

The far left’s behaviour exacerbated the tribal dynamic. While the right-wing “No” case claimed the Voice was too risky and radical, the leftist anti-compromise crew argued it was too weak.

The far left’s objections were especially frustrating because they came from a minority of Indigenous activists who ostensibly wanted progress on Indigenous rights yet were proactively helping to defeat the best chance at achieving it.

These activists favoured different solutions – “sovereignty”, treaties first and full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – but had no effective political strategy to realise their objectives.

Weeks after the referendum defeat, Lidia Thorpe urged Parliament to legislate the UN Declaration, which calls for Indigenous consultation and participation in laws and policies impacting them. Her proposal attracted bipartisan opposition.

Senator Lidia Thorpe was one of the left-wing objectors to the Voice. Con Chronis/AAP

A constitutional Voice would have helped Australia realise those principles: the proposal was adopted by the Indigenous delegates with the UN Declaration in mind, and was backed by UN experts as facilitating Indigenous rights as articulated under international law. Australia is now no closer to implementing the UN Declaration, and Thorpe’s advocacy for treaties has been understated since the referendum’s defeat.

The “No” campaign utilised both right-wing (the Voice is too risky and radical) and left-wing (the Voice is too weak) objections to rally opposition. Some right-wing social media “No” ads even quoted Thorpe and used her image, much to her annoyance.

Like the right, however, left-leaning Voice opponents had no viable plans for progressing Indigenous interests once the referendum was defeated. The contributions of both extremes were more about protest and politics than real progress. All this fed the tribalism that derailed the referendum.

‘Not much to ask’, Alan Jones once said

Given these dynamics, it should have been unsurprising that progressive support for the Voice began to grow when Malcolm Turnbull rejected the Uluru Statement in 2017. Labor representatives who had initially been unenthused began to come on board – if the Liberals rejected it, it must be good! Off the back of the inspiring Indigenous consensus, non-Indigenous support also began to grow – highlighting possibilities of consensus across divides.

Polls showed the Voice had majority support for around six years prior to the referendum. A 2017 OmniPoll survey showed 61 per cent would vote “Yes” to a First Nations voice in the Constitution. A February 2018 Newspoll survey showed the proposal had 57 per cent support.

By July 2019, another showed support was at 66 per cent, despite opposition from the Coalition. Some outlier polling even showed support was at 81 per cent. Compare that with the 61 per cent result achieved in the same-sex marriage postal survey – a voluntary vote, which skews the result higher – under a Liberal prime minister advocating for the change.

Polling showed support for a constitutional Voice at similar levels, notwithstanding the lack of Coalition leadership and Liberal prime ministers advocating “No”. The proposal initially seemed capable of uniting black and white, and left and right.

New conservative advocates started to emerge.

In 2015, I engaged with right-leaning commentator Chris Kenny, who arguably became the most effective conservative champion for the Voice, alongside Leeser – only Kenny’s support never faltered.

Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd and right-wing radio personality Alan Jones were inspired to declare a “unity ticket” of support on the ABC’s Q&A in 2017 – an unprecedented moment. The shock jock explained the proposal’s simple pragmatism:

There has been, and there always will be […] standing Indigenous advisory bodies. Now, as I understand it, all Pearson and co are saying, which is pretty reasonable sort of stuff, [is that] the Constitution is to mandate the existence of such a body […] And they would then be able to advise the government of the day on matters relating to Indigenous affairs. I don’t think that’s in any way controversial, we already have it … It’s to simply say, ‘Well, we’ll alter the constitution to mandate the fact that there will be a statutory Indigenous advisory body. It won’t be binding on the government but we’ll have the capacity to recommend to the government on all matters in relation to Indigenous affairs.’ How hard is that?

Jones put it well: the proposed reform was not much to ask. It was reasonable. It was simple. But he later switched to rabid opposition. Once the Voice became a Labor policy, Jones argued it would divide Australia by race and derail the government.

Jeff Kennett once ‘open-minded’ about The Voice

There were many other right-wing supporters of the Voice who ended up changing sides. Jeff Kennett was one. In 2016, I asked Kennett to launch The Forgotten People, a collection of essays by conservatives making their case for a constitutionally guaranteed advisory body.

I edited the book with Damien Freeman, and it featured contributions by Leeser, Craven and Twomey, among others. Kennett agreed and launched it at the Melbourne Town Hall. He then published his unequivocal support for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body in the Herald Sun, arguing such a council would provide “invaluable advice” and “help us to celebrate our first peoples”.

His article even quoted the constitutional drafting published by Twomey, calling it “not a bad starting place in my opinion”, so long as the First Peoples “agree on the form and the wording”, which “should be the sole objective in their forums to be held this year”. Kennett was talking about the First Nations regional dialogues that would soon kick off under the Referendum Council.

In 2019, Kennett was still “open-minded” about a constitutionally enshrined Voice. Yet by January 2023, with Labor championing the proposal, he argued the Voice should be enacted in legislation but not constitutionalised. As the October referendum drew nearer, he became a staunch opponent.

Jeff Kennett moved from a supporter to a staunch opponent of the Voice. Diego Fedele/AAP

A constitutional Voice seeks to give “one section of our community […] a special place of influence and representation with the federal government of the day over all other Australians [… which is] inappropriate, unfair, and discriminates against all other Australians,” he declared. “We should all be treated equally through and by our Constitution.” Quite the turnaround.

Kennett also accused the Labor government of “rolling two questions into one” by proposing an amendment that combined Indigenous recognition with the creation of an advisory body.

Yet in 2016, Kennett himself proposed adding symbolic recognition to the introductory sections of the Constitution Act, to complement the Voice amendment. He argued that “recognition should commence with the phrase, ‘This Constitution recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the continent’s first peoples’.”

As it turned out, the beginning of the Voice amendment put to referendum in 2023 used a very similar introductory line: “In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia”. But by then Kennett was an ideological opponent of Labor’s referendum.

Chris Merritt, the former legal affairs editor at The Australian, is another conservative who supported the Voice in the early years but opposed it when it became a Labor proposal.

In 2017, Merritt said a constitutional Voice “would do nothing more than provide advice to the government on proposed laws affecting the Indigenous community”. He characterised it as a historical settlement. “Here’s the harsh reality,” Merritt wrote. “Our forebears took this country from the original inhabitants. We are not about to give it back. So the least we can do is oblige ourselves to listen when Indigenous people ask to be heard.”

After Labor won the May 2022 election, however, Merritt opted for strident opposition: the Voice was divisive, he said, in column after column. It would upend democracy and divide Australia by race.

What does the radical centre need?

“No constitutional reform proposal has done more to address the concerns of conservative opponents than the proposal for a constitutionally guaranteed Indigenous voice.” These words were uttered by a prominent senior Liberal who understood the true history of compromise that informed the Voice, at a dinner in 2022. The observation was correct.

A constitutional Voice was probably the first proposed constitutional amendment in Australian history to arise from collaboration between ambitious reformers and constitutional conservatives dedicated to preserving the Constitution.

I expected that fact to generate goodwilled engagement between left and right, and Indigenous people and the right, to perfect the execution of the elegant compromise forged. It didn’t: my expectation was naive.

It assumed some basic level of good faith and flexibility on the part of Coalition parliamentarians. It assumed that honest and principled conversations could be had about how Indigenous people and the Coalition might meet in the middle.

Honest and direct conversations proved mostly impossible because too many politicians would say one thing in private and another in public. Their positions were too slippery; they couldn’t be pinned down. Consensus cannot grow in such conditions. In the end, most of the Coalition did not seem to care how much Indigenous people had done to address conservative concerns. They cared about their political fortunes over and above principles. And the radical centre cannot survive without protagonists who care about principles.

A Yes To The Voice banner outside an early voting booth in Canberra. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Our underpinning belief was that if we gave conservatives shared ownership of a co-designed reform, then, with hard work, Indigenous people could win wider conservative support. As I came to learn, however, this only really worked for the individual conservatives directly involved in conceiving the Voice – and even their support dissipated when the progressives got into power and political battle intensified.

I now also see that the original compromise was forgotten partly because the significance of the disagreement it resolved had faded. Perhaps, in politics, radical centre syntheses are momentary: the dialectical tension that propels them disperses over time.

Prior to 2014, Indigenous people had proposed a thesis: a racial non-discrimination clause should be introduced into the Constitution to guarantee their fairer treatment. This attracted an antithesis from conservatives, who said, “No, that does not uphold the Constitution and it undermines parliamentary supremacy.”

The reconciliation of these positions gave rise to the idea of a constitutionally guaranteed advisory body – a synthesis of the competing concerns.

From outlier proposal to Labor policy

At first the Voice was an outlier proposal. Then it was adopted by Indigenous people in the Uluru Statement. It later became Labor policy. For five to six years it enjoyed approval levels of around 60 per cent.

The Voice became the new thesis: the compromise it represented was eclipsed and it became seen as a progressive-owned orthodoxy, ripe for rebuttal by parties looking for something to oppose.

A new dialectical tension emerged. The new thesis was a constitutional Voice. The new antithesis, propounded by right-wing objectors, was that the Voice was a “third chamber” – a misrepresentation coined by Barnaby Joyce, then perpetuated by Malcolm Turnbull – and a breach of equality. Voice proponents later began seeking a new synthesis of the conflict – a refined radical centre – through adjustments to the constitutional drafting. But these solutions did not resolve the competing concerns, because the new dialectic was mostly performative: there was no further genuine dialogue or negotiation across divides. Key opponents were not truly open to compromising in aid of bipartisanship. Their opposition was about opposing Albanese’s referendum for political gain. We failed Indigenous Australians I can’t escape the conclusion that non-Indigenous Australians failed Indigenous people. We failed them comprehensively on 14 October. We failed them as political leaders, advisers and collaborators. My 12 years of work with Indigenous leaders did their communities little good in the end. Through the Uluru Statement, Indigenous Australians were asking for our help to make things better. They were asking us to promise to do things in a better way: to abandon the failed top-down approaches of the past and present, and commit instead to listening, dialogue, partnership and mutual respect. Despite everything they had been through in our history, they were asking to be let in – to be formally recognised by a country and Constitution that has long shunned and excluded them. We said “No” to their modest request, despite the compromise it represented, and despite the multiple additional concessions they made to elicit our support. We now have no real plan to address Indigenous disadvantage or tackle injustice. Their pragmatic consensus offered an answer. But while six million Australians voted “Yes” to their solution – a fact Indigenous leaders note with optimism – an overwhelming majority of Australians said “No” to this middle way. The result raises questions for Australian democracy. For if the middle path proves too many times to be unfruitful, all we will be left with is ideological extremes. If collaboration across political divides continues to fail as it failed in 2023, then all we can look forward to is growing polarisation and division. This is bad news for sensible reform and, ultimately, democratic stability. This is an edited extract from Broken Heart: A True History of the Voice Referendum by Shireen Morris (Black Inc.). Authors: Shireen Morris, Associate Professor and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School, Macquarie University

Read more https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-an-unholy-alliance-of-the-separatist-left-and-reactionary-right-rejected-the-voices-sensible-middle-way-236508

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