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The Liberal Party’s mortal fear of having to interact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People is on full display this week, as Opposition leader Peter Dutton has proposed spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a second referendum that would minimise the amount of Indigenous people that have access to Parliament House.
It comes after Mr Dutton committed to holding another referendum on Indigenous recognition if the Voice proposal fails and he wins government at the next election.
Mr Dutton and the majority of Coalition MPs who are terrified of having to share the same hallways as black people in Parliament House are campaigning against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum on October 14.
But instead, he is proposing another referendum, where we acknowledge Aboriginal people from a distance, and reluctantly accept that they were here first, but we don’t let any of the elders into Parliament House to help advise politicians on the unique cultural barriers faced by their people after 200 years of unhelpful government policies that ranged from child removals to full blown massacres and slavery.
The new and improved Liberal-friendly referendum would exclude the proposed Parliamentary Indigenous advisory body that was first drafted up by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community leaders in the Uluru Statement From The Heart, because he and his party believe that politicians know what’s best for Aboriginal people and it’s patronising to suggest that he needs to be advised by elders who didn’t even do the hard yards in the Young Liberals.
It appears lost on Peter Dutton that if implemented 50 years ago, an Indigenous Voice may have helped prevent the government’s decision to kidnap an entire generation of Aboriginal children and leave them to grow up in cold state-run dormitories plagued with abuse and exploitation,.
Speaking to his cheering squad at Sky News, Dutton said recognition of First Australians in the constitution was Coalition policy but not a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament.
When asked if he would spend hundreds of millions more taxpayer dollars to hold the watered down referendum in his first term, he replied, “Yes”.
“I believe very strongly it is the right thing to do,” Mr Dutton said, making it clear that he is not opposed to base level symbolic gestures towards Aboriginal people, even if he did walk out of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2007.
This captain’s call already appears to be causing division in his own party, and has frustrated the Liberal colleagues who still do support an Indigenous Voice, and haven’t let losing twenty seats at the 2022 Federal Election force them to oppose the Uluru Statement simply because they want to look like they stand for something.
Liberals for Yes spokesperson Sean Gordon has been quick to tell the media that Dutton’s proposal was not signed off in the party room and that he does not have a mandate to hold a second referendum that ignores the wishes of Aboriginal people.
