'We should not be having race-based assemblies': Warren Mundine hits out at Victorian government over state-based Voice push

Sky News AU

3 days ago

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine has hit out at the Victorian government over its move to create its own Voice to Parliament after the state resoundingly voted against such a constitutional change two years ago.
The Herald Sun on Monday revealed the Allan government was planning to transform an Indigenous representative body set up as part of the state's Treaty process into its own Voice.
The First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria, comprising of 33 members, was established by Labor in 2018 to represent the state's Indigenous population during treaty negotiations.
However, the Allan government is planning to strengthen its powers and make the body permanent, creating what is likely to be the equivalent of a state-based Voice to Parliament.
The move comes despite more than 54 per cent of Victorians voting No during the Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023.
Mr Mundine, a leading No campaigner during the referendum, took aim at the idea of establishing what he described as "race-based assemblies".
"What it says is that their government has failed. It has failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that are living in Victoria," he told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio.
"They should be held accountable for that - that's number one."
Mr Mundine then recalled the journey of Indigenous Australians who have been fighting for equal representation for decades.
"When I was a young boy growing up... we all fought, my parents, my grandparents - we all fought to be treated equal," he said.
"We wanted all those Aboriginal laws that segregated us and that to be dealt with and done away."
Mr Mundine noted the prominent law change under Menzies government in 1962 which gave adult Indigenous Australians full voting rights.
Five years later in the 1967 referendum, Australians voted to change the constitution to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be acknowledged as equal citizens.
"(In) 1967, the Holt government. We were citizens of this country, but the states and territories were still holding us back. We got rid of all that, we've become full citizens," Mr Mundine said.
"You have education, you have land rights, you have native titles, you have business and economic development.
"In fact, I know some businesses have just gone over to India to actually do business and that over there.
"We've got a whole wide range of great things that are happening in this country because we want to be treated the same as every other Australian. We should not be having race-based assemblies."
All six states, or 60 per cent of Australians in terms of a national vote, rejected the proposal to change the constitution to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the 2023.
The state with the highest No vote was Queensland with 68 per cent, followed by South Australia at 64 per cent and Western Australia with 63 per cent.
In New South Wales and Tasmania, about 58 per cent of people voted against the constitutional change in each state.
"The number of people who have rejected this idea... I just find it bizarre," Mr Mundine said, regarding the Victorian government's move.
Speaking to media on Monday, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan dismissed the suggestion that Victorians had rejected a state-based Voice.
"The key difference to the referendum that was put nationwide a couple of years ago is that was changing the constitution," the Premier said.
"This is not changing the Victorian constitution. It's simply taking a common-sense approach. It's sitting the First People's Assembly, an ongoing representative body, into our existing parliamentary structures.
"The significant change is it'll be a body where we will be listening and taking on their advice."
The government has not yet detailed what powers it will give the body.