‘Slap in the face': Allan government accused of defying voters with push to create Victorian Voice to Parliament
Plans revealed in the Herald Sun on Monday show the Allan government is planning to turn an Indigenous representative body set up as part of the state's Treaty process into a permanent Voice to Parliament.
The 33-member First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria was set up by Labor in 2018 to represent the state's Indigenous population during treaty negotiations with the state government.
However the Allan government is planning to beef up its powers and make the body permanent, creating what both advocates and opponents agree would be the equivalent of a state-based Voice to Parliament.
The move has been condemned as a 'slap in the face' to voters, with more than 54 per cent of the Victorian public having voted 'No' at the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum.
'Victorians have already voted No to a Voice to Parliament by a significant margin. The Allan government's proposal is a slap in the face to this democratic vote,' Institute of Public Affairs Research Fellow Margaret Chambers told SkyNews.com.au.
The government has refused to say what powers it will give the body, but it is expected to be able to provide advice to government on all laws affecting Indigenous people. This is despite only 4,200 people having voted to elect 22 of the 33 members – each of whom earns $96,946.
Ms Chambers said the proposal would 'enshrine two-tiered, racially-based political system in Victoria', with Indigenous Victorians being given a representative body separate to the Parliament of Victoria.
'The announcement today is straight from the Victorian government's playbook of seeking to divide the community to deliver political favours to allies at the expense of mainstream Victorians,' she said.
Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin has also condemned the move, stating that the Liberal and National parties would 'back the Victorian people'.
'This has already been put to a vote throughout the state, and Victoria has said that they overwhelmingly don't want a Voice to Parliament,' Mr Battin said, adding voters were not just rejecting a federal Voice but a state-based Voice as well.
'Unlike Jacinta Allan, I am listening. While the Premier pushes ahead with her ideological agenda, families are battling a cost-of-living crisis, surging crime, and a health system at breaking point.
Premier Jacinta Allan dismissed the suggestion Victorians had rejected a state-based Voice to Parliament.
'The key difference to the referendum that was put nationwide a couple of years ago is that was changing the constitution,' the Labor Premier said.
'This is not changing the Victorian constitution. It's simply taking a common-sense approach – sitting the First People's Assembly, an ongoing representative body, into our existing parliamentary structures.'
'But the significant change is it'll be a body where we will be listening and taking on their advice.
'It goes back to that very simple common-sense premise that when you listen to people who are directly impacted by policies and programs of the government you get better outcomes.
'That's the approach that I take, and the government I lead takes: We listen to people because we know to our core that that's how you get better outcomes for the people directly affected, but also a fair and better society is better for all of us and I don't know who would want to argue against that.'
Mr Battin agreed that governments need to consult with those affected by laws, but this does not require the creation of a separate representative body.
'Every government should consult; like if you're going to build a high rise in a new suburb, then you should be consulting with local community to see the impact,' the Liberal leader said.
'If we go out there and we are going to be looking at a new Justice Program, we'd consult with the experts in the system.
'We'd also even go through some of the aspects of lived experience, and we speak to people who are former drug users to put drug programs in place.
'So you can consult without having a Voice to Parliament for all those groups as well.'
Indigenous elder Aunty Jill Gallagher said Victoria's Indigenous population needed to have an 'independent voice' so they could 'start making and monitoring government policies and hold them to account."
The Indigenous elder also rejected the claim that the Voice referendum had decided the issue, claiming it been politicised and voters were misled by 'misinformation'.
'If Victorians fully understood what we were asking for, I think they would have supported it,' she told the Herald Sun.
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