Natalie Barr has grilled the Albanese government over the failed Voice to Parliament referendum, saying $400million of taxpayer money had now gone ‘down the drain’.
Barr was joined by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce on Sunrise on Monday morning after Australia voted No to enshrining an Indigenous Voice into the constitution.
‘How did the government get this so wrong?’ Barr asked Ms Plibersek.
Ms Plibersek said there needed to be time taken to ‘examine the fallout’ of the referendum and to determine a constructive way forward.
‘Something your government hung its hat on failed dismally across this country, it was a wipeout. So what do you learn from that?’ Barr then asked.
‘$400million down the drain to something people said ”nup”.’
The environment minister admitted it was a disappointing result, while adding there was ‘a lot of goodwill’ in Australians to close the gap between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous people in relation to health and life expectancy.
‘It is important to take a little bit of time and just let the dust settle on this and to really think through our next steps to make sure that we are working in a way that brings Australians together to reduce disadvantage in this country,’ she said.
Mr Joyce labelled the referendum a ‘divisive debacle’ and said many Australians were more concerned about the soaring cost of living.
‘The Prime Minister read perfectly his inner suburban seat of Grayndler and read very badly the seat of Australia,’ he said.
Natalie Barr has grilled the Albanese government over the failed Voice to Parliament referendum, saying $400million of taxpayer money had now gone ‘down the drain’
The Voice to Parliament referendum seeking to enshrine an Indigenous body to inform government into the Constitution was resoundingly defeated in every state on Saturday.
The ACT was the only state or territory with a majority Yes vote.
‘Why didn’t you pull it when it became really obvious that it wasn’t going to get up?’ Barr asked Plibersek, who then said the government had wanted to keep its commitments from the election.
The Sunrise host then took aim at deputy PM Richard Marles, saying the Voice was a ‘dismal failure’ and asked who was to blame.
Mr Marles said it wasn’t a question of who to blame, adding the government respected the decision of Australians.
‘We won’t be moving forward with constitutional reform now, that’s clearly what has been expressed by the Australian people,’ he said.
‘I think moving forward, our focus needs to be on really putting an even greater effort on closing the gap and on reconciliation.’
But Barr demanded the government acknowledge the failures of the Yes campaign
‘How can you say that this is anything but a massive failure of your government, you hung your hat on it,’ she said.
‘You failed to explain it, you didn’t allay people’s fears over land seizures, over payouts, you didn’t even explain what it would do to Aboriginal people in this country.’
Every state in Australia returned a No result on Saturday night, with Queensland seeing the strongest rejection of the Voice in any state or territory. The darker the red, the bigger the No vote. Blue represents seats that voted Yes
Mr Marles then said he hoped the government had explained the Voice to which Barr interrupted.
‘I don’t think you did at all, I don’t think anyone thinks you explained,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t you call it? When you knew this was going to fail, once (Opposition leader Peter Dutton) pulled support and you knew how hard it was, why didn’t you pull it?’
Mr Marles said Mr Dutton had not deterred the government from pursuing the referendum.
‘The Australian people have answered it and we respect that answer and we now move forward and we move forward with an increased effort to close the gap,’ he said.
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com
