‘Not a gotcha moment’: Yes advocates back Albanese in treaty stoush
By James Massola, Paul Sakkal and Angus Thompson
Voice to parliament campaigners say a treaty with Indigenous Australians would take decades to finalise, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to spell out the government’s position.
Prominent Yes advocate Marcus Stewart and Yes campaign leader Dean Parkin both attempted to defuse two days of questions from the federal opposition about whether the creation of a Voice to parliament would then lead to a treaty.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to say whether he supported a national treaty if the Voice to parliament referendum succeeds.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Stewart said that “treaties will come at no cost to Australians and could take 10 to 20 years to be negotiated. Right now, the task at hand is a constitutionally enshrined Voice. The first step of the Uluru Statement from the Heart”.
But after a day of sustained pressure from the federal opposition including a series of questions in parliament, Albanese refused to say whether he supported a national treaty if the Voice to parliament referendum succeeds.
In question time on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Albanese of refusing to state his position on treaty during a “train wreck” interview that morning and asked for “a straight word” from the prime minister.
In answering, Albanese said Dutton had made an earlier reference to a News Corp article that “had gone back to 1986”.
“Terra nullius was still the law of the land. It was still the position that it was not acknowledged that there was prior ownership of the land prior to English people coming in 1788,” Albanese said.
“Those opposite need to say ... whether that is still their position.”
Albanese had earlier cast doubt during a radio interview on ABC Radio National about the Commonwealth’s role in future treaty negotiations and appeared to rule out doing so in this term of parliament.
The prime minister challenged Dutton to attend the high-profile Garma Indigenous festival this weekend – which he has declined to do – and gave equivocal responses when repeatedly asked if his government supported a treaty with Indigenous Australians.
Albanese said the upcoming referendum was about nothing more than the creation of the Voice advisory body and recognising first Australians in the constitution.
He noted state-based treaties were being negotiated in Victoria, Queensland – where the Liberal National Party supported the plan – and the Northern Territory, saying “these processes are occurring”.
When asked if a treaty would be pursued this term if the Voice referendum succeeded, he said, “No”. “Because that’s occurring with the states ... right now”.
Labor’s draft election platform states, “Labor will take steps to implement all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in this term of government.”
The Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Stewart pointed out the Liberal and National parties supported treaty “in both Queensland and Victoria, so clearly the opposition leader is out of touch with what the Australian public want”.
Uluru statement architect Megan Davis said it is “not a ‘gotcha’ moment for No” campaigners.
“The treaty processes in so many Australian state and territory jurisdictions is in plain sight. The Queensland Treaty bill had bipartisan support. Victoria is six years under way. The NT process said treaty could take two decades,” she said.
“The Uluru Statement has been in the public domain for six years and the Labor Party’s support generally for Uluru since 2019. Makarrata was a 2022 election policy.”
Parkin said Dutton and the No campaign were running a scare campaign and that “this referendum is about one thing and one thing only, and that is about getting an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to close the gap”.
“It’s important to understand that treaty processes, as the leader of the opposition well understands, are decades-long processes and take a long time to finalise.”
On election night, Albanese committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. The statement proposes the creation of an Indigenous Voice as well as a Makarrata commission, which would oversee a truth-telling and treaty process with Indigenous Australians.
Albanese and Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney have faced days of parliamentary scrutiny over whether the Voice was the first step in a broader agenda involving a treaty that could include reparations – the latest tactic in the opposition’s campaign to sway voters in the referendum.
Labor has become increasingly reluctant to discuss its post-Voice plans, though in question time Burney said there were no plans to release details about the Makarrata Commission until after the referendum.
Burney, who has been under sustained attack in particular, restated the government’s support for the three elements of the Uluru statement – Voice, truth and treaty.
In a recent video on her Youtube channel, Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey said the Voice “might make recommendations that the government enter into a treaty-making process, and it probably would, given the wishes of the Indigenous people in the Uluru Statement”.
“So the Voice could put it on the agenda, but it would be up to the government and the parliament to decide whether or not they wished to pursue it.”
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