Yays, nays and in-betweens: reactions to Dutton’s No on a Voice to Parliament

Surely there can be nothing that screams “right side of history on Indigenous issues” better than the fulsome endorsement of Pauline Hanson. Shortly before the Liberal Party came to its (sort of) consensus on opposing the government’s model for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the One Nation leader — who has been using the Voice debate to revive her moribund relevance — put out a statement, arguing among other things:

Peter Dutton is the leader of the Liberal Party; he needs to become the man he once was as minister of immigration and home affairs and act like the leader people are crying out for … On the principles of equality for all Australians, it must be a unanimous NO!

At the opposite end of the spectrum, longtime Indigenous advocate and one of the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart Noel Pearson responded to the Liberals’ stance in biblical terms:

I couldn’t sleep last night. I was haunted by dreams, and the spectre of the Peter Dutton Liberal Party’s Judas betrayal of our country. They’ve had 11 years to work on a proper proposal … I see Peter Dutton as an undertaker, preparing the grave to bury Uluru.

Let’s see how the decision landed elsewhere.

The commentariat…

Former Tony Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin — still touring on the back of her one major success, like a political Lou Bega — criticised Dutton in The Australian for not going far enough: “It wasn’t quite the unambiguous No to giving some Australians extra rights based on their ancestry that many Liberal supporters expected.”

Also in the national broadsheet, Geoff Chambers looked at the politics of the matter, concluding that Dutton was staking his leadership on this call — a Yes vote would be the end of him. There was also a note on the concerns of unnamed Liberals MPs around the vagueness of the alternative Dutton put forward, itself an irony, given Dutton has spent six months searching in vain for the details of the Albanese government’s proposal.

Chambers’ take, predictably, is one of many that looks at the decision almost entirely through the lens of party politics — see also David Crowe and Phil Coorey in the Nine papers.

Meanwhile, Crikey’s Michael Bradley argues: “We must recognise its deeper significance beyond the petty politics: it doesn’t just reflect an ignoring of what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have asked for in open-handed sincerity, it spits it back in their faces.”

…and the politicians

Liberal state premiers are pretty much indistinguishable from the eastern barred bandicoot — extinct on the mainland and under threat in Tasmania — and the last remaining specimen in the wild, Jeremy Rockliff, was keen to distance himself from Dutton’s call. Rockliff has told The Australian he will campaign “vigorously” for the Yes side. In this he joins pretty much every other state Coalition leader. 

To continue with the “nearly extinct” theme, at the federal level, Liberal moderates have, with their usual breathtaking mix of equivocation, inaction and clanging great lack of impact, have lightly weighed in.

Senator Simon Birmingham called on his party to reject its reputation as “intolerant, nasty and divisive”, joining a largely anonymous chorus of whispered dissent after the catastrophic result in Aston last weekend. Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer — a moderate who has actually done something to oppose her party’s more right-wing moves — told the ABC she’ll campaign for Yes. She cited the view of people like Rockliff as a reason not to quit the party altogether, and as a backbencher is free to freelance on these matters. Birmingham, and any other moderates in shadow cabinet bound by solidarity, at this point has no such option.

At the time of writing, we’ve not heard of anyone standing down over this or anything else Dutton has committed the party to.