Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily oz It's the
Speaker 2: last day of winter. Thanks God for that. Thursday, the
Speaker 2: thirty first of August.
Speaker 3: I'm Zara Seidler, I'm Sam Kazlowski. It's official.
Speaker 2: We now have the date that Ozzi's will go to
Speaker 2: the polls and vote in the referendum on an Indigenous
Speaker 2: voiced Parliament.
Speaker 4: Today I announced that referendum day will be the fourteenth
Speaker 4: of October.
Speaker 2: So what exactly is going to happen on that day
Speaker 2: and what is it that we're actually voting on. We'll
Speaker 2: let you know in today's deep dive. But fair Sam,
Speaker 2: some inflation numbers yesterday.
Speaker 3: That's right. Inflation has slowed for the third month in
Speaker 3: a row to four point nine percent in July. That's
Speaker 3: according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Speaker 3: It means that prices were four point nine percent higher
Speaker 3: in July than the year prior. That's down from five
Speaker 3: point four percent in June. It's the lowest inflation rate
Speaker 3: since February twenty twenty two, and the result is expected
Speaker 3: to influence the Reserve Bank's next cash rate decision. Ahead
Speaker 3: of its meeting on Tuesday. The RBA has kept the
Speaker 3: cash rate the same it's four point one percent at
Speaker 3: their last two meetings.
Speaker 2: Minimum employment standards could be introduced for delivery and ride
Speaker 2: share drivers. A federal government proposal is expected to be
Speaker 2: announced later today, and that will detail payment terms and
Speaker 2: insurance agreements aimed at better protecting workers in the gig economy.
Speaker 2: The reforms would also protect workers from being unfairly deactivated
Speaker 2: by digital platforms such as ride sharing apps.
Speaker 3: New Zealand is one step closer to lowering the voting
Speaker 3: age for local council elections to sixteen after draft laws
Speaker 3: were introduced to Parliament now now be considered by a committee,
Speaker 3: but change won't be legislated until after the upcoming October election.
Speaker 3: The legislation comes after the country's Supreme Court found that
Speaker 3: the current voting age of eighteen was inconsistent with the
Speaker 3: human rights of children. If the current Labor government does
Speaker 3: not win the election, it's unlikely the voting age will change.
Speaker 2: And the good news a world first cancer treatment that
Speaker 2: is aiming to treat patients faster will be rolled out
Speaker 2: for more than three thoy five hundred patients in England.
Speaker 2: This treatment will be administered as an injection. The immunotherapy
Speaker 2: treatment is expected to provide faster care for patients and
Speaker 2: its demand on the healthcare system. Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi
Speaker 2: has announced the referendum date for an Indigenous voice to Parliament.
Speaker 4: The idea for a voice came from the people and
Speaker 4: it will be decided by the people. Today I announced
Speaker 4: that referendum day will be the fourteenth of October. On
Speaker 4: that day, every Australian will have a once in a
Speaker 4: generation chance to bring our country together and to change
Speaker 4: it for the better.
Speaker 3: So this is something that all Australians who are over
Speaker 3: eighteen are going to have to vote on, and that
Speaker 3: really means it's on us to understand what it's about.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the big question, what is the Indigenous
Speaker 3: voice to Parliament?
Speaker 2: So Essentially, in a nutshell, an Indigenous Voice to Parliament
Speaker 2: would be a representative body, an official representative body that
Speaker 2: would give First Nations people in Australia a say in
Speaker 2: the laws and the policies that affect them. So pieces
Speaker 2: of legislation that might pass through Parliament that would affect
Speaker 2: the lives of First Nations people would go to this
Speaker 2: consultative body. And so that is this idea of an
Speaker 2: Indigenous voice to Parliament. Crucially, the government wants to include
Speaker 2: this voice in Australia's constitution, which doesn't currently recognize First
Speaker 2: Nations people. In order to change the constitution, though, you
Speaker 2: do need to have a successful referendum, and that's.
Speaker 3: What we're going to do on the fourteenth of October.
Speaker 3: How that process actually work, So.
Speaker 2: As I said, a referendum is a public vote to
Speaker 2: change the Australian Constitution and it's compulsory for all Australian
Speaker 2: citizens aged eighteen and over to vote, so similar in
Speaker 2: the way that an election is run. Here for a
Speaker 2: referendum to succeed, it's a bit confusing, but bear with me.
Speaker 2: The majority of voters across Australia, as well as the
Speaker 2: majority of voters in a majority of states, so we
Speaker 2: call it a double majority must approve it.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty high bar, right.
Speaker 2: It is a high bar. It's really hard to change
Speaker 2: the constitution. And I mean the last referendum was in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine. That one was to establish Australia as
Speaker 2: a republic, so to separate us from the monarchy and
Speaker 2: to implement an alien head of state. Granted we are
Speaker 2: still under the king. That one didn't pass, No, it
Speaker 2: didn't get up, and that was the last time that
Speaker 2: we had a referendum. But interestingly, one of the questions
Speaker 2: that keeps coming up every time we either do a
Speaker 2: podcast on this or we post about it is what
Speaker 2: about the marriage equality vote in twenty seventeen. And I
Speaker 2: do think that the confusion here is very valid, So
Speaker 2: let's just quickly get into that. So, as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: a referendum is a vote to change the constitution. When
Speaker 2: Australia voted in twenty seventeen, it was actually to change legislation,
Speaker 2: not the constitution. So the vote was on whether the
Speaker 2: Marriage Act should be updated to allow for same sex
Speaker 2: couples to marry in this country. And it was a
Speaker 2: voluntary postal survey, so it wasn't compulsory to vote in
Speaker 2: like an election or like the referendum that we're going
Speaker 2: to in October, and ballots were mailed to voters. So
Speaker 2: I mean, it feels like forever ago, but we didn't
Speaker 2: actually go in somewhere to vote.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this one's a referendum. We're all going to
Speaker 3: have to go to the polls on the fourteenth of
Speaker 3: October to answer a specific question. What is that question?
Speaker 2: So it's a yes or no question. Those are the
Speaker 2: only two answers that you can give to the following statement,
Speaker 2: and I quote a proposed law to alter the Constitution
Speaker 2: to recognize the first peoples of Australia by establishing an
Speaker 2: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. Do you approve this
Speaker 2: proposed alteration? So that is what you're going to see
Speaker 2: when you go to vote in October, and you're actually
Speaker 2: going to be asked to physically write down the answer
Speaker 2: of yes or no on that.
Speaker 3: Ballance as inspel the word y yes or so you'll.
Speaker 2: Read that question and you will have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: either say yes, I accept that or no, I reject that.
Speaker 2: And that is how the referendum will go down.
Speaker 3: I remember we were together on election night in May
Speaker 3: of last year and Anthony Alberinezi, when he was giving
Speaker 3: his speech that said, you know, I'm the new Prime Minister,
Speaker 3: committed to doing this referendum as one of his first promises.
Speaker 2: The first promise. It was the first thing after he
Speaker 2: got elected that he said he would die.
Speaker 3: It wasn't something that he made up though, no where
Speaker 3: exactly did it come from.
Speaker 2: So this request for an Indigenous voice to Parliament came
Speaker 2: from what's called the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and
Speaker 2: that was a statement that was delivered and endorsed by
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty First Nations leaders in May of
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. The Ulurus Statement outlined the path forward for
Speaker 2: recognizing First Nations people in the Constitution and it's essentially
Speaker 2: broken up into three requests. So the first request was
Speaker 2: to implement a voice to Parliament, and that is of
Speaker 2: course the stage there weren't now. It then asked to
Speaker 2: establish a Macarata Commission and that would then involve both
Speaker 2: a treaty and a truth telling process. And these requests
Speaker 2: that were made in the Ullu Statement from the Heart
Speaker 2: were designed to be implemented in order or sequentially. So
Speaker 2: the idea was that the Voice would come first, then
Speaker 2: the Macarata Commission, and so that's why the government is
Speaker 2: trying really hard to implement this voice before going to
Speaker 2: the next steps.
Speaker 3: And when you're talking about the voice, what does the
Speaker 3: voice itself actually look like.
Speaker 2: So we heard from the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Bernie,
Speaker 2: earlier this year about what the government could tell us
Speaker 2: around how that voice would look in practice. We did
Speaker 2: do a full episode at the time. It's called an
Speaker 2: Update on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, so I'll throw
Speaker 2: linked to that in the show notes, but just to
Speaker 2: summon up really quickly now, Linda Bernie said that the
Speaker 2: Voice would be an independent representative advisory body chosen by
Speaker 2: local communities. For local communities, she said that there would
Speaker 2: be representatives for every state and territory, the Torres Strait
Speaker 2: Islands and specific remote communities. She also said that the
Speaker 2: Voice would be gender balance and that it would include
Speaker 2: the views of young people. She said that there were
Speaker 2: four key priority areas for the Voice, so those were health, education, jobs,
Speaker 2: and housing. So in the mind of the government, these
Speaker 2: are the areas that they would like if this referendums
Speaker 2: seeds the voice to really be focusing on after it's
Speaker 2: set up.
Speaker 3: So throughout the year we've heard from the government and
Speaker 3: also the opposition and the whole cast of characters inside
Speaker 3: Parliament House, and I don't want to put too much
Speaker 3: emphasis on the positions they're all taking because at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, you and I have as much
Speaker 3: of a say as any member of Parliament in this referendum.
Speaker 3: We get one vote each.
Speaker 2: As powerful as the Prime.
Speaker 3: Minister, right exactly. But in saying that, it's good to
Speaker 3: understand where political parties are sitting give me a sense
Speaker 3: of their positions.
Speaker 2: So we'll start with the Labor Party, who are of
Speaker 2: course in government in this country, so they are in
Speaker 2: favor of the Voice. As I said, it was Prime
Speaker 2: Minister Anthony Albanesi's first commitment upon winning the election, and
Speaker 2: you could almost call it a defining feature of his
Speaker 2: prime ministership, like he has very much associated his government
Speaker 2: with a successful referendum, so there is a lot on
Speaker 2: the line for his government here. He said things like
Speaker 2: it's an inspiring and unifying Australian moment. We heard from
Speaker 2: him yesterday when he launched it in Adelaide. The government
Speaker 2: is absolutely supporting a Voice to Parliament. The Greens, who
Speaker 2: sit further to the left of Labor, are also in
Speaker 2: favor of the voice, and they've said that it's an
Speaker 2: important opportunity for the country to show its support for
Speaker 2: progress for First Nations people. I think it's important to
Speaker 2: note that somebody who sat with the Greens was a
Speaker 2: party member of the Senator Lydia Thorpe. She actually left
Speaker 2: the party over their position on the voice. She now
Speaker 2: sits on the cross bench and has been quite vocal
Speaker 2: in the fact that she will be voting no. Alongside
Speaker 2: her in that no camp is the opposition. So the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party, led by Peter Dudden, the Liberal Party has
Speaker 2: said that they don't believe that a Voice to Parliament
Speaker 2: will quote resolve the issues on the ground in Indigenous communities.
Speaker 2: I will just add a caveat there that there are
Speaker 2: some Liberal Party members who will be voting yes and
Speaker 2: have been quite explicit in recognizing that, but ultimately the
Speaker 2: party is taking the position of voting no. The Nationals,
Speaker 2: who are in coalition with the Liberal Party also oppose
Speaker 2: the voice, and they've said that they don't believe that
Speaker 2: this will genuinely close the gap between Indigenous and non
Speaker 2: Indigenous people. So I mean that's a fairly rudimentary and
Speaker 2: quick overview, but that's where we understand the political parties
Speaker 2: to lie on the spectrum of yes to know. And
Speaker 2: there are lots of reasons that we won't get into now,
Speaker 2: and we'll hear that from First Nations people themselves about
Speaker 2: the reasons for and against the voice.
Speaker 3: So let's move away from Canberra then and look at
Speaker 3: how the entire country is feeling, or at least how
Speaker 3: we think the entire country is feeling. There's been some
Speaker 3: polls out. What are they telling us about attitudes towards
Speaker 3: the referendum.
Speaker 2: There's been a fair bit of polling and I think
Speaker 2: that we can expect it to ramp up and probably
Speaker 2: change a bit as we head closer and closer towards
Speaker 2: that October date. But the latest poll that was published
Speaker 2: widely was an essential poll, so that's published by The Guardian,
Speaker 2: that found that forty seven percent of respondents intended to
Speaker 2: vote no, forty three percent of respondents intended to vote yes,
Speaker 2: and ten percent at the time was still undecided.
Speaker 3: That's across Australia.
Speaker 2: But another thing worth looking at in this data, I
Speaker 2: think is how the polling looks state by state because
Speaker 2: of that double majority point I said before, So at
Speaker 2: the moment, according to that same essential poll, the only
Speaker 2: state where the yes vote is ahead of the No
Speaker 2: vote is in Victoria. The closest margin after that is
Speaker 2: South Australia, where the No vote has forty eight percent
Speaker 2: and the Yes campaign has forty five percent.
Speaker 3: And we've done some of our own polling on this
Speaker 3: question as well.
Speaker 2: We have, but I mean again, I'm sorry that this
Speaker 2: whole podcast seems to be caveats, but we speak to
Speaker 2: a very specific audience. We are trying to provide a
Speaker 2: platform for young Australians to feel like their voices and
Speaker 2: their opinions can be heard. But that means that there
Speaker 2: is going to be an overrepresentation of the youth voting block,
Speaker 2: and I think we just need to put that there
Speaker 2: before we continue. But at the time of recording, we
Speaker 2: had over one thousand people who had responded. Eighty three
Speaker 2: percent of them said that they intended to vote yes.
Speaker 2: Sixteen point seven percent said that they intended to vote no. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: when you compare those figures to what I'm about to say,
Speaker 2: Fifty one percent said that they thought the referendum would succeed,
Speaker 2: but forty nine percent of them said that it would fail. Interesting,
Speaker 2: eighty one percent said that they felt they had enough
Speaker 2: information to make an informed vote, one nineteen percent said
Speaker 2: that they didn't. And if you are part of that
Speaker 2: nineteen percent and you're listening today, don't worry. We will
Speaker 2: absolutely be giving you as much information as we can
Speaker 2: in the lead up to this vote, because the best
Speaker 2: vote is an informed vote, and will endeavor to bring
Speaker 2: you podcasts and videos and content as much as we
Speaker 2: can on this so that you feel really confident when
Speaker 2: you have to go vote on the fourteenth of October.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Os and
Speaker 3: we would love to know your thoughts on the Voice
Speaker 3: to Parliament. That poll is still live, there's a link
Speaker 3: in the show notes and we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.