The Albanese government has appointed a working group of First Nations leaders to “guide the big questions” about a referendum to enshrine a voice to parliament in the constitution, including the timing of the vote, the form of words and a public education campaign.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, was due to use a speech on Thursday night to reveal the three tasks for the new referendum working group ahead of its first meeting with the prime minister on Friday.
“These are the next steps – the plan on the road to the referendum,” Burney was to say, according to an extract from the speech to be delivered to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (Ceda) in Canberra.
Burney says the working group will consider the timing to conduct a successful referendum, refine the proposed constitutional amendment and question, and determine the information on the voice necessary for a successful referendum.
The group, all of whom are Indigenous, includes Noel Pearson, Megan Davis and Pat Anderson, the architects of the Uluru Statement, and Prof Marcia Langton and Prof Tom Calma, who conducted a three-year consultation for the previous government. Others members include those who have long been involved in the campaign for constitutional reform.
In a show of bipartisan support, the former Liberal minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, will be part of the group, which is co-chaired by Burney and Senator Pat Dodson.
There are three “necessary ingredients” to winning the referendum, Burney’s speech says.
“One: getting First Nations representatives together to work closely in partnership with government on key issues relating to the referendum.
“Two: continu[ing] to build a broad consensus of community support from across country. Already at national cabinet all state and territory leaders have given in-principle support for the voice to parliament, including Liberal leaders in NSW and Tasmania.
“Three: harness[ing] the goodwill in the Australian community to take Australia forward by supporting this nation-building project.”
There will also be a second, larger group whose job it will be to build community awareness and support for the referendum, engage with First Nations communities and advocate for the voice. This referendum engagement group will include land councils, local governments and community-controlled organisations.
Burney says there is more work to do, but the government cannot lead it. It is “everyone’s responsibility to get this done”.
“This will come from the grassroots,” she says. “From communities. Because the voice is a nation-building project.
“We will need a united ‘yes’ campaign that captures the attention and the imagination of the Australian people. Everyone has a part to play. From sports clubs and schools to community groups. And, of course, the business community.
“In the years to come, we will be able to measure the success of [the] referendum not just by the number of people who vote for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice but by the lives that the voice helps to improve,” she says.
On Wednesday, the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, said he was concerned that stakeholders coming out in favour of the voice are doing so “sight unseen”.
“[We have] no idea what it means for the mining sector. [We] don’t know whether a voice that doesn’t represent the elders that you negotiate with or that you do an agreement with in a particular location, now, might be usurped and a veto right [exercised] that would damage your employees, that would damage your business,” Dutton told the Minerals Council of Australia.
The Indigenous voice co-design process led by Calma and Langton suggested the Australian parliament and government would be “‘obliged’ to ask the national voice for advice on a defined and limited number of proposed laws and policies that overwhelmingly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.
The proposal does not include a “veto right”, as Dutton claimed, because both parliament and the ministers of the government would retain final decision-making powers.
Dutton said all parties were “in favour of reconciliation” and “sensible reforms”.
“I will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the government to do that. But this preparedness to sign up to please others, I think, is a disease within corporate Australia at the moment.”
On Monday night the Minerals Council voiced support for the Uluru statement from the heart.
In a statement, it said: “The industry declared its support for the Uluru statement’s call for a voice to parliament.”
