Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Warren Mundine lead Indigenous Voice to Parliament ‘No’ campaign

The group trying to stop the Indigenous Voice nomination for Parliament has officially launched its ‘No’ campaign, arguing that the legislation will significantly change the way Australia is governed and will not improve the lives of First Nations people.

The six-member committee, which began its campaign on Monday, will instead propose an alternative strategy to support constitutional recognition, as well as a new parliamentary committee to focus on the rights of native title holders, while opposing voice.

The group is made up of former and current MPs and prominent indigenous figures, including Liberal Country Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and former Labor Party Chairman Nyunggai Warren Mundine.

The committee will be led by former labor minister and charities commissioner Gary Johns, while former Nationals leader John Anderson will be a key spokesman.

The group has already dubbed its campaign ‘Recognize a Better Way’ and claims it will be the ‘pivotal’ group around which Case No.

The official campaign for an Indigenous Voice in Parliament will kick off in February, where Australians can expect knocks on the door of the Yes and No camps, letter box submissions and online announcements.

The ‘Yes’ side is bracing for a campaign and advertising blitz, with a focus on younger voters.

As the Prime Minister has declared that there will be no public funding for either side, the ‘No’ committee has developed a fundraising arm to finance their campaign.

writing in the aussie on Monday, Senator Price, Mr. Mundine and Mr. Johns said the government’s proposal was “misplaced and unnecessary.”

“The voice proposed by the Albanian government in the Australian constitution is the wrong way to recognize Aboriginal people or help Aboriginal people in need,” they said.

“The voice’s proposal smacks of the paternalism of an earlier age, with no evidence that it will help those in need.”

The committee’s proposed alternative to the referendum and voice includes a three-point plan that seeks to recognize prior Aboriginal occupation in a preamble to the Constitution.

It also proposes an all-party parliamentary standing committee for native title holders and calls for more support for ‘community-controlled aboriginal organisations’.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday that the voice was a “modest and elegant request for reconciliation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”

“Across the country, every state premier, every prime minister, is supporting a yes vote in this referendum because it’s about progress, it’s about reconciliation,” he said.

“I am not surprised that some radicals are against it, because it is a conventional proposal.”

But ‘No’ campaign organizers will challenge the notion that the voice would have any effect on Australia’s system of parliamentary democracy, and Senator Price said it could follow in the footsteps of Victoria’s First People’s Assembly.

The First People’s Assembly, which began in 2019, called for a series of state parliament seats open to election exclusively to indigenous Australians, as well as the creation of a “permanent representative body with significant decision-making powers” resembling to a “black body”. parliament’.

Senator Price issued a warning that such measures could ‘divide’ the country.

“I think the prime minister needs to let the Australian public know what his intentions are,” he said.

‘Would you block a model like the one being developed in Victoria from creating another house of parliament?’

Also supporting the ‘No’ campaign is the right-wing activist group Advance, which has also warned that a federal voice will take over the agenda of the First Victorian People’s Assembly.

“The state parliament’s version of ‘voice’ is an unforeseen power grab that threatens to upend representative democracy in that state,” the group said.

The group also said the referendum will be “the first step in a full transfer of money and power to a privileged group based on race.”

Anderson has questioned whether the proposal was “as modest as the prime minister wants us to believe.”

Where is the attorney general’s advice? he said.

“If it was as essentially benign as they say, all my experience tells me we would have had that advice by now.”

Last week, ‘Invasion Day’ demonstrations across the country called for a treaty before constitutional recognition, in addition to calls to change the date of Australia Day.

Tens of thousands of people turned out for protests across the country, where many prominent speakers campaigned against the voice, including Green senator Lidia Thorpe.

In Sydney, activist and woman Dunghutti, Gumbaynggirr, Bundjalung, Aunt Lizzie Jarrett urged attendees to vote no.

“Liberal, Labour, the system is not for blacks,” he said.

‘We don’t want a voice, we have a voice. We don’t want a face lift.’

The referendum will take place in August, although a date in September or October has been touted as a more likely date.

While the federal opposition has yet to make an official position on the voice, opposition leader Dutton accused the prime minister of treating Australians “like fools” and demanded that Labor develop their plan by answering questions about the details of the voice. proposal and its function.

The voice debate has been prominent in recent weeks as Alice Springs grapples with an out-of-control crime wave.

Last week, Albanese announced new measures to deal with the crisis, which has seen a spate of break-ins, robberies and violent crimes, committed mainly by young people, since alcohol bans were lifted in July.

Johns said there was nothing in building a voice in parliament that could solve the problems of recent violence in Alice Springs.