Sky News: Inside the News

Voice Debate Exposes Left's Hypocrisy

Interviewer: ... in Australia, our common ground is stable and strong enough to withstand various views. It's caught [indistinct] relief from the political left, they're silencing views which don't fit their narrative on this 'voice to parliament' proposal.

I personally think it's divisive, unnecessary, but like most Australians I remain concerned it will do nothing to assist aboriginal peoples but it will feather the nests of the same elite.

Big tech ... well lets now join the bullying over the voice, refusing to allow considered alternative views to be promoted on platforms like Facebook. They believe in free speech, it seems but only when they're doing the talking.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott is just one of a range of prominent Australians who are concerned that corporate bullying is creating divisions that we don't need, and I am delighted he's joining us tonight.

Well ... Tony Abbott Happy New Year to you. In you time as prime minister, you showed the way in reconciling differences, finding common ground, sitting amongst aboriginal communities... They are amongst some of the most vulnerable and marginalised communities in Australia, but a new bureaucratic construct in the constitution is not going to help them.

Tony Abbott: Well thanks Gary, happy new year and happy birthday to you.

You're right. As prime minister I tried to spend at least a week a year in remote Australia, to get to know the reality of indigenous people's lives as opposed to simply what you are told by the media and by the bureaucrats.

There's no doubt that there are serious problems in remote Australia: kids don't go to school as often as they should; adults don't go to work as often as they should; and the ordinary law of the land is not enforced as often as it should be.

So, there are certainly big problems.

But creating another bureaucracy isn't going to help. This idea that yet another meeting in Canberra, yet another bureaucracy in Canberra, is somehow going to get the kids to school and the adults to work, and the community safe, is ... It's just wrong. It's an exercise in wishful thinking. And my fear is that an abundance of good will could lead Australians to vote for something later this year that will turn out to be wrong in principle, bad in practice, but because it's entrenched in our constitution, it will be almost impossible to reverse.

But more than that, my other fear is that the government is trying to create a very unfair environment in which this debate can take place. They're not funding the yes and the no campaign. They are funding what they say will be a campaign against misinformation, and I fear that will end up being a 'yes' case propaganda.

They have given tax deductibility to donations to the 'yes' case, but not to the 'no' case. I think they're relying on woke public companies to fund the 'yes' case, and they're now relying on big tech to censor the 'no' case. And we've so far had two instances of big tech taking down, or demanding significant alterations to material, which argues, I think quite sensibly and intelligently, certainly quite fair mindedly, the case for voting 'no'.

First of all we had a debate hosted by the Institute for Public Affairs involving senator Jacinta Price that was, at least for a time taken down, and now we've got Facebook saying that an Advance Australia ad, pointing out that this voice will involve special rights for 3% of the population, to influence law making for 100% of the population... that's been forced by big tech to be either withdrawn or changed.

Now, it is going to involve special rights for some, but not for all. And I think people should be able to say that. An this idea that big tech isn't just going to be allowed to control what we say, it's going to be empowered to control what we think and the way we vote ... I think that's deeply, deeply disturbing.

Interviewer (Gary ): Well it is, because I think, like you, I'd like to bring people together, big tech, big corporations, they may not trust it, but I believe most Australians can actually consider the range of views on this matter, sensibly and good faith. They don't need this protection racket filter of big tech. And younger Australians though—they may not be as well versed on stuff that's happened in the past as some of the old Australians—and younger Australians get their views from social media. So I think there's a lot of danger in all of this.

Tony Abbott: Exactly right Gary. This 'voice' campaign is based on a claim that no one listens to indigenous people.

Well we've already got 11 individual, indigenous voices in our parliament, including very articulate people on both sides of the fence, such as Jacinta Price on the coalition side, and Lidia Thorpe for the Greens. And we've people like Pat Dodson for the labor party.

So, we've already got lots of indigenous voices in our public life, including in the parliament.

The other thing that's worth saying is: for generations the great campaign was to end discrimination based on race. The famous words of Martin Luther King: 'I want my daughters to be judged, not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.'

And under this voice proposal, people will be getting an extra say, precisely because of their skin colour, or because of their ancestry.

Now, I thought it was axiomatic that all Australians were equal; all Australians should have an equal say in the way our parliament and our government works. But under this proposal, peoples whose ancestry goes back beyond 1788, will be more equal than people who have come since 1788. I just think that's very concerning in principle, and the government, I think, wants to on the one hand, tell indigenous people that this voice is going to solve all their problems, and on the other hand, it wants to tell the rest of us that this voice is NO ... BIG ... DEAL.

But I tell you, that anything that changes our constitution is for keeps; it's a forever change; and the worry is that we will end up effectively with two classes of citizens: some of us who came more recently to get one vote, some of us who have ancestry stretching back tens of thousands of years to get two, and I think that's a very, very concerning development.

Interviewer: Now families are grass roots campaign of the 'yes' campaign. Some of it's funded by local governments in various parts of Sydney and Melbourne in particular. They're getting people out to go and door-knock and all these sorts of things. And so social media is going to be what it always is, an echo chamber for people.

It strikes me there must be a role at the grass roots of society for families to actually mentor their younger generation. To realise that that principle you're talking about, about dividing people based on culture, based on race, is in fact gonna create a divide that earlier generations of Australians railed against. I call it political and constitutional apartheid. Just like South Africa, we could go down that path if we're not careful. This is the beginning of a very scary leading edge.

Tony Abbott: I think you're right to be very concerned Gary. Now, the government wants to say that this is all about being polite. That this is about having good will towards indigenous people.

Look, all of us have good will. There is an absolute abundance of good will towards the first Australians, as there should be. But this is not about recognising indigenous people in the constitution, it's about changing the way we govern. It's about entrenching, what even Malcolm Turnbull once described as a third chamber of the parliament, into our system. So that everything the government does, everything the parliament does has got to be run past this indigenous body first.

Now, obviously, if there's a measure which has a special impact on indigenous people, you've got to ask indigenous people what they think and get their advice. But there are an abundance of mechanisms for that happening already. What's clear is that this new body, won't just be giving government it's views on indigenous issues, it'll be giving government its views on all issues, because there's a sense in which everything impacts indigenous people.

I notice the prime minister himself admitted it would be a very 'brave'—in inverted commas—government that would ignore the voice's advice. So, this is a very, very far reaching change. It's not something that we should embark upon lightly. It's certainly not something that we should wave through on an abundance of good will for indigenous people which might turn out to be impossible to reverse, if it turns out to be a dreadful mistake. And that's what, I fear, exactly what it would be.

Interviewer: I think, really, Australians are, very much, attendant to the needs of indigenous Australians in those remote areas. Because they are very marginalised; there are all those problems as you've very clearly outlined.

The words to use over these next seven or eight months are really critical, aren't they, because division could be caused simply by this debate.

Tony Abbott: And my fear is that if the voice goes down it will obviously set back reconciliation. But if the voice gets up I fear it's going to leave us a much more divided general Australian community. That's why I think this thing is so fundamentally mistaken.

Now I think we should try and recognise indigenous people in the constitution. And personally, I would like to see, at the very beginning of our constitution, after we talk about one indivisible federal commonwealth, adding something along these lines: to create a nation with an indigenous heritage, a British foundation and an immigrant character. Because it's unarguably true, these three elements are important parts of today's Australia. And it's got something for everyone; and it isn't going to make our country more divided; and it isn't going to gum up our government even more. So there are vastly better ways of doing this than the way which the government is currently embarked upon.

Interviewer: It seems to me that so much of the Western world has lost it's way, and talking about the things which bring us together is a harder task: government seems to be exhausted by the prospect of that, Tony Abbott. It's very sad.

Thank you so much for your time. Your considered words always appreciated sir. Have a great 2023 my friend.

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