Key events
Josh Butler
The parliamentary committee investigating the Indigenous Voice referendum will hold its last scheduled hearing on Monday, with a day-long session to hear from some of the most passionate supporters and critics of the constitutional change – including Warren Mundine, Noel Pearson and Frank Brennan.
After its first hearing in Canberra two weeks ago, then heading to Orange, Cairns and Perth, the committee returns to the capital today. First up will be a panel of “existing Voice bodies”, to hear from Dale Agius, the commissioner of South Australia’s First Nations Voice, and Aunty Geraldine Atkinson from Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly.
Both those bodies are state-based equivalents of an Indigenous consultation body, and are likely to feed into a national voice if the referendum is successful.
Later the hearing will be joined by representatives of Uphold & Recognise, the group of constitutional conservatives which has backed an Indigenous voice. Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who quit as shadow attorney-general last month to campaign for the voice, was among the founders of that group.
Father Brennan, the academic who has backed the voice but consistently pushed for its power to advise executive government to be wound back, will also give evidence. Brennan’s submission to the inquiry called for “executive government” to be replaced with “ministers of state” in the constitutional alteration, raising concerns about legal challenges with the current wording.
Then it’s over to Mundine, the Indigenous businessman and leader of one of the major No campaigns, called Recognise A Better Way. He plans to tour the country campaigning against the voice with Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the newly-appointed shadow Indigenous Australians minister.
After a panel of lawyers including Tony McAvoy and Cheryl Saunders, who both helped advise the referendum process, strong voice advocate Pearson will appear.
Pearson has made news whenever he has put his opinions into the constitutional debate, and his appearance will be one of the headline moments of the hearing.
Good morning
Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani with you on this cold May morning, and we begin in Canberra, where the parliamentary committee investigating the Indigenous Voice referendum will hold a public hearing today, with some prominent figures from both sides expected to be heard. We are also expecting a formal statement from Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung regarding the Voice to parliament.
Elsewhere, a “snap review” into hundreds of infrastructure projects has been announced, with the Albanese government accusing the Coalition of leaving them as “fiscal timebombs” in the budget. The projects will be reviewed based on their value and significance, with “press release projects” being the target.
In NSW, independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich has said he will lodge a complaint with NSW Police against One Nation leader Mark Latham for what he says was “homosexual vilification.” It comes weeks after Latham published a graphic and homophobic tweet about Greenwich in the aftermath of the NSW state election. In a statement, Greenwich said the tweets were “defamatory and homophobic.”
And finally, housing prices have slowly increased for the first time in nearly a year, marking the end of the housing market downturn. It comes as the government gears up for its budget annoucememnt next week, with all eyes on treasurer Jim Chalmers amid the backdrop of a cost of living crisis and increased interest rates.
We’ll bring you more on that and everything else happening across the country today.
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