Can Australia delay Voice referendum till 2024?

One of the few Liberal Members of Parliament (MP) who believes Indigenous people should have a voice referendum in parliament has made a request to the government to postpone the vote until the following year.

Andrew Bragg, who is advocating for a vote in favor of the “yes” option, stated that there was not enough “middle ground” formed, and he believed that the lack of consensus has already condemned the referendum to fail.

He stated that it was time to recalibrate in order to “save the concept” before conducting a referendum in the middle of 2024.

According to recent polls, support for the voice has been on the decline over the course of this year, casting question on whether or not it will receive the required two-thirds majority to pass the referendum.

“They need to have a proper effort at building bipartisan support that can improve the product,” Bragg said in an interview with Sydney radio station 2GB.

Because the product in question is the one that is being discussed here. It’s not the marketing at all.”

Bragg stated that he did not believe it was the “right thing” to give up an Indigenous voice to parliament that was constitutionally enshrined, but he believed that the government’s approach to establishing the language of the referendum had left people behind.

“They should have established a committee last year to look at how you can build some consensus around the legal wording and also the detail,” he added. “They should have looked at how you can build some consensus around the legal wording and also the detail.” “On the issue of marriage, only about five or six years ago, there was a measure on the table, which people could look at before they voted on it,” she said. “On the other hand, the vote did not pass.

“I would have thought, based on the voice, there would have been at least an exposure draft bill that could have been considered alongside the referendum question.”

If the referendum were to be successful, the government claims that the particular specifics of the voice, such as the number of members it has and the process by which they would be selected, would be decided by the parliament. Since March, general design principles pertaining to the functionality of the voice have been made available.

There were no modifications made to the question that was put up by the government, which was informed by the voice working group, after it was considered by a partisan committee in the legislature for a period of four weeks during the referendum law review.

Before the question was ever posed, the Nationals had already indicated that they would vote against the voice. Before making a public statement that it would also reject the referendum, the Liberal party had been conducting what it called a “soft no” campaign in advance of the parliamentary debate on the referendum.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has stated that in light of the opposition posed by the Coalition, he did not have faith that the Coalition would participate in any committee process in good faith, and he believed that it would be impossible to establish a bipartisan middle ground.

According to Bragg, postponing the vote in order to allow for a “four or five month” committee procedure could be able to help “recalibrate” the discussion.

“I believe that there are different ways that you can work the voice, and there are more simple amendments that could have been considered,” he added.

In the beginning of this year, we went through a chaotic committee process that lasted for only four weeks, and the committee’s conclusion was that the voice could not be enhanced in any manner.

“Now, this is a notion that has been developed in dozens upon dozens of different ways throughout the course of the previous few years. It would therefore be intellectually dishonest to suggest that there is no room for improvement.

In the past, Mr. Albanese has stated that there is not a single conceivable scenario in which he would consider postponing the vote.

In May, he was quoted as having said, “You only win when you run on the field and engage… we’re all in.”

If the referendum legislation is passed, the vote to amend the constitution must take place between two and six months thereafter. This is a legal requirement. In the event that the referendum was postponed, the relevant legislative body would have to approve brand new laws to establish it, thereby starting the process over from the very beginning.

Albanese has stated that the referendum will take place after a very brief campaign sometime between the months of October and December.