How the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament will be run is taking shape, with the Opposition pushing for equal funding for “yes” and “no” campaigns.
Legislation outlining the referendum’s processes is before the Senate, where the Coalition and Greens are seeking changes they say will protect against foreign interference and make the vote fairer.
Labor Senator Pat Dodson said a funding and disclosure transparency scheme will ensure accountability and mitigate foreign interference risks.
“We are treating both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns even-handedly – zero public funding for both,” he said.
“This is the people’s referendum. It’s for the people to organise their own campaigns and their own funding.
“Both supporters and naysayers are free to fund their own campaigns within the legal constraints of the bill.”
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume is leading the push in the upper house to establish official “yes” and “no” campaign organisations to make their cases, and arguing that both should get equal funding.
She said the fact there needed to be a “yes” and “no” campaign didn’t reflect any personal positions on the Voice itself, but rather that laws needed to be consistent with past referendums.
“The principle must be that in any referendum, everyone should be able to put their case and the Parliament should facilitate a balanced and fair debate of that question, whatever the question is,” she told the Senate on Monday.
The Opposition has successfully pushed to ensure a printed pamphlet outlining both cases is distributed.
Senator Hume said official funding for both campaigns would also reduce the need for foreign donations, which would in turn reduce the prospects of foreign interference.
The Greens are pushing for measures to boost engagement and access to voting, including on-the-day enrolment and expanding remote polling programs and phone voting.
“We want First Nations people to have the maximum opportunity to have a vote on whether they have a voice,” Greens Senator Larissa Waters said.
Former Greens turned independent Senator Lidia Thorpe said she’s broadly supportive of the machinery changes, but took a swipe at the constitutional change itself.
“This country is one of only a few that does not have a treaty with its First Nations people,” she said.
“Instead, we’re going down the road in reverse and wanting to put First Nations people into the colonising constitution.”
The Indigenous Senator for Victoria said “progressive no” campaigners, who wanted a First Nations treaty instead of constitutional recognition, were being ignored.
But she wants Indigenous people to have the greatest possible chance to have their say.
“If this government is going to claim that this referendum supports self-determination of First Nations people, then it needs to be doing everything it can to ensure as many black fellas vote,” she said, pushing for on-the-day enrolment and expanding telephone voting provisions.
Senator Thorpe got the government to agree to extend the period of mobile voting booths in remote areas to 19 days.
She also attacked the notion that politicians would create the pamphlets, moving an amendment for the Australian Human Rights Commission to be responsible for putting out factual and clear information.
Laws setting out the wording of the constitutional change are expected to go to parliament next week.
-AAP
