An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: not as simple as some would have you believe

Advocates for an Indigenous Voice to parliament see the proposal for a legislated option merely as a stepping stone to radical constitutional change rather than the compromise some conservatives think it could be.  

The National Indigenous Australian Agency (NIAA) has now released to the public its interim report outlining a proposal of an Indigenous Voice to parliament. The interim report, produced as part of a co-design process launched by the federal Coalition government in November 2019, outlines how a Voice might be structured and what it might do in practice.   

The interim report fails to allay the fundamental concern that an Indigenous Voice body would be a parallel system of parliamentary representation…