Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has launched a scathing rebuke of the emerging conservative campaign against a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, attacking his longtime rival Tony Abbott for suggesting the body would change Australia’s system of government.
In response to the former Liberal prime minister, who has claimed the Voice could undermine the function of parliament with veto-like powers, Rudd said the proposed constitutional amendments to establish the body were “modest” and ensured the body would have only an advisory role to governments.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has called the Voice referendum question “a modest proposal”. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“Although these are modest proposals, we still have congenital bad actors like Tony Abbott screeching that such amendments would ‘change our system of government’ by establishing the Voice as ‘part of our parliament’, and enable ‘judicial intervention’ to strike down laws,” Rudd said in an opinion piece for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“On both counts, Abbott is wrong. It speaks volumes that his most trusted Indigenous adviser in government, Noel Pearson of the Cape York Institute, has strongly endorsed Albanese’s proposal. Like on climate action, Abbott seems determined to stoke anxiety and fear.”
Responding to Rudd’s remarks, Abbott said he did not want to get into “a slanging match with a fellow former PM” but stood by his concerns over the way the body would function.
“What’s the point of the Voice if it’s not to change the way government works? And any constitutional change requiring the government to consider ‘representations…on matters relating’ to Indigenous affairs leaves government action more open to legal challenge,” Abbott said.
The clashing views of the two former prime ministers give a flavour of the forthcoming rival Yes and No campaigns on the Voice, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looks to hold a referendum this term on whether to enshrine the body in the constitution.
Writing in The Australian, Abbott suggested the Voice would have “something approaching a veto” over decisions of the parliament, and would change the way government works “because a particular group will have an unspecified say, over unspecified topics, with unspecified ramifications”.