For a young nation, it is amazing that Australia has the tenth oldest constitution in the world. We have one of the most stable constitutions too. We have made just 8 amendments to our Constitution in its 122 year life.
All of the changes have been basically housekeeping or uncontroversial. They include arcane changes to how the Senate is elected, the retirement of judges and the Commonwealth Government taking on State debts.
Almost of these changes have been widely supported. All but two of the 8 changes received more than 60 per cent support at referenda. The other two were achieved with 54 per cent support and majorities in 5 of our 6 states.
If the Voice to Parliament does succeed it will be the most controversial, divisive and significant change to our Constitution in history. Because the Prime Minister has refused all attempts to moderate his Voice proposal, the polls have support for the voice a 50-50 proposition.
Voice proponents can at best hope for a slim majority of support. Those that remain undecided should ask whether we want to change our, to date, widely accepted Constitution, into something of a controversial and partisan document.
One of the successful changes to our constitution was the 1967 referendum, which gave the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws for Indigenous Australians, and made sure that Indigenous Australians were included in the calculation of seats in the House of Representatives.
This referendum united Australia behind a message that we were all one people. It was a great coming together of our nation that is celebrated today. It was supported by over 90 per cent of Australians, the highest vote in support of any proposed constitutional change.
Labor’s proposed Voice will not be a unifying moment for Australia. Partly this is because Labor continues to hide and obfuscate about the Voice.
The Voice will not be a “modest” change as we sometimes hear Labor politicians describe it. If successful the Voice will be the first time we add a new chapter to our Constitution. If the Voice is meant to be subservient to the Parliament, why was the amendment put in a new chapter, not in the existing chapter on the Parliament?
This could have implications for how the courts interpret the powers of the Voice. No matter what reassurances you hear from politicians in the months ahead, it will not be them who decide what the Voice can or cannot do. That will be determined by the 7 unelected justices of the High Court.
The inability of the Prime Minister to tell us basic details about the Voice (like how many members it will have) elevate these concerns.
Those that have designed the Voice clearly do not view the change as modest. Thomas Mayo was a member of the Government’s working group. And he has suggested that the Voice could help deliver a “pay the rent” program which would see Australians living today pay reparations for what their ancestors did centuries ago.
Another member of the working group, Marcia Langton, was reported as telling a conference in Cairns that “People who are opposing are saying we are destroying the fabric of their sacred Constitution. Yes, that’s right, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Our Constitution is racist.”
We should be thankful that people like Ms Langton are willing to say the quiet part out loud because we are not getting the full details from the Prime Minister.
Some believe we have a racist Constitution because we are often told things about our Constitution that are not true. For example, many people have the incorrect view that the 1967 gave Indigenous Australians the vote even though this is completely wrong.
The 1967 removed an out of date part of the Constitution which didn’t count Indigenous Australians for the purposes of calculating seats in the House of Representatives or the allocation of funding to the States.
This provision is often held up as being racist but there is no evidence that our Founding Fathers included it for that reason. This section received little debate at the Constitutional Conventions so it is hard to know the exact reason for its inclusion.
However, it was drafted by Sir Samuel Griffith (a Premier of Queensland) who seemed to be responding to issues with the counting of Aboriginal people in the 1886 Census. The *Brisbane Courier* commented that estimating the indigenous population was “too much of a guess to possess any statistical value.”
Australia is not perfect, but we are one of the more harmonious, prosperous and well meaning nations on the planet. Part of our success relies on the foundation of our stable, widely supported Australian Constitution. We should reject the Voice because we should not make radical changes to a founding document that has served us well.
