Commentary
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed constitutional change to give Aboriginal people a “Voice to Parliament” is well-intentioned. However, as the proverb says, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Albanese’s Voice proposal challenges the very foundation of our nation as a representative democracy.
Like other representative democracies, this nation is constituted by the ideal that our elected representatives are exactly that—representatives who will take our best interests to the nation’s Parliament so that we are ultimately ruled by the will of the people.
The very idea of members of parliament as “representatives” means that the government of the day should represent and be answerable to the people, not a paternalistic body that dominates the people….