Australia’s most senior Liberal – the Tasmanian Premier – will officially break ranks with his federal counterparts to campaign for a Voice to parliament alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Mr Albanese will join Jeremy Rockliff in Tasmania later this month, in a sign of bipartisanship after Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party decided to go against the referendum.
Mr Dutton on Wednesday announced while his party supported constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, they did not support a constitutionally enshrined Voice and would instead advocate for legislated local and regional voices.
In the wake of a devastating by-election loss in Aston, the decision binds the Liberal frontbench, but backbenchers are able to vote as they wish.
Tasmanian Liberal Bridget Archer has confirmed she will be campaigning for the ‘Yes’ side.
Mr Rockliff – the only Liberal Premier in Australia – has also voiced his support for the Voice, which Mr Albanese has welcomed.
“The Premier of Tasmania is a strong advocate for ‘yes’, and in a bit over a week’s time I’ll be with him in Tasmania with Pat Farmer, a former Liberal member in the House of Representatives who will be conducting a run around Australia to support the yes campaign,” Mr Albanese told Sky News on Sunday.
“We have trade unions, we have sporting organisations, non-government organisations are all out there campaigning for yes.
“This has never been about the politicians, this is about the people of Australia having a say and reaching out and accepting the gracious, generous offer of Indigenous Australians for constitutional recognition and consultation.”
Despite no referendum having ever succeeded without bipartisanship, Mr Albanese is confident that the significant changes in Australia’s political landscape will render the Liberals’ position as moot.
Mr Dutton has defended his decision to go against the proposal, saying his party wants better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but that the national Voice was not the way to go about it.
“We don’t want to disrupt the system of government democracy we have,” he said on Thursday.
His decision has attracted widespread criticism, including from Cape York leader Noel Pearson who described the move as a “Judas-like betrayal of Australia”.
Former Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt, a member of the referendum working group and advocate for the Voice, quit the Liberal Party over the decision.
Mr Albanese said Mr Dutton had made the decision without consulting widely.
“Just two days after the Aston result he called a sudden meeting … and determined that they would have a hard no imposed on members of the shadow cabinet,” Mr Albanese said.
“Now that’s a decision that he made not in consultation with Indigenous leaders or the referendum working group or myself or the parliamentary committee, and that stands in contradiction for what he said – which was that he would participate in good faith in those processes.
Mr Albanese added that it seemed Mr Dutton had underestimated the number of Liberal and National Party voters who would “show generosity and goodwill and will vote yes in this referendum”.