What is the Status of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Process:

The Decision End Point or a Decision-Making Aid?

A Conflict Management Perspective (Posted 16 July 2023)

KEY WORDS: Australia; Referendum; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; conflict management; UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Essential Report; needs; concerns; public participation; community consultation; Commissions of Inquiry; decisions.

1.0 Divergent public opinion and controversy has arisen in Australia over a referendum the Federal Government intends to hold later this year

2.0 Specifically, that an advisory body known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice (“the Voice”) may make representations to Parliament and the Executive on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

3.0 The features of the Voice process, that have been outlined to date, resonate with existing public participation processes for resolving public interest conflicts in Australia: Community consultation and Commissions of Inquiry (“Public Inquiry”): Processes which are equally available to all Australians, regardless of ethnicity or race.

4.0 Any concern that the Voice “will give Indigenous Australians rights and privileges that other Australians don’t have” would be offset if “the Voice process” was consistent with the existing decision-making framework for community consultation and Commissions of Inquiry.

That is, for the Voice process

to be acknowledged as a decision-making aid,

and not the decision end-point.

5.0 The reason? Both community consultation and Commissions of Inquiry are decision-making aids for Government for resolving public interest conflicts - and not the decision end-point. Also, both processes do not have a power of Veto.

6.0 Where Government relies on consultation with the Voice as the cornerstone for collaborative decision-making, it is not abandoning its power to make the final administrative decision.

Rather, that Government is willing to share power to find a solution

that is responsive to the needs of Indigenous Australians

in a process that is transparent,

that leads to a commitment that is firm, can be implemented and is sustainable

- as well as a sense of ownership in the outcome.

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The focus for the last 15 years of Dr Ted Christie’s professional practice was Environmental Dispute Resolution: Litigation, mediation, independent expert appraisal, effective public participation, community consultation.

Material from the book, “Finding Solutions for Environmental Conflicts; Power and Negotiation”, for which Ted was the sole author, has been extracted in writing this article.