The Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a “substantial” constitutional change and the “enormous scope and power” it holds must be assessed, says The Australian’s Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly.
“My concern about the Voice is that the Prime Minister is going to try and pass this on the vibe,” Mr Kelly told Sky News host Sharri Markson.
“What I’ve argued is this is creating a new institution and putting this new institution into the constitution with an entirely new chapter of the constitution,” he said. “I mean this is in substantial and symbolic terms an enormous step – and so then one’s got to look at the institution, one’s got to look at the Voice, what are its powers, what impact will it have.
“In terms of representation, it can offer advice on virtually anything – so that scope is open-ended and virtually unlimited, and secondly of course it can give advice to the Parliament and the executive government. “Now when you put these two things together, I argue this is going to be a very substantial change to a system of government and it’s got to be assessed on merit.”
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