However,he said that if the party voted on a position tomorrow,the majority would oppose it. “The majority of my colleagues,it would be pretty much a firm no,” he said.
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Liberal sources,speaking anonymously to discuss internal deliberations,said the shadow cabinet may oppose the government’s model for the Voice referendum and was likely to propose an alternative similar to the approach outlined by Indigenous affairs spokesman Julian Leeser on Monday.
Shadow ministers will meet early on Wednesday before a mid-morning party room meeting of all Liberal MPs. Adopting an alternative proposal – which would likely include local and regional voices,and constitutional recognition without a Voice – would allow the opposition to avoid being entirely negative on the issue of Indigenous recognition.
Some MPs believe the party should wait until May to decide its position,after a parliamentary inquiry has had time to examine the government’s proposed constitutional alteration.
“We have shadow cabinet members with no clue what’s on the agenda,” one Liberal said late on Tuesday,adding that the timing of the meeting just days after the Aston byelection loss raised suspicion that it was designed as a diversion.
Bridget Archer,an outspoken Tasmanian MP who favours the Voice and a conscience vote within the party,said it should not have taken this long for the opposition to formulate a position.
Liberal MP Bridget Archer said there’d been enough detail on the Voice for months.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Asked if the party would stop asking for further information on the referendum,Archer responded:“I should hope so,there has never been a lack of detail.”
The new chair of a parliamentary inquiry into the Voice,Labor senator Nita Green,warned the MPs on the committee against using the debate on the draft wording of the constitutional alteration to score political points.
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“Committee members can choose to use this process to tear down the proposal or they can use this process to learn more about it,and I hope it’s the latter,” Green said in an interview.
The committee’s deputy chair,Liberal MP and former barrister Keith Wolahan,has raised concerns about the prospect of High Court challenges to government decisions brought by people claiming the government had not properly consulted the Voice.
He said:“In the absence of a constitutional convention,a key role for this committee will be to assess the constitutional risk of each limb.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.