ANTHONY:

G’day, Anthony here… How are you?

ANGE:

Hi Anthony it’s Ange McCormack from 7am … thanks so much for calling in.

ANTHONY:

My pleasure.

ANGE:

How are you?

ANTHONY:

I’m ok, it's been a very busy day…

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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am.

Today, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, joins me for a special conversation about The Voice to Parliament. In this episode, the Prime Minister shares what makes him so personally invested in the Voice, whether he got the timing of the referendum wrong, and what he thinks Australia will look like if we vote yes.

It’s Monday, September 25th.

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ANGE:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, welcome to 7am.

ANTHONY:

Thank you for having me on the podcast.

ANGE:

Prime Minister, on election night last year, the first thing you spoke about was the Uluru Statement and you committed to The Voice. Why did you decide to make that the first thing you said to the country?

ANTHONY:

Because the first thing that happens now and Australia is all the better country for it - is at any major event, is to acknowledge country, to have a welcome to country or an acknowledgement. So I felt like it was a natural flow to it.

Audio Excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.”

ANTHONY:

We had committed during the election campaign to have a referendum and at some point we had to have the courage as a nation to have the vote and to do what I hope occurs, which is to finally recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution.

ANGE:

This issue is clearly important to you, it's an emotional cause. I want to know though, when was the first time that you personally noticed the inequality faced by Indigenous Australians? Was there a particular first memory of you becoming aware of that?

ANTHONY:

Well, I grew up in Camperdown in inner Sydney, and I, along with other members of my family for a long time back, had supported South Sydney. And my mom used to take me to Redfern Oval and we catch the bus there and then walk to the Oval through what was a large Aboriginal community and whether it was at the oval itself or in Redfern Park where the oval is or in the streets surrounding it, you couldn't help but not notice the Indigenous disadvantage which was there. And so I was conscious of it as a young boy growing up. And then a number of Indigenous students came to my school. I went to school at the Cathedral school in Sydney, and kids who would… some of them would get expelled from Cleveland Street, which was then the local high school in Redfern would come to St Mary's. So I got to know young Indigenous people growing up. And out of that came an understanding of hardship and how they were doing it tough. And then when I first got elected to Parliament, I ran for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Committee in 1996 because I wanted to broaden my experience. I thought as a first time MP, we should all have a greater understanding of Indigenous issues. And that led me to go to places like Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing and Wilcannia, places that I hadn't been and probably wouldn't have gone without that experience. And to see firsthand some of the issues which Indigenous communities were confronting. And then in my second term I got appointed as the Assistant Shadow Minister or Parliamentary Secretary as they were called then for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and I got to meet with communities during that period as well, and that gave me a greater knowledge of the issues that they were dealing with. And so it evolved over a period of time. And I do think as, as an Australian, we all have that sense of pride of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on Earth.But we also have a responsibility, I think, to try to close the gap.

ANGE:

It's interesting that you mention your early years as an MP because, you know, in your first speech to Parliament, you said that reconciliation with Indigenous Australians would be one of your top concerns as an MP.

Audio Excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“Of course the continuation of the process of reconciliation of Indigenous Australians is a precondition of this vision. Defending and extending multiculturalism and reconciliation with Indigenous Australians will be one of my primary concerns as a member of parliament…”

ANGE:

I was three years old when you made that speech.

ANTHONY:

Showing my age.

ANGE:

Or mine I guess. But why does it feel like 27 years later you're essentially calling for the exact same thing? Why is progress on this so slow?

ANTHONY:

Well, Noel Pearson speaks about this in the Boyer Lectures. I think for many Australians, they don't have contact directly with Indigenous communities and it is difficult to achieve constitutional change. This is something that can be traced back really to William Cooper in the 1930s for speaking about Indigenous representation. Now this has evolved so that Indigenous Australians were themselves asked what form recognition should take in the Constitution, given that all of the major parties had said that they supported constitutional recognition from the time that John Howard was the leader and the Labor Party well before then. And so this evolved and led to the process being established, chaired by Julian Leeser and Pat Dodson in a bipartisan way, appointed under Tony Abbott's prime ministership and then leading up to the Uluru First Nations Constitutional Convention in 2017, where Indigenous Australians decided by a big majority that they wanted recognition but they wanted substance as well. They wanted a form of recognition that made a practical difference going forward, it wasn't just the symbolism which is important, but they wanted something more than that. And they came up over a period of time, in truth, for more than a decade going back, including legal experts, came up with the concept of the Voice, essentially an advisory group that would not be binding on government, but would allow for the views of Indigenous Australians to be put forward so that they would have a voice and Parliament and Government could listen to that voice in order to achieve better outcomes.

ANGE:

So that voice that you're describing, it is a simple proposal. It's an advisory body, as you said. Why are so many Australians not understanding it?

ANTHONY:

Well, I think originally that the concept of a voice does need some explanation. Like what's the voice that we all have - a voice. So it needs explaining and it's been explained as well the reason why it wasn't just called an advisory group was they wanted to make it clear what it was that Indigenous people wanted to be listened to and that is why the language was chosen. It arose from those discussions and dialogue between Indigenous communities. And I think it is unfortunate that we're seeing so much misinformation out there. It's so easy to ask questions that are never asked about other issues. And then if there's an answer, it just leads to more questions because the objective is to sow doubt and to sow confusion. I mean, there's been a conscious campaign by some supporters of the "No" campaign to create confusion. That has been a strategy. And even the slogan of “if you don't know, vote no” is really an indictment on… It's really saying, don't bother to find out. It's not a responsible thing in a democracy to say.

ANGE:

But we've had that line come from the opposition for a while. Isn't it your job and the Yes campaign's job to counter that message and cut through and simply explain what the voice is? Why isn't that working?

ANTHONY:

Well, we have been doing that and will continue to do that. One of the things that will occur, of course, is that Australians will focus and are focusing like just this afternoon, been doing a street walk with Dean Parkin from the Yes Campaign with Labor people with Liberals for Yes in Norwood in Adelaide. And the response was very positive. I'm confident that when Australians focus on what the actual question is and the question is very clear. But first is of course asking for recognition and it simply says in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of Australia, that says that ‘what’ they shall be a body to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice and then what will it do? Well, it may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and then the ‘how’… that's so important as well, including a clear declaration of the primacy of Parliament. The Parliament shall have power to make laws with regard to the competition, functions, paths and procedures of the voice. So there's nothing to fear by this proposition. It's not going to change the way that the government functions in this country. But what it will do, what it will do is enable the voice of Indigenous Australians to be heard. And that will, I'm very confident, lead to better outcomes because we know that when any word is consulted about matters that directly affect them, then you get better outcomes. Common sense tells you that.

ANGE:

Coming up after the break - does the prime minister regret the timing of the referendum?

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Audio Excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“Some people say it doesn't go far enough" is what some of the perspective is. They say this isn't enough because it is a modest request. It isn't about special places in parliament. It retains completely the primacy of the parliament to make decisions, parliament and government. But what it does do is ensure that advice can be given, advice can be given. That is all that it requires. And that is a modest request on top of recognition…”

ANGE:

One of the things you've said is that the voice is modest, right? It won't get a say on Australia Day. It won't be a funding body and so on. Is that messaging of minimising effectively the voice's impact, actually undermining the Yes camp? You know, if it is so modest, doesn't that enable people to vote no because it implies that it's not a big deal?

ANTHONY:

No, I don't think that's right. It's about putting forward accurately what it will do. Now, it may give advice on a range of issues as other bodies can give advice. But the idea… to make two points, the idea that they're going to be giving advice to the Reserve Bank, I mean, I can't give advice to the Reserve Bank. Well, I can, but they don't have to listen to it when it comes to interest rate decisions. And that's been one of the things that's been said. It's been spoken about - there'll be new taxes, there will be an impact on people's land and ownership. And that's before you get to the massive conspiracy theories about the UN or other issues. The point is here that this is what Indigenous Australians themselves have asked for. They're confident that if there is a voice, then they will give advice that is, that is accurate, that will make a difference on matters that they will concentrate on, which is closing the gap on life expectancy, that the age gap that's there, closing the gap on education outcomes, on justice outcomes. And we know from experience that when Indigenous Australians have been engaged and recently of course during the pandemic, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was fears of catastrophic consequences for Indigenous Australians health and and that got turned around once Indigenous communities had agency over the rollout of vaccinations, over the information campaigns rather than decisions being just made in Canberra. We see it with justice reinvestment in Bourke, we see it with health outcomes in Cape York, we see it with education, with kids going to school in Arnhem Land. When decisions are made with the direct input of Indigenous Australians, they're the success stories. The Indigenous Rangers programs is a great success story because it's arisen from Indigenous Australians themselves. Not with the best of intentions, decisions have been made in Canberra for 122 years, but we haven't seen a closing of the gap in recent years and if we do the same thing, we should expect the same outcomes. And that's why giving Indigenous Australians a site will be so important.

ANGE:

Prime Minister, you said this is a once in a generation moment. So the timing of this vote is crucial and this referendum is happening while so many people can't think about anything other than their rent, mortgage, paying bills, affording groceries. Do you regret scheduling the vote during a cost of living crisis?

ANTHONY:

No, I put out very early on so that there was certainty going forward, a timetable. I got elected last May. There are people who have worked on this campaign, of course, for more than more than a decade and for many have given their long lives to this campaign. People like Pat Dodson, Tom Calma, Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson. And there isn't one person in the Garma festival where well was recently who was saying, Ah, you know, what? Can we change the timetable here? So I went to Garma a bit over a month after I was elected as Prime Minister. I put out a draft of the wording for the constitutional change and encouraged people to participate. We established a referendum working group. We established a timetable so that everything was designed to try to get as much and as broad a support as possible. Now, when Peter Dutton appointed Gillian Lisa as Shadow Attorney-General and Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, one would have thought that was a positive sign given his involvement in this question going back as far as 2012. And that's why I took that as a positive sign. We had a process. I met with Peter Dutton on at least seven occasions to discuss getting broad support for it. The National Party declared their opposition from the beginning and they in the end, the Liberal Party. And Peter Dutton declared his opposition just a couple of days after they lost the Aston by-election. And after commentary was that they saw this as a way of securing a political advantage or a partisan advantage over the Labor Government. Now that is something that is a decision that they made. But we had a very clear timetable. I said that we had the referendum working group would produce draft legislation that would be agreed with the Cabinet that occurred in March. And then I said there'd be a three month inquiry. We did all of those processes, but this has gone on for a long period of time and like I said at my first Garma speech, I said, If not now, when? And there will always be something. And this was also a timetable established when there weren't state or territory elections, which is very unusual that we're going through a period now where we're not in an election timetable some way given we have eight states and territories, six states, two territories and the federal government's way of nine elections. And the fact that there's none at the moment was designed to provide some clear air.

But also what is important is that where we're sticking to what we said we would do, and that's something that I want to characterise my government to restore faith in the way that politics is conducted. Had we walked away from the commitment and said, Oh well, it's all too hard. I will defer it for this term and we'll do it in the second term. Then for those people who had put all of their energy and commitment and passion into this cause, there's a limit to how long you can do that for. When political leaders don't have the courage of being prepared to put it to the Australian people with no certainty about outcome. But there was never going to be certainty about an outcome when you were trying to change the Constitution. But if you don't advance the question, then you'd be in the same position. No recognition, no voice, nothing moving forward.

ANGE:

Prime Minister, if Australia votes yes on October 14, what country will we wake up to the next morning? What will it mean for us?

ANTHONY:

We'll wake up to a more unified country, one that has shown respect for the oldest continuous culture on earth, one that is more confident about ourselves and feels better about ourselves, and one which the world can look at and see a more mature nation coming to terms with the fullness and richness of its history. I think just like the apology for Stolen Generations, like the vote on marriage equality, it will just feel like a great country has become just that little bit greater.

ANGE:

Prime Minister, thanks so much for your time.

ANTHONY:

Thanks very much.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

Lachlan Murdoch is set to become the sole chairman of both Fox Corporation and News Corp, and in one of his first moves, he has backed the appointment of former prime minister Tony Abbott to Fox’s board. The Murdoch-owned Fox Corporation includes American television businesses like Fox News and Fox Sports, and in a press release Lachlan said Tony Abbott would: “bring skills, experience and perspectives that will contribute to the board and benefit Fox.”

And…

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced the government will introduce a so-called ‘skills passport’ for workers and employers, committing $9 million dollars to the project. The new digital system, which will work like the medicare app, will be a record of qualifications and certifications – that workers can share with potential employers.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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