Prime minister Anthony Albanese has indicated a timeframe for the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament in an address to the working group at Parliament House today.
It looks like we’ll see ballots sometime between July 2023 and the end of June 2024.
Albanese said:
We haven’t settled on a date, as you know. I genuinely haven’t. At the end of the day, as the prime minister, that will be a decision that I’ll have to advance. But I will be taking advice, including very strong advice from this group. But we need to be ready. I don’t want to rush into this. We’ve got time to explain it, to win people over. And I think the more that people discuss this the better.
The timeframe will be from sometime in that financial year – that’s where the window is open – from July next year through to the next financial year. You don’t want to get mixed up in in an election period. So we’ve got a little bit of time, but not too much. Not a day to waste. And I just want to very much thank this group for giving me the honour of being part of this process.
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What we learned, Thursday 29 September
And that’s where we’ll leave you this evening. Thanks so much for your company. Here’s a wrap of what we learned today:
Aung San Suu Kyi and the Australian academic Sean Turnell who served as her advisor, have been sentenced to three years in prison after a closed trial in Myanmar.
Australia has condemned the sentencing and the closed trial, with foreign minister Penny Wong saying Australia has “consistently rejected the charges against Professor Turnell during the more than 19 months he had been unjustly detained by the Myanmar military regime”.
The working group to advise the government on a referendum to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the constitution released new details on the proposed scheme after its first official meeting with the Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney.
The federal resources minister, Madeleine King, signed an agreement with the three big LNG exporters on the east coast, heading off a potential gas shortfall in 2023.
Almost a third of 92 AFL players who identified as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or a person of colour experienced racism while listed as a player, according to a new survey from the players’ union.
The Australian War Memorial will expand its recognition of the frontier wars, which inflicted atrocities and massacres against Indigenous Australians during colonisation.
Median rents have jumped by 7.7% in Melbourne in the past year and 8.9% in regional Victoria, according to new data.
Australia’s medical regulator granted provisional approval for a Pfizer Covid-19 booster for children aged between six months and five years.
The Live News blog will be back tomorrow morning with Natasha May. Have a lovely evening everyone.
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