No Wonder They Won’t Detail How the Voice Will Work

The Voice, if it gets up, will not be an elected body in the sense in which we usually define elected bodies on the national political stage. To wit, bodies elected by voters through a secret ballot. The Calma-Langton report envisages an abbreviated bottom-up process in which movers and shakers in existing indigenous organisations form the basis of 35 local and regional “voices” which, in turn, will coalesce into state and territory groupings, from which twenty-four members will be appointed to the constitutionally-enshrined national Voice. It’s an appointment process.

There is an irresolvable problem here, which I will lay out.

The Voice is meant to make representations to parliament on legislation which effects Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people; each and every one of them. Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that a demarcation is possible which neatly divides law into two parts; one subject to the Voice and one not, what representation is the Voice to make…