May the best ideology … lose! Former Keating Labor government minister Gary Johns, has said that native title holders are concerned that the Voice referendum, if it succeeds could interfere with their claims. “They say: ‘We’ve done our deals, we’ve got our contracts, we know our state members, federal members, public servants, and we are getting along fine—[it’s] not as well as we’d like, but we understand our own politics—so who the Hell [is] The Voice?'” Another group of native title holders wrote to the south Australian government: “We do not support and are deeply concerned by certain aspects of the proposed model, in particular the failure to build into the model native title groups and leadership,” the letter stated.
“The proposed model would establish a regional or local Voice with no defined representation, linkages or accountability back to native title groups—to First Nations. How is this a First Nations Voice?”