Voice referendum bill passes Senate after tense debate

The bill to allow a referendum on the First Nations Voice to Parliament has passed the Senate after a tense final debate.

Among the people gathered in the public viewing gallery were several architects of the Voice and Yes campaigners, including Thomas Mayo, Pat Anderson and Megan Davis.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Energy Minister Chris Bowen were among the lower house Labor MPs who sat in the chamber to hear the speeches. On the opposite side, former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce took a seat, waving and smiling at Country Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as he entered. 

Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash rose to say the Coalition would vote yes to the bill, while intending to continue to advocate for a no vote in the referendum. 

“We are opening up a legal can of worms. The proposed model, as we know it, is not just to the Parliament, it’s to all areas of executive government,” Cash said. 

AAP FactCheck has previously shot down claims the Voice would enable Indigenous peoples to challenge decisions by the Parliament. 

Indigenous independent Senator Lidia Thorpe arrived late and took her seat on the crossbench while wearing a grey T-shirt that said “gammin”, a word she said meant “fake”. 

“’Gammin’, as we know, is fake — a joke, and that’s what I think [of the Voice],” she said.

“A powerless Voice to this place. We have fought for over 200 years against colonisation. The constitution is an illegal document. It’s illegal. The occupation in this country is illegal.”

Thorpe was reprimanded by the Senate president several times, including for interjecting when Indigenous Greens Senator Dorinda Cox spoke to support the bill. 

Thorpe, who was previously a Greens senator, was also told off for wearing her T-shirt without a jacket, which the president said was against the rules. 

She was also asked to address the president when she spoke, after she waved at One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson, sitting next to her, when she claimed “white supremacy” was “represented” in the chamber. 

Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy urged the Australian people to vote yes to the bill.

“Yes, for First Nations people to be able to make decisions in terms of advising the Parliament and the executive, as to decisions made about them so they can have input into that,” she said. 

“It is a very simple request, president, to be recognised in the Australian constitution and, yes, there are many schools of thoughts in terms of that constitution, but in terms of the symbolic nature of being able to be included in that constitution means a great deal to many First Nations people.”

The bill passed 52-19 and the senators who voted yes, and their supporters in the gallery, rose for a standing ovation.