The Australian House of Representatives yesterday voted overwhelmingly for a referendum to be held this year on creating an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a federal advocacy body that would give the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority more say on government policy.
While the Voice would advocate for indigenous interests, it would not have a vote on laws, and debate for and against the elected body has become increasingly heated and divisive.
The 121-to-25 House vote that approved the referendum being held does not reflect the level of lawmakers’ support for enshrining the Voice in the constitution. The opposition conservative Liberal Party voted in support of giving Australians a choice at a referendum, but is also campaigning for the Voice to be rejected by the public.
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The Australian Senate is this month scheduled to vote on the bill, which needs majority support to ensure that Australia’s first referendum since 1999 takes place between October and December this year. A majority of senators have already flagged their support.
The campaigning would begin in earnest with a successful Senate vote, said Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, the first indigenous woman to hold the role.
She said that she had “no doubt” the referendum would succeed.
“A yes vote at a referendum ... will move Australia forward for everyone. It will be a new chapter in our country’s story,” Burney told reporters.
“A yes vote will make a practical difference — I cannot stress that enough — the Voice will make a practical difference, because the solutions to so many of our challenges can be found in the knowledge and the wisdom of local [indigenous] communities,” she added.
Proponents hope the Voice will improve living standards for indigenous people, who account for 3.2 percent of Australia’s population and are the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic group.
Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan (陳振良), a racism law watchdog, has said that focusing the public debate on race emboldens racists, and exposes the indigenous population to abuse and vilification.
The Liberal Party and the National Party, which formed a conservative coalition government for nine years until elections a years ago, say the Voice would create a racial divide.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who committed his center-left Australian Labor Party government on election night last year to holding the referendum, said “scare campaigns” would not find traction.
“Australians won’t succumb to their appeals to fear and their ever-more ludicrous invitations to jump at our own shadows,” Albanese said in a recent speech.
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