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I have been responding to the thoughts of Chris Kenny on the Voice for some time now, and I sense that Quadrant readers are pretty much over him. But now I’m back again. Sorry about that.
I started out responding to Kenny because I respected both his integrity and his conservative credentials. I thought, here is a man whose arguments in support of the Voice will merit serious consideration and, where necessary, rebuttal. But now, months later, I do it out of a sense of sheer frustration and a reluctance to see him go unchallenged. To date, his Sky News colleagues have been remarkably restrained in their response to hearing him brand them as fearmongers peddling a groundless scare campaign. That may change in light of the stoush between Sky hosts Kenny and Peta Credlin. Each proclaims they go back a long way and agree on many things – they just disagree on this, but it’s hard to imagine Credlin is making her placatory noises through anything other than gritted teeth.
I am referring, of course, to the Uluru Statement of the Heart. Recently Credlin has been promulgating the complete Uluru Statement as released under FOI by the National Indigenous Australians Agency. It turns out not to be the simple and gracious one-page invitation for white Australia to join our indigenous brothers and sisters on a journey to a better future for all. It is, in fact, a 26-page political manifesto which spells out clearly what they really want — at least the urban educated and well-off activist sector. Selected passages are reproduced below.
On Monday night, Kenny attempted to refute Credlin’s position and stated that the Statement was indeed just one page, and all the other documents (111 pages of them) were merely records of meetings and discussions that had contributed to the drafting of the Statement. Kenny cannot have read those documents. In fact, the documents conclude with one titled ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’. It is annotated Document 14 and with page number 1. Following this first page there are another 25 pages, also annotated Document 14, and all sequentially numbered from page 2. No dispassionate reader would be in any doubt that this is a 26-page document of which the initial page is a summary.
Credlin responded to Kenny on her show last night and provided evidence that the National Indigenous Affairs Administration (NIAA) had confirmed that the Uluru Statement was the whole of the 26-page Document 14. She also showed footage of Prof Megan Davis, one of the architects of the Voice, saying that the Statement is more than one page – that it was 18 or 20 pages.
To my absolute astonishment, Kenny doubled down on his claim an hour or so later, on his own show. That’s when I finally decided his intellectual integrity was in tatters.
Kenny then launched into an almost incomprehensible rant about how all these documents have always been available online, they have not been hidden away as part of some conspiracy. He dismissed as a conspiracy theory any suggestion Labor had signed up to all 26 pages. He later said, ‘the idea that Albanese has committed to a bunch of background papers that he probably hasn’t even seen, well it’s just not a serious proposition’.
Which brings me to the nub of the matter. Whether or not the last 25 pages of Document 14 form part of the formal Uluru Statement is pretty much a matter of semantics. It is clear that they are a synthesis of the earlier 105 pages. They could be considered as Annex A to the Statement. One way or the other, they must be regarded as forming part of the Statement.
Would Kenny have us believe that Albanese has committed to a referendum to inflict a major change on our Constitution, to institute a treaty organisation (on which almost $1 million has already been spent) and establish a “truth-telling” commission based on a gracious one-page statement? If the grey boxed quotes on this page are an indication of “truth” it is going to be reckoned according to an entirely subjective definition. Beyond that, the Voice would be a commitment involving literally billions of dollars.
Will Albanese, once he gets his Voice up, establish a committee to determine the remit of these new entities? That he will start from a clean sheet? Maybe consulting with the wider public? Or, will he take advantage of the work already done, that is already outlined in Document 14, the foundational document. Pages that, apparently, he may never have read? Pull the other one, Chris.
These discussion documents may have been freely available, as Kenny claims, but I doubt that Document 14 was. I had not seen it before Credlin introduced it. The government had not publicised it in any way. But the gracious one-page statement it deigned to show us only hints at what is intended. Document 14 lays it all bare, and Credlin has done us all a great service in bringing it to public attention via an DOI request.
As an aside, on a subject that I have been banging on about since day one – the supposed advisory nature of the voice — on page 17 of Document 14 we are told:
There was a concern that the proposed body would have insufficient power if its constitutional function was ‘advisory’ only, and there was support in many Dialogues for it to be given stronger powers so that it could be a mechanism for providing ‘free, prior and informed consent’.
That will be why, despite the fact that Albanese (and Kenny) repeatedly say the Voice will only be able to give advice, the words ‘advice’ or ‘advisory’ do not appear in the referendum question You can read more of my thoughts on this here.
Kenny talks only about the Voice as if it exists in a vacuum. He refuses to acknowledge that treaty or truth-telling have anything to do with the current debate. On the Voice, he is starting to sound as silly as Chris Bowen talking about renewables — and that is very silly indeed.
I have been watching Chris Kenny for many years and I like him. On The Voice he represents an enigma. The question is why? How can a logical mind like his be so delusional and naïve on this subject? It just doesn’t make any sense. There is something else going on and I think he is not being honest. Why would he stick his neck out that far for a clearly terrible cause? Maybe one day we’ll know the truth about what drove him.
His deluded ego – pure and simple. Because he was on the original Voice steering committee this is now just a blind crusade for Kenny. He has lost all credibility on every issue he addresses now as far as I’m concerned and his tv ratings indicate that many others feel the same – half of Sky news audience who watch Bolt before hand switch off Kenny and switch back on again for Murray after. Sky executives must be very concerned at how much audience he is bleeding with his transparent ego driven hypocrisy.
Fully agree, CK. Everything he writes on the voice is frankly bizarre. I’ve stopped reading anything else he writes, too — he’s lost all credibility, in my book. I hope it’s not a medical condition . . .
He lost the toss and so he’s Sky’s designated Yes supporter. It’s the only explanation for the fact that he’s arguing a case which he looks like he doesn’t believe in.
I agree with you, Peter, re Kenny. I also watched him last night and found his arguments lacked credibility, particularly given his views of such woke delights as “global warming” etc. Perhaps he is pretending, in order that Sky News is seen to be giving “balanced commentary” on the Voice? Part of one of the passages you quoted from the 26 page manifesto caught my eye viz: “The invasion that started at Botany Bay is the origin of the fundamental grievance between old and new Australians: that Australia was colonised without the consent of its rightful owners.” Such a statement is up there with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Ignoring the contestable use of the word “invasion” or whether the “Botany Bay” reference covers Captain Cook and/or governor Phillip, I know of no other colonisation situation where the consent of the “rightful owners” was obtained in advance. When my long distant Celtic ancestors were colonised by the Vikings, then the Brits and then the Scots I did not see in the history books evidence of permission given. Similarly when my English ancestors were colonised by the Angles, then the Saxons, then the Vikings, then the Normans, I am pretty sure that they did not consent to such colonisations and I am sure they are not going to give consent retrospectively hundreds of years later. Most people in the present put that behind them and try to live together in harmony in a shared present and a shared future. The expressions “First Nations” and “old and new Australians” are bordering on academic drivel. “Old Australians” used to be my native born group (including Aborigines) and “new Australians” were migrants. It looks like these elitist and patronising authors of the 26 pages are not recognising us natives?
You’re not wrong, Padraic. Attempts to split a population along the lines of ancestry is a sure first step to national schism in the long run (“multiculturalism” is bad enough). This is one reason I fail to understand some Jewish organisations supporting the Yes case — must have very short tribal memories . . .
Agree, pmprociv: “I’ve stopped reading anything else he writes, too — he’s lost all credibility, in my book.”
My book too. He lost me during the COVID debacle when he joined the rest of the lemmings and (presumably at the behest of his employer, SkyNews) meekly accepted the mainstream COVID “vaccine” narrative.
I don’t think the issue of the one-page versus the many more page version is that relevant. It is very clear from the one-page version that, despite its poetic, sentimental language, tthe Uluru Statement from the Heart is about creating a constitutionally enshrined indigenous representative body and the supporting governance structures that would be a de facto government for a quasi-independent indigenous nation that would have a treaty-governed, co-governance relationship with the Commonwealth of Australia.
Michael,
yes that is the point of my article. The gracious one-page statement (actually not all that gracious) is based on all the discussions and its essence, as you outline, is contained in Document 14.
Good job Peter. Kenny’s position is hopeless. Too pigheaded to admit he has been wrong from the start. He keeps digging a bigger hole that will be difficult to get out of.
Thanks march. I watched Kenny last night and he goes from strength to strength, for want of a better description. Can’t wait for round 4 tonight!
I suspect Kenny was burned after he exposed the Hindmarsh Island deception and he has not gotten over it.
Firstly, Australia was not invaded and secondly, there were no frontier wars. The British meticulously recorded their military history and there is none for Australia.
As to the one-page promo for the voice, who would buy a house based only on total trust in the agent’s promotional material? No-one.
Who would change the Constitution based only on a one page promotional piece, ignoring the other 25 pages of detail? No-one with any brains that is for sure.
There are another 25 pages which comprise the Uluru Statement from the wallet, sorry, heart, and the devil is in that detail. Remember to always read the fine print and the other pages are the fine print.
Not so fast, RR. We had frontier wars, massacres AND slavery. According to left-liar-in-loco Phillip Adams.
If just that one, florid, self-contradictory page is all that came out of 1,200 individuals being ferried and feted and accommodated around the country (over how long?), with their selected elite then being wined and dined at Uluru, it’s a pretty dismal example of productivity — although in keeping with traditional culture, one supposes. I’d love to know what the total budget ended up being.
But surely, with all those academics and brilliant legal minds involved, including even some illustrious constitutional lawyers, for crying out loud, they could have come up with a prototypical model for The Voice, something for us to start chewing on? If they were unable to fulfil that simple chore, what hope is there for a Federal Parliament, with far fewer members and heaps more other stuff to worry about, to do any better? Or maybe they’ll engage PwC, or some other notable consultancy firm, to do the job? Should The Voice get up (and it’s growing pretty certain that it won’t), an effective working model is unlikely ever to be formulated — each painful step of the way will be stymied by endless, irresolvable squabbling. In fact, that’s probably why the Uluru Mob didn’t produce one in the first place. Maybe Kenny could tell us a bit more about that?
Chris Kenny used to occupy the “just before dark’ 5pm time slot for journalism now occupied by Sharri Markson. He now occupies the “After Dark Political Commentator” 8pm time slot ( that in the eyes and ears of many still belongs to Alan Jones) and he is now rudderless and all at sea.
As a Journalist he exposed the false mythology surrounding Hindmarsh Island where the official charged with solving the bottleneck would not read evidence because it was branded “Secret Womens Business”, Now seated uncomfortably in the Commmentator position he has succumbed to viewing the last 25 pages of the proposal as “Secret Committee Business’ and demands the decision be made in ignorance of it.