The National Party has announced they will oppose constitutional recognition for First Nations people, saying the proposed Voice to Parliament will do nothing to close the gap.
Speaking to the press on Monday afternoon, party leader David Littleproud was surrounded by his parliamentary colleagues and Jacinta Price, Liberal senator for the Northern Territory.
The Warlpiri woman has been a vocal critic of the Voice, and reaffirmed her opposition to the proposal.
"One of our fundamental principles is that we are all regarded as equal under the law, despite race, despite gender, despite anything else.
"And why should I as an Indigenous Australian be governed under a separate entity than the rest of Australia because of my race?”
The existing proposals do not outline a governing body, but rather an advisory one, to be consulted on matters particularly pertinent to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Littleproud, who spent six years in coalition government with the Liberal party before being elected leader of the Nationals following the May election, said that he did not believe the government had sufficiently explained the proposal.
"We believe [in] empowering local Indigenous communities, giving them the power at a local level, not creating another layer of [bureaucracy] in Canberra..." he told the press.
"I will be making sure that my community, as I’ve rung many and tragically, some of them don’t even know what the Voice is."
While confirming their opposition to the proposal, Littleproud said it did not necessarily mean the party would campaign against it.
Littleproud's announcement 'racist'
The announcement was slammed by proponents of the Voice, with Dean Parkin, the director of the leading advocacy group for the body, trashing the move.
“Today’s decision... is rash, illogical, and dismissive of the overwhelming will of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ," he said in a statement.
The Quandamooka man rejected Littleproud's assertion the Voice would have little impact on Closing the Gap targets, instead insisting that the National's position would ensure just that.
“Politicians... have tried for decades to devise policies to produce better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within existing processes.
“The failure on this front has been indisputable.
“The Nationals MPs in the federal parliament stood today in Canberra and made the case for more of the same."
Widjabul Wiabal woman and GetUp CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts said the Nationals and Littleproud were on "the wrong side of history".
“David Littleproud's announcement is incredibly alarming, it is racist," she said in a statement.
“We have an opportunity to draw a line in the sand and to begin to break down systemic racism that fans ignorant, prejudiced views such as the National Party’s which we’ve heard today."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made enshrining the Voice a central promise of his election campaign, and has committed to holding a referendum on the matter sometime during this parliamentary term.
While the government has not yet committed to a precise design, co-chair of the Voice Establishment Group Marcia Langton has said the detail has been made clear in the many hundreds of pages of the body's final report.
