DEAR News Of The Area,

I congratulate NOTA for allowing open debate on the issue of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament but I wonder if our national broadcaster the ABC is as open?

On the ABC TV’s Insiders program on Sunday 5 February the host David Speers asked Professor Megan Davis of the Voice Referendum Working Group ‘what is the Voice and why do we need it?’

Prof. Davis replied: “The Voice is a mechanism that allows First Nations people to have a voice in the decisions and policies made by the government of the day and by the parliament.

“It gets us a seat at the table and that’s something we don’t have now.

“That’s what a Voice to Parliament is in a nutshell.

“It’s not about our mob wanting to be politicians.

“They don’t want to join political parties, it’s not about being ideological, they live in communities, they work for their communities, they’ve lived there their whole lives but they do want to have input into rules and policies because currently that doesn’t happen and that’s why we see the situation that we see in indigenous affairs across the nation.”

However, according to the Parliament House website, contrary to Prof Davis’s claim, there are eleven members and senators of Federal Parliament who identify as Aboriginal and 27 in State and Territory parliaments, all of whom have a say in how laws are made and enacted.

If as Prof. Davis asserts, this total lack of any Indigenous input into legislation is the reason for the Voice and she is clearly telling an untruth, is there really any justification for this ‘second voice?’

If 38 elected, Indigenous parliamentarians are having no influence, what will a committee of a further 24 achieve?

Not one of his panel nor David Speers, who is usually quite pedantic and incisive in his questioning of guests and seizes on any little misspeak that they may commit, questioned this statement.

Is this omission on this occasion part of deliberate ABC political correctness and bias?

Regards,
Tony CLEGG,
Boambee.