Not many people would find John Farnham’s You’re the Voice a difficult song to understand. Borrowing from the chorus for a moment, it makes a noise and makes it clear: we all have a role to play in civil society. From its opening line, it’s an imperviously optimistic appeal to human nature’s better angels: “We have the chance to turn the pages over”.
Most people, fortunately, are not a desperate politician on the hustings. Responding to Farnham’s endorsement of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament – and his offering of You’re the Voice to the yes campaign – the opposition leader, Peter Dutton’s take on the song was obtuse, to say the least.
