SYDNEY (AFP) -- Australia’s prime minister took a swipe Monday at “doomsayers” using fear tactics in a referendum to give Indigenous people a voice on laws that affect them.
Debate on the so-called Voice has turned increasingly acrimonious, with supporters decrying deliberate disinformation and opponents saying it risks opening a racial divide.
If passed, Indigenous Australians -- whose ancestors have lived on the continent for at least 60,000 years -- would have a constitutionally enshrined right to be consulted by the government on laws that impact their community.
More than 200 years since British colonization and the ensuing persecution of Indigenous people, they remain greatly disadvantaged with higher incarceration and jobless rates, and a life expectancy about eight years shorter than that of other Australians.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stressed the symbolic but modest nature of the proposed change, which would not confer a right of veto to Indigenous people.
“All it’s about is recognizing Aboriginal people in our constitution and, secondly, saying that where matters affect them we should listen to them,” the center-left Labor leader told a radio interviewer. “And that’s just common courtesy.”
Australia’s conservative opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton has hardened his rhetoric, though, last week declaring the change would “re-racialize our nation”.
“It will have an Orwellian effect where all Australians are equal, but some Australians are more equal than others,” he said.
The political battle over Indigenous recognition is already leaving a mark on the community.
One of Australia’s top television journalists, Stan Grant, quit his current affairs show with national broadcaster ABC this month citing “relentless” racial attacks he faced as an Indigenous person in the spotlight.
Last Wednesdya, state Liberal MP Bev McArthur said Indigenous people should be grateful for the “wonderful things that have been enabled via colonization” such as hospitals, running water and electricity.
McArthur, an upper house MP representing the western Victoria region who opposes a federal Indigenous voice to parliament, issued the statement a day after the Geelong city council voted to stop recognizing January 26 as Australia Day.