Scott Morrison has denied breaking a promise after the new model of Indigenous Australians’ Voice to parliament was revealed to be a series of local bodies and a national body that will not be set up until after the election.
On Friday, Morrison sidestepped a question about whether the national body will be legislated after the Indigenous Australians minister, Ken Wyatt, released the model for Indigenous Voices to provide input into both the Australian government and parliament .
The government has sought further input by 30 April. No legislation will be introduced before the 2022 election.
Instead, it will begin by starting 25 to 35 local and regional Voice bodies, working with states, territories and local governments to form the consultative groups that would eventually have input into representatives on the national body.
The proposal is controversial not just for its timing, but also because a legislated body does not fully implement the recommendation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart for the Voice to be constitutionally enshrined.
The shadow Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, marked the announcement as “a fail”, noting the government had called the Voice a priority but “on the eve of an election” had rolled out a model bearing “little resemblance to the Uluru Statement”.
Burney said the Uluru statement promised “an enshrined voice, a permanent voice, to the parliament” but the government was not even clear if it would be legislated. “There may be legislation, there may not be,” she told ABC TV.
Before the 2019 election Wyatt had promised a legislated voice, but Morrison later clarified he wanted consensus on a model and was prepared to “take as long as is needed” to achieve it.
On Friday Morrison said he had committed “to follow the co-design process” and delivered that commitment, without directly answering a question about whether he would legislate the body.
“What I’m trying to do here is ensure that we can hear the voices of Indigenous people on the ground because I want to close the gap,” he told reporters in Sydney. “This is not some political exercise.”
“This is about listening to local Indigenous communities and that’s where the voice must start.”
Wyatt told Guardian Australia local input into the national body was part of a “continuing co-design of the Indigenous Voice [that] will ensure the greatest chance of its success”.
The model, produced by a co-design process that began in October 2019, proposes two levels of Voice bodies at the local and regional, and national level – although the structure and selection of each is yet to be determined. Boundaries for local and regional groups are also still unclear.
Indigenous Voice to parliament (& government) it's as easy as: pic.twitter.com/WTKOPhD6gN
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) December 16, 2021
A discussion paper suggested the national body could be directly elected in each state and territory, or selected by regional Voice bodies, or picked by state and territory assemblies.
The national body “could” consist of up to 20 members, with guaranteed gender balance of members and inclusion of youth and disability advisory groups, it said.
The national body would report to both the Australian parliament and government, a “dual advice function reflects the different roles of government and parliament in making laws and policies”, the final co-design report said.
The interaction would be two-way “with each able to initiate advice or commence discussion around relevant policy matters”.
“The Australian parliament and government would be ‘obliged’ to ask the National Voice for advice on a defined and limited number of proposed laws and policies that overwhelmingly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”
In their final report the co-chairs of the design panel, professors Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, said the proposal “could be the most significant reform in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs for generations”.
The pair said there was “strong feedback that an Indigenous Voice must be secure and enduring, and appropriately protected”.
“While consideration of legal form was outside our co-design responsibility, we were not surprised by the growing support for constitutional enshrinement that was particularly evident in submissions.”
They noted the arguments that constitutional enshrinement would protect the Voice against abolition, “enhance its effectiveness and recognise the unique place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our nation”.
In November Calma told Guardian Australia he was “very keen” to see voice created “before the election”.
Despite the Uluru statement’s call for constitutional entrenchment, Wyatt has been frank that a legislated voice is the most pragmatic solution in the short term because a referendum is “too important to fail”.
On Friday, Wyatt said the government had “delivered” on its 2019 election commitment to develop models and options for an Indigenous Voice, and the proposal follows “an extensive co-design process involving more than 9,400 people, communities and organisations”
“It’s important to get this right,” he said. “And, for the Indigenous Voice to work, it must have a strong foundation from the ground up. That’s why we’re taking the next step and starting with the local and regional Voice.”
“The local and regional Voice will contribute to achieving the closing the gap outcomes by providing avenues for Indigenous voices to be heard, including to provide feedback to government.”
Labor supports a constitutionally enshrined Voice as a “modest and gracious request” from First Nations people, and has promised to hold a referendum if it wins government.
“Our precondition for support is that any proposition has the support of the First Nations people and so we think that the denial of a constitutionally enshrined voice is the denial of the Australian instinct for a fair go,” Anthony Albanese said earlier this year.
