The Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney will use an address at the National Press Club today to outline the priorities for the Voice to Parliament, should it pass in a referendum later this year.
“From day one, the Voice will have a full in-tray. I will ask the Voice to consider four main priority areas: health, education, jobs and housing,” Burney is expected to say.
“As the minister, when I meet with the Voice for the first time, I will say: bring me your ideas on how to stop our people from taking their own lives, bring me your ideas on how to help our kids go to school and thrive, bring me your ideas on how we make sure our mob live strong and healthy lives, how we ensure more people have jobs, how we support families better.”
Burney’s speech is also expected to have a personal element, where she will share a story about the death of a friend, who passed away at age 44 from health problems. Burney will share that “his Aboriginality condemned him to an early death”.
“I honestly believe the Voice will help,” she will say. “We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by supporting the Voice.”
Burney is also expected to emphasise that the Voice will be an independent body, and also give practical examples of how it might operate.
“Let’s say a local community identifies a problem, like low school attendance, the community identifies that this is a challenge and wants to explore local solutions to improve school attendance, so the community approaches their representative on the Voice and raises this issue with them,” Burney will say at the Press Club.
“The Voice then has the power to make representations on how to improve school attendance in that local community to government and the parliament.
“It is about linking up that local decision-making and local knowledge with policy-makers in government.”
Burney’s speech comes after a tumultuous sitting period in federal parliament, that saw her face constant questioning from the Coalition over the Voice.
Linda Burney will deliver her speech on Wednesday at the National Press Club from 12.30pm.