Woohoo - the bill to set up an Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum in the constitution passed 121-25 in the House of Representatives! Now it just needs to be approved by the Senate and then we'll find out when this important poll is taking place. There were even some enthusiastic cheers after the decision was announced. Sadly, 10 Liberal MPs joined their National buddies in voting against it: Alex Hawke, Andrew Wallace, Scott Buchholz, Ian Goodenough, Luke Howarth, Tony Pasin, Garth Hamilton, Henry Pike, Rick Wilson and Terry Young. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it makes it through the Senate next month!
The Liberals weren't totally opposed to the idea of a referendum taking place but had some doubts about it. Despite this, they still wanted to make sure their party had a say in the No campaign documents sent out to households.
Julian Leeser, an ex-shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, stepped up and proposed a few changes so that it'd have better odds at succeeding - he suggested taking out phrases about the Voice giving suggestions to "executive government". To no surprise though, his ideas didn't carry much weight in the end. Oh well..
We've got to get a majority of Aussies on our side if this referendum is gonna fly. What Mr Leeser's proposed are amendments that'll make the Voice more appealing to the people and hopefully get us get more votes in favour it – it’s not about playing politics with his parliamentary colleagues. Bridget Archer from Tazzy has also jumped on board and joined those backing this proposal, so we’re pretty motivated about making sure this one gets off the ground. We just need everybody to have faith in us to help push it through, and hopefully we’ll be there together at the end!
Mr Leeser said we gotta get on board with the Voice, but the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus thought that enthusiasm was a bit unnecessary - saying it's up to us Aussies to take our shot and move towards The Future.
MP Zoe Daniel raised her concerns about changes having a negative effect on public confidence in the point of this whole thing - especially First Nations Pals who need more than just sweet words.
He said if you want chaos, get rid of that clause so our buddies can have their say, and now it's all up for debate in Senate when they pop in June.
