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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

If the Liberal party’s announcement that it would oppose the Voice to Parliament was meant to take attention away from fractures in the Liberal party – the result has been very different.

This week, the party’s spokesperson on Indigenous Australians resigned his post, and the party’s most high-profile Indigenous figure tore up his party membership.

So how did it come to this? And have these splits torpedoed Peter Dutton’s case just as he’s begun to make it?

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno, on the consequences of saying ‘No’ for the Liberal party.

It’s Friday, April 14.

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Archival tape – 10 News:

“First to breaking news, and the Shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, has just quit the frontbench…”

Archival tape – 7 News:

“Shadow Attorney General Julian Leeser has just announced he's quit the Opposition frontbench…”

Archival tape – Sky News:

“Julian Leeser has resigned from the party's frontbench and the Indigenous Australians portfolio so he can campaign to support the Voice to Parliament…”

RUBY:

So Paul, this week the Coalition's shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, quit the frontbench. And that decision was made in direct response to the Liberal Party's position against the Voice to Parliament. And Leeser says that he's staying on in the Liberal Party, he'll be on the backbench where he'll campaign for what is essentially the opposite of the party line, so a 'Yes' vote. Tell me what we know about how he came to his decision.

PAUL:

Yes, well, Julian Leeser is without a doubt a conservative Liberal, but he's also a conservative Liberal with a very keen sense of social justice. He's also a lawyer with a keen interest in constitutional law. By the way, his history with the Liberal Party goes all the way back to when he was a staffer for Bronwyn Bishop, one of the most conservative of the conservative Liberals. So that's his pedigree as a conservative Liberal. However, he's also been very closely aligned with the whole issue of constitutional recognition for First Nations people. Now, he told us on Tuesday that he's been having long conversations with his colleagues, particularly in the Liberal Party, but also in the National Party, about his view and why he holds them. But he failed to convince them. But more to the point, he's been having very long conversations with Peter Dutton. Even in December he had a quite big heart to heart, thought he was getting somewhere, but he was getting the message that maybe even though he claims Dutton had an open mind, that mind hadn't reached any conclusions.

That all fell in a huge heap, I've got to tell you, Ruby, on the Monday before Peter Dutton called a crisis party room meeting to respond to the wipe-out in the Aston by-election. It was then that Julian Leeser realised that Dutton was going to reject his position for a constitutional Voice to the parliament, and he told Dutton that he had no choice but to quit the frontbench. And now we're told that Dutton said, “Look, you've got the pass over Easter break, go away and think about it and you can come to a decision after the holidays.” And that's exactly what happened. Leeser basically is absolutely crestfallen that he failed to bring the majority of his party room with him. But he feels so deeply about this, he's so convinced that this is the right thing to do that he said he had no choice but to do it.

RUBY:

And when Julian Leeser resigned, he didn't just announce that he was leaving the frontbench. He really made a case for the Voice that sounded very different to the ‘No’ case that Peter Dutton had just made a few days earlier. So what do Leeser's statements on the Voice mean for that campaign that Dutton has been trying to mount?

PAUL:

While Julian Leeser praises Peter Dutton, he is determined to take head on Dutton's arguments against the Voice. In other words, he's going to undermine the leader.

Archival tape – Julian Leeser:

“With a referendum due later this year. I believe the time for the Voice has come. I believe in local and regional voices. I believe in a national voice drawn from local and regional bodies and I will support the referendum being put this year.”

PAUL:

Dutton, for example, has been keen to claim the voice won't help people on the ground, particularly in remote communities. Well, Leeser said, and I'm quoting, “I believe that by empowering people and building institutions that shift responsibility and decision making closer to people.”

Archival tape – Julian Leeser:

“We're more likely to shift the dial on Indigenous health, education, housing, safety and economic advancement.”

PAUL:

Now Dutton's been trying to brand the Voice as divisive, but of course, in doing so, he's the one that is the major vehicle for division in the Australian community. In my view.

Archival tape – Julian Leeser:

“The voice is not about special privileges, it is about recognising that Indigenous Australians are our brothers and sisters and we have left them behind in our shared national project.”

PAUL:

So Ruby, already Leeser, has poked huge holes in Peter Dutton's fear campaign, and he intends to keep doing it. It's interesting, in an interview he gave on RN after his resignation, he said he wanted to say to his children that it's important in politics to be able to stand for something even when it costs you.

RUBY:

So, Paul, what effect is all of this have on the Liberals' capacity to move forward in presenting themselves as a viable opposition party? It's clearly damaging to their ability to present a unified front with shared values and policies. But how damaging is that for them?

PAUL:

There is no doubt that Dutton does lead a party that is divided. And when I say party, I don't only mean the Parliamentary Party. I mean the broader Liberal Party and many of its high profile former members. But we do know that Senator Andrew Bragg, who's a backbench senator from New South Wales, he intends to set up a Liberals for the Voice. Actually, he's calling it Liberals for Yes.

Archival tape – Andrew Bragg:

“I think Julian has been very constructive. I mean, anyone who watched that press club address yesterday would say that was a constructive proposition. I mean, he put forward the primacy and the importance of local and regional voices…”

PAUL:

Now, Bragg set up Liberals for Marriage Equality, and he was very successful in that campaign. I've got to say to you, there is one difference, of course. Liberals for Marriage Equality had the backing of the then Prime Minister, Turnbull.

Archival tape – Andrew Bragg:

“I believe, about the benefits of new institutions to support Indigenous people in our country, to make community level decisions about service delivery, but also to talk to government to get better outcomes…”

PAUL:

Just as problematic for the Liberal Party is the fact that Leeser's quitting the frontbench does put pressure on other high profile supporters of the ‘Yes’, like, for example, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Simon Birmingham. Now Birmingham went on Sky Television this week, and he said that he would not be campaigning for the ‘No’.

Archival tape – Simon Birmingham:

“Julian has a long and deep history on this issue and I have nothing but respect for Julian in the highest of regard for the knowledge and thought that he brings to the debate of this issue. And I will continue to listen very carefully to what he has to say.”

PAUL:

And he even expressed the hope that maybe there's still time for Peter Dutton and the Liberals to get on board.

Archival tape – Simon Birmingham:

“And I'm hoping that there is still room for some type of consensus to be salvaged out of this situation. I've said for a long time that I don't wish to see an unsuccessful referendum put forward to the Australian people.”

PAUL:

From the Government side, there is some relief that someone as high profile as Leeser has quit the frontbench to join the ‘Yes’ campaign. One of Linda Burney senior advisers told me that, in a sense, that this establishes a permission structure for Liberal voters to vote 'Yes'. But on the other hand, when the Liberal leader does come out so strongly for the ‘No’ campaign, it makes even others who want to campaign for ‘Yes’ hesitant. And it also makes, you know, rusted on liberals, think twice, and perhaps take the advice of their leader. Even so, Andrew Bragg says that he's pretty confident he can get the 25 to 30% of Liberal voters needed for the Voice to succeed to vote 'Yes'.

So look, it's a mess, it's highly contested. But those pushing for the ‘Yes’ case are still confident that it can win through.

RUBY:

Ruby: We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Paul, Julian Leeser isn't the only Liberal politician to speak out against Peter Dutton's arguments against the Voice. This week we also saw former Indigenous Affairs minister, Ken Wyatt, actually tear up his membership of the party over this. So can you tell me a bit about Wyatt’s place in Liberal Party history, and just how big this decision would have been for him?

PAUL:

Well, Ken Wyatt is a long term member of the Liberal Party. He was the first indigenous person to be elected to the House of Representatives. And Morrison made him the first indigenous person to be the Cabinet Minister for Indigenous Australians. Ken Wyatt progressed the whole issue of Voice to the Parliament. He twice took to the Morrison cabinet a proposal to establish regional and local voices. And both times the Morrison Cabinet ignored him, which of course throws some light on claims that Dutton and the Liberals are serious about these local and regional voices. They were in power for ten years. In the last term of those ten years they had the opportunity and they didn't take it. And I think that experience just convinced Ken Wyatt that he'd had enough on this issue. That he had been, if not betrayed, he'd certainly been disrespected.

Archival tape – Ken Wyatt:

“It became a position where — I didn't even tell my wife — I just sent the message after the Liberal Party saying that I forthwith resigned my membership, because I wanted to fight for the Voice. Because this is something we've asked for over many decades…”

PAUL:

And he, like Leeser, sees this as the moment to address a historic injustice and to empower First nations people to overcome many of the issues and challenges confronting them. On 7.30, he criticised Dutton for calling it a Canberra voice.

Archival tape – Ken Wyatt:

“It's not a Canberra voice, it is not elites, it is people from the grassroots…”

PAUL:

He told 7.30 that he now is convinced that Dutton was never contemplating supporting this referendum or a ‘Yes’ vote.

Archival tape – Ken Wyatt:

“You've got to weigh this up against a section of our community who live with gaps in their lives that are so substantial that even after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, those gaps have never closed…”

RUBY:

Yeah, it seems like Wyatt suspects that there is some political opportunism behind Peter Dutton's decision last week. So what do you think that he suspects of Dutton's motivations? Are we starting to learn more about what Dutton is hoping to achieve with this decision to oppose the Voice?

PAUL:

Look, it's crystal clear Ruby that there's a template here, and the template is the way to political success is, if you like, to pick a fight to divide and conquer. This is the template successfully used, for example, by Tony Abbott. And I do think, as I said earlier, that what really motivated Dutton to call that crisis meeting immediately after Aston was to pick a fight, was to change the subject, was to have the media and the agenda away from the woes of the Liberal Party and on onto a major issue that people would talk about, and that would look to Dutton and what he's saying apart from what problems he's got in his own party.

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“It will cost billions and billions of dollars. It will require literally thousands of public servants. And is that what Australians have in mind? I don't think they do.”

PAUL:

Dutton has been very quick to respond to this criticism by being even more strident.

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“At a superficial level, people understand that we need a better outcome for Indigenous Australians. We all have that in our hearts. But we believe we've got a better pathway to get there that doesn't disrupt the future of our country.”

PAUL:

And I think there's another edge to all of this too Ruby, and that is that Dutton knows he'll be facing another by-election before the end of the year. The word is that Scott Morrison will quit his Sydney seat of Cook after the budget. And you have to factor this into Peter Dutton's thinking the last thing he would need is another traditional Liberal seat falling either to an independent or to the Labor government. Now, Morrison is reported as telling people that he'll wait till after the May budget, and that's because Jim Chalmers hasn't got much choice but to bring down an austerity budget. Now while Chalmers says he will be doing something to relieve cost of living pressures, any austerity means that he's going to have to cut something and he will create losers. And Scott Morrison and the Liberals believe that will make it easier for them to hold onto Cook.

RUBY:

And Paul, if the ‘No’ case does succeed, there are moderates within the Liberal Party who might never forgive Dutton for his role in that. But if it fails, and if Dutton's arguments are ultimately rejected by Australians when they go to vote, that would no doubt be damaging for his credibility as leader of the party. So to what extent do you think this decision that Dutton has made on the Voice will define his political future?

PAUL:

Well, it will define it in every which-way possible. And it is a measure of his desperation that he has hitched his future leadership, his future ability to be an alternative Prime Minister, to win another election, to bringing down the referendum. But if you have a look at it in another way, this is a lose-lose position for Dutton. Even the most fervent ‘No’ campaigners accept that the ‘Yes’ vote will win the popular vote. That is, a majority of Australians, mostly coming out of our biggest cities, will vote ‘Yes’. The big hope is that they can get a narrow ‘No’ vote in three states, because you have to have a majority of voters in a majority of the states. Well, it was revealed this week by Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney that there would be a multi-million dollar education campaign just spelling out what a referendum is, how it works and why. Also, we know that the Australian Electoral Commission will be very active trying to correct misinformation over and against that. If they manage to bring down the referendum, you will have Peter Dutton as the wrecker, and that will be the view of a majority of voters when they next go to the election. And you should also remember that the teal independents who won a whole swathe of hitherto safe Liberal seats, well the teal independents are going for broke for the ‘Yes’ campaign to get up. And now, of course, if the ‘Yes’ does get up in a majority of states with a majority of the voters, then there is no doubt that Peter Dutton will be, to put it very crudely, a dead political carcass.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time.

PAUL:

Thank you, Ruby. Bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Whistleblower David McBride will finally stand trial nearly five years after being charged with leaking alleged war crimes.

The former military lawyer is accused of leaking classified information containing allegations of unlawful killings committed by Australian military forces in Afghanistan. McBride has pleaded not guilty to five charges.

AND

As of Melbourne Cup day, Victoria will no longer recognise public drunkenness as a crime.

The decision follows the coronial inquest into the death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, who died in a police station after being arrested for public drunkenness.

The coroner found her death was preventable.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper.

It’s produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Zoltan Fecso, Cheyne Anderson, and James Milsom.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow, our editor is Scott Mitchell.

Sarah McVeigh is our Head of Audio, and Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Mixing this week by Laura Hancock, Andy Elston, and Atticus Bastow.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I'm Ruby Jones, see you next week.

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