Indigenous voice to parliament must not create a two-tiered Australia. By Janet Albrechtsen.
Beware the pile-on over an Indigenous voice to parliament. Few things are as predictable as a gaggle of constitutional lawyers in search of new constitutional provisions to litigate about. …
Affirmative action, where one group in society is given special privileges or attention to overcome disadvantage, is inherently risky. As the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts, famously pointed out: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” …
If parliament sets up the body, supervises it and can amend or even abolish it if necessary, Australians have little to fear. There is a better chance that any special preferences or privileges will last only as long as necessary to overcome disadvantage. In the spirit of a workable, responsive democracy, that model is reviewable every three years at the ballot box.
The power to abolish a body that has lost its way was critically important when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was dismantled with bipartisan support in 2004 because it was riddled with claims of maladministration and corruption.
But that experience explains why advocates of constitutional entrenchment are so fervent about the body being immune from discipline, let alone abolition, by parliament. They want their constitutionally enshrined voice to be above parliament. …
The elite lawyers and academics demanding a constitutionally entrenched voice are already dancing on the heads of a thousand pins dreaming up arguments to prove this would not create preferential rights and privileges based on race. These attempts are mere sophistry.
Test it this way. Next time someone tells you that a constitutionally entrenched voice is innocuous and does not create two classes of Australians with different rights and privileges, ask this question: “Well, in that case you would not object to adding to any constitutional amendment establishing the voice the following rider: ‘To avoid doubt, nothing in these provisions concerning the voice gives any Australian any rights or privileges not shared by all other Australians. If any provision concerning the voice has that effect, it is void’.”
If your interlocutor objects to such a provision, you know what they are trying to do, namely slide a two-tier Australia past you before you notice it. …
And they are in a rush. The pile-on in favour of a constitutionally entrenched voice has started despite the fact key features of a model for delivering an Indigenous voice are still a complete mystery, and require vast amounts of thinking and consultation. … For the constitutional pile-on brigade, any old pig-in-a-poke will do as long as it cannot be amended or abolished by parliament.
It’s a perfect virtue signalling issue. All gain and no cost.
