CANBERRA, Australia (AP) By Dr. Majid Khan– Australia’s main opposition parties decided Wednesday to oppose the government’s constitutional recognition model for indigenous peoples.
Since 1977, there has been no successful referendum to amend the Australian Constitution, and bipartisan support from the major political parties is widely seen as a prerequisite for success.
But lawmakers from the Liberal Party, the second largest Conservative party after the ruling centre-left Labor Party, said they would oppose the government’s proposal to create so-called indigenous voices in parliament. Boyce will be an elected group tasked with representing Aboriginal interests in parliament, but will not vote on legislation.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said lawmakers wanted tribal people to be represented by regional and local ‘voices’ rather than the voice of the state capital, Canberra. Dutton said senior Liberal MPs would support a ‘no’ vote if Australians are expected to hold a referendum on whether to include the vote in the constitution between October and December.
Dutton told reporters: “Establishing a separate national body out of Canberra, as the Prime Minister is proposing, will divide our country, will not unite, and will not produce results on the ground.
Australia’s Minister for Indigenous Peoples, Linda Burney, said she was the first Indigenous woman to play the role, but she stuck to the wording of the referendum question and expressed her confidence that the referendum would be successful. .
“We’ve worked hard, we’ve worked hard, we’ve worked hard to ensure that the questions and proposed amendments provide what’s intended by the voice and are very clear on the role of Congress,” she said. Said.
The National Party, a Liberal junior her partner in the last coalition government, announced last November that its MPs were opposing Boyce on grounds including racially dividing the Australian population. A poll published in the Australian newspaper on Wednesday found that 54% of respondents supported Voice’s proposal and 38% opposed it. The poll is based on a poll of her 4,756 voters from February 1 to his April 3. The error rate is less than 3 percent.
Many have suggested that public support must be increased in order to change the constitution. Originally from the Torres Strait Archipelago off the northeast coast, Australian Aborigines are culturally distinct from mainland Aborigines. Her two races make up her 3.2% of the Australian population, making her the most disadvantaged ethnic group in Australia.
The Voice was originally proposed by a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advocates in 2017.
Changing the Australian Constitution has never been easy. Of his 44 referendums held since 1901, only eight of them actually took place. Constitutional lawyer George Williams, author of a history book on Australia’s referendum, said this does not mean that bipartisanship is essential to future success.
“There has been no referendum for about 20 years, and the political environment is very different from previous referendums, with rusty votes for the major parties much lower than in any previous referendum,” he said. I was.
