Voices matter

Former Labor senator, Pat Dodson, says the government should “adopt the system of local and regional Indigenous advisory bodies recommended by Indigenous leaders Tom Calma and Marcia Langton in their 2021 report to the Morrison government. They can do that because it doesn’t require constitutional referendum, it can be done by way of legislation.”

In his essay, “Genocide in Australia”, Wiradjuri Man, Nathan Sentence, estimated the pre-colonial Indigenous population to be 1 to 1.5 million. This is similar to estimates by Emeritus Professor John Maynard and others. It is also generally accepted that the Indigenous population had fallen by 90% to around 100,000 by the end of the 19th century. Today, approximately 1 million people identify as Indigenous Australians. This equates to an average annual increase of nearly 2% during the 20th century.

In other words, between 1900 and 2025, the Indigenous population exceeded the natural population increase of the nation, plus immigration, by an average of almost 20% p.a. This increase occurred despite undeniable massacres, epidemic disease and other disadvantages suffered by Indigenous people. Additionally, according to the 1933 census, the Indigenous population had dropped well below 100,000. 

Australia’s population in the year 1900 was approximately 3.8 million. If the overall population of Australia had increased at the same rate (2% p.a.) as the Indigenous population over the 20th century, Australia’s population would now be around 40 million. It is actually 27.5 million in 2025.

It is reasonable to suggest, therefore, that many of those people who identify as Indigenous are descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators of injustice against Indigenous people.

That being so, who or what would a “Voice to Parliament” actually represent that is not already, or cannot be represented in Parliament?

The Calma-Langton Report was intended as a template for implementing the “Voice to Parliament”. It is a vague 300+ page document consisting of unintelligible bureaucratic rigmarole. It reads like a script for “Yes, Prime Minister” and is utterly unlike the way indigenous communities organise themselves.

Indigenous leaders say that victimhood ends with self-determination. But why should self-determination for Indigenous people depend on a “Voice” to Parliament? In other words, being on the outside looking in.

In 2025, there are 11 Indigenous Australians in the Federal Parliament. The existence of latent electoral power within Indigenous communities was overlooked in the public discourse around the “Voice” referendum. The number of Indigenous electors exceeds the vote margin held by incumbents in a number of electoral divisions. 

Indigenous communities could wield significant electoral power if they mobilised the large cohort of non-participating eligible Indigenous vote to lobby for policy changes. Instead of a “Voice” TO Parliament, Indigenous people could choose to have more voices IN Parliament.

If my suggestion to mobilise the latent political force within Indigenous communities is seen as unrealistic or impracticable, I would argue that the the Calma-Langton model for implementing a “Voice to Parliament” is even less workable, and probably for similar reasons.