Learning to agree to disagree: Thoughts on building support for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament

You may or may not know that several decades ago I spent 15 years of my life working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and in Indigenous communities, around the time of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). This does not make me an expert. What it did do was send me on the journey of doing a PhD to explore how non Indigenous and Indigenous people can work together, how we can attain ‘(Comm)Unity in Diversity’ (the title of my thesis).

In a sense this is one of the underpinning issues of ‘The Voice to Parliament’ and possibly one of the underlying concerns for people who are inclined to vote ‘no’.? I’ve been doing a lot of listening, reading and talking about people’s views on The Voice as I try to understand the ‘no’ case.

There are a lot of ‘arguments’ presented by the ‘no’ case, some of more substance than others. However, in talking to people both for and against The Voice, I think an underlying issue is that non-Indigenous people have fears and concerns about whether their own views will be silenced and whether The Voice will foster social division. They worry about whether they can voice disagreement with views of The Voice, once established, without being labelled a racist.? I think this is a fundamental issue of human, social and political communication where groups (and individuals) hold diverse views in a context where some groups (and individuals) historically have more power than other groups. In this case, of course, this is the result of colonisation. Despite inequality being experienced by people from all racial and cultural groups in Australia, the nub of the issue is that we cannot deny that the political system and dominant culture we have inherited in Australia has led to entrenched inequality for Indigenous people. While we aspire to change this, aspects of it permeate our relations and, in many cases, still dominate our systems. This sets up complex relations between Indigenous and non Indigenous people that, even in the face of goodwill and respectful intentions, cannot be fully side-stepped. ?

I think that many ‘no’ voters are concerned about how they can retain their own right to speak and to disagree with positions put forward by The Voice. This has become more pointed in a world where ‘cancel culture’ reigns and we have lost, if we ever had it, the skill of productive and respectful disagreement. This is not a comfortable topic and one the world wrestles with continuously. It is the easy road to quickly label all antagonists with a derogatory label, and a harder road to navigate how to engage with each other across difference, and what are the boundaries between respectful dialogue and oppressive single-minded opinions that deserve no air time. While we need to find ways to speak together across difference, there is indeed a boundary – not all views should be allowed (think of Hitler, think of the ‘White Australia policy’). It is working out this terrain that is difficult and one, I think, that is a concern for some who are thinking about voting ‘no’.

I think we must practice ways of agreeing and disagreeing, and firm up our boundaries around oppressive speech and viewpoint. We can disagree across racial groups without being racist, we can disagree across gender groups without being sexist, we can disagree across age groups without being ageist. But to disagree, and to have conversation, we have to fundamentally hold the other person (and group) in esteem, and as having equal value as human beings and equal rights to full and inclusive lives. Political, social and economic systems and cultures make our lived experience unequal, but we all hold equal value and rights as human beings. This is the first rule of dialogue and the basis for subsequent agreement and disagreement. When people don’t hold this first rule to be true, then we have a criteria for denying their viewpoint as it is likely to be oppressive to others (racist, sexist, ageist, ableist). With this ground rule in place, we aim to be able to productively discuss why there are differences between people’s experiences and opportunities and what are the solutions to the differences that people seek remediation for.? We will have different views about this and these are (inevitably imperfectly) represented in our democratic system.

If Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are provided a formal vehicle to have a Voice to Parliament (and the administrative arm of government and ultimately to all of Australia), it offers a mechanism for them to agree and disagree together and provide informed advice to a democratic government, where elected Indigenous members of parliament will likely always be a very small minority. This Voice is a viewpoint, aimed to counter-balance the weight of non Indigenous decision making on matters affecting Indigenous people. To date, with the exception of the years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), it has been non-Indigenous people making decisions about Indigenous communities and programs. We have made little progress – it hasn’t worked.

I think that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need a vehicle to support the dialogues they have together, across their own diversity, and to have these dialogues with government and with the rest of the nation. In this context, it is critical that we all, non-Indigenous people and Indigenous people, find a way to express diverse views to each other, to both agree and disagree, and do so with respect and belief in our inherent equality as people. The Voice will be confronting for some people, and possibly at times for all of us, because it may feel like a clash of views and we may struggle to find ways to speak constructively together. This is not an argument against The Voice, it is an argument we have to face whether The Voice is passed or not. We simply can’t run from the need to work out how to agree and disagree together, and this need is not diminished if The Voice is not passed.?

Instead, The Voice offers us an opportunity. I hope a first agenda item of The Voice and of parliament, and for all of us, is to commit to working on our capacity to agree and disagree, to find ways to speak across difference, to build community across diversity, not through silencing and denying voice, but by listening and talking. Let’s agree to agree, and agree to disagree, but most of all let’s agree to keep talking.