Council
12 September, 2023
Referendum date announced
PRIME Minister Anthony Albanese has announced the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum will be held on Saturday, October 14.
The referendum will ask Australians: A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
Do you approve this proposed alteration?
If the referendum is successful, the proposed alteration to the constitution will involve one recognition and three ensuing provisions.
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
i. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
ii. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
and iii. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.
Mr Albanese said the proposed alteration was “pretty clear and pretty straightforward”.
“Recognition. Listening to advice. Parliament continuing as decision-maker,” he said. “That is the clear, positive and practical request from Indigenous Australians.
“That is the hand out asking us, non-Indigenous Australia, to just grasp that hand of friendship.
“And that’s what we can vote Yes for.”
Mr Albanese said it was time to write the next chapter in Australia’s history, stating the nation was at its best when willing to be progressive.
“In the history of our great nation, the wonderful acts of national progress and the great advances in fairness have always required hard work,” he said. “There were arguments here, when South Australia, something they are very proud of and should be, led the world in giving women the right to vote.
“There were arguments made against Federation and the minimum wage, Medicare and multiculturalism. And before the 1967 referendum, before Vincent Lingiari, before Mabo, before the Apology.
“But the great story of our country, through the generations, is that Australians come together to answer these calls for change. We rise to the moment.”
