The upcoming referendum in Australia will face a bigger defeat than the republic referendum in 1999, according to David Flint, a senior jurist and former Chairman of the Australian Press Council.
Australia will hold a referendum on the Voice to Parliament on Oct. 14. The Voice proposal involves changes to the preamble of the Constitution to include recognition for Indigenous peoples and to also embed an Indigenous advisory body into the Parliament.
The last referendum was held in 1999 and asked Australians if they wanted to end the constitutional monarchy and establish a republic. Nearly 55 percent of Australians voted to uphold the constitutional monarchy and the referendum failed.
Prof. Flint believes that the Albanese government failed to convince Australians that a constitutional amendment was necessary.
He cited Sir John Quick, a founding father of the Commonwealth of Australia, and “Australia’s first public servant” Robert Garran in The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth (1901), that constitutional amendments should encourage discussion until change is generally recognised as desirable, irresistible, and inevitable.
Not Enough Debate for a Referendum
Mr. Flint, one of Australia’s leading constitutional monarchists, also said the main supporters of the Voice refused to fully engage in debate with the other side.“In 1999, in the republic referendum, there were regular debates between constitutional monarchists and republicans about it,” he said.
“I participated in debates against Malcolm Turnbull, who led the republicans, and that’s how it should be.
“They [supporters of The Voice] refuse to debate. When you ask for details, you’re told, ‘oh, well, this will be done by legislation.’ What’s the legislation? They won’t show us. This is a new chapter in the constitution. We haven’t had a new chapter ever in the constitution.”
The professor warned that the Makarrata commission, established by Indigenous people under the Uluru Declaration of the Heart, will gain even more power once The Voice is constitutionally recognised.
“Makarrata” is a term used by the Yolngu tribe of Aboriginal Australians as a synonym for Treaty.
“There is, for example, a proposal that if an Indigenous person is charged with a crime, the jury should consist of a certain number of Indigenous people or even be wholly Indigenous. Now, that would create a separate system of justice,” Prof. Flint said.
Former PM Against Dividing People Based on Race
Prof. Flint is not the only one who predicted that the Voice referendum will end in failure.In a video interview, Mr. Howard said he is very much against categorizing citizens.
“One people, one nation, one history, one future. That’s what we should be,” he said.
“We were united by a common citizenship. We should strive to give people equality of opportunity. We shouldn’t divide people according to race.
“The first and most serious flaws in his proposition is the way it creates a body to which only a small section of the population can be elected by, in turn, a small section of the population. Now that undermines the principle of a single citizenship.
“Secondly, I worry that whatever you add to the Constitution, a future High Court [may] interpret it in a way that was never contemplated.”
Mr. Howard believes that the Australian constitution “got flaws, or weaknesses in it” but worked pretty well.
Neo-Marxist Factors Behind the Voice: Former PM
Another former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, pointed out that there are communist factors behind The Voice referendum.“I have no doubt that some of the proponents of The Voice are touched by the neo-Marxist desire to pull down established institutions,” he told Prof. Flint in another interview.
“The Marxist academe proved to be incapable of persuading the working class to tear down the system in the name of equality. But it’s often been much more effective at persuading the middle class to attack the system in the name of ending the patriarchy or abolishing racism, or promoting gender equality, etc., so I think there are elements of this in the push for The Voice.”
Mr. Abbott believes that people need to appreciate the good as well as the bad in their history.
“We need to acknowledge in a fair-minded way how the good in our society today is a product of the past and better appreciate the strengths of our ancestors rather than keep lamenting the sins of colonisation, which certainly existed. But contemporary Australia would not exist but for the British settlement of this country,” he said.
“I think that the settlement of Australia has had a wonderful impact not just on Australians but the wider world, and for that we should be grateful, and indeed Indigenous Australia is better today than it would have been thanks to the British settlement of this country.”
A Newspoll on Oct. 9 showed that over the last two weeks, voters supporting The Voice has fallen by a further two points to 34 percent, the lowest since the referendum was announced. The vote against has risen by two points to 58 percent.
