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Warren Mundine with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and other opponents of the government’s Voice proposal at Parliament House.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

This is not recognition of Australia’s First Nations. All it does is recognise Aboriginal people as a homogenous race. Race can sometimes be convenient descriptor. But it’s a flawed,and insulting,basis for recognising Australia’s First Peoples in the Constitution. And history shows it’s a fraught basis on which to differentiate people’s rights. Race and nationhood are different.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a “nation” as “a large body of people united by common descent,history,culture,or language,inhabiting a particular state or territory”. Indigenous Australians don’t have the same languages or cultures or histories or descent or territorial lands. Many people have seen the Indigenous Australia language map which illustrates the first language groups across the continent. Each different coloured area represents a distinct group united by unique descent,history,culture,and language,inhabiting a particular state or territory:a nation.

“Aboriginal” is a race. Bundjalung is a nation. Where does Albanese’s new chapter mention my Bundjalung,Gumbaynggirr or Yuin nations? It’s as if they don’t exist.

Albanese’s amendment assumes this Voice can speak as one with no contemplation of its members having differing opinions. This isn’t the case for other bodies mentioned in the Constitution,like the houses of parliament or the High Court,which have express provision or hundreds of years of precedent for how they make decisions and deal with dissent.

Anthony Albanese makes an impassioned plea for Australians to support the Voice to parliament on March 23.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

It’s as if this Voice has a singular consciousness;like the Borg from Star Trek. This is based on a false premise that Indigenous Australians are one homogenous group,and will constitutionally enshrine us as a single race of people,ignoring our unique first nations. It’s a step backwards.

A fundamental cultural principle of all Australia’s First Nations is that only Countrymen and women can speak for Country. Bundjalung people speak for Bundjalung Country. Gumbaynggirr people speak for Gumbaynggirr Country. Yuin people speak for Yuin Country. I used to live in Dubbo,but I’m not Wiradjuri. Now I live in Sydney,but I’m not Dharug. So I don’t speak for Wiradjuri or Dharug countries. My common ground with Wiradjuri and Dharug people is race. Not Country.

Albanese says the Voice will be based on the 2021 Indigenous Voice report by Tom Calma and Marcia Langton. The report proposed the Voice have 24 members:two appointed by the government,two from each state,territory and the Torres Strait,five from “remote” parts of Northern Territory,Western Australia,Queensland,South Australia and New South Wales,and one for Torres Strait Islanders living on the mainland. The report rejected direct election and said members of the “Local and Regional Voices” (community organisations) within each state and territory would “collectively determine” Voice members for their respective jurisdictions.

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies map shows Indigenous language,social or nation groups.Credit:

The regional boundaries for Voice representation won’t align with First Nations but will primarily align with state and territory boundaries – in other words,based on the way British colonists divided up the continent.

Aside from the chaos,confusion and conflict this will create in practice,it’s fundamentally flawed in principle. This Voice cannot speak for Country since it won’t represent one. I fear worse:that the Voice will purport to speak for Country without authority,undermining traditional owner rights.

Starting with the federal Liberal government’sLand Rights Actin 1976,Australian governments in the 1970s and 1980s all passed land rights legislation. In 1992,the High Court recognised native title after which the government passed theNative Title Act. Today,anyone who wants to do business on lands or waters where native title or land rights exist needs to talk to the traditional owners of those lands and waters.

Traditional owners (like all humans) don’t always agree. There are governance structures and closely supervised rules for how traditional owners make decisions,but when the group makes a decision,there will invariably be some in the group who don’t agree.

I’ve written and spoken extensively about attempts to undermine traditional owner decisions about their own Country,particularly to approve projects on their lands and waters.We’ve seen groups with different agendas enlist minority dissenters in public relations campaigns. We’ve seen traditional owner groups held to a unanimous approval threshold that no other group of people in this country is held to. It will be much easier to undermine traditional owner autonomy by enlisting a Voice,with a constitutional right to make representations to government,to advocate against the wishes of traditional owners about their own countries.

If the Voice is enshrined in the Constitution,prescribed bodies corporate (representing native title claimant groups) and land councils (representing holders of land rights) will become just some of the many local community organisations in a vast region who’ll somehow collectively nominate a member of the Voice which,with its constitutional enshrined status,will have primacy. Their voices for their own Countries will be diluted and drowned out.

Don’t believe the spin. The Voice is not constitutional recognition of Australia’s First Nations. It will not – and cannot – represent First Nations and will more than likely be used as a tool to undermine them.

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