• Audiovisual text: Closing The Gap Report Shows Minimal Improvement | The Project

The government is well behind on closing the gap. This is why we need a Voice to Parliament (The Conversation, February 2024)
Voice is about better value for the billions invested in Closing the Gap (Financial Review, Opinion, October 2023)

Put this dud referendum on backburner (The Age, September 2024)

Take politics out of your vote  (The Age, October 2023)

Your Constitution sought to erase us  (The Age, September 2023)

Treaty ‘would address failures in Closing the Gap’  T(he Age, February 2024)

Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum (collection of articles, ABC, Nov 2 2023)
First Nations voices key to closing the gap (Reconciliation Australia, February 2024)
Closing the Gap will fail without ‘fundamental change’, scathing report finds (The Guardian, February 2024)

Not all voices equal (The Age, September 2023)

It seems ironic that so many people are fearful of a First Nations Voice to parliament and yet are not at all perturbed by so-called apolitical high-ranking public servants, lobbyists and CEOs of private enterprise having the same opportunity for their voices to be heard.

I know whose voices I fear more.

Claire Hogan, Northcote

Closing the gap

As a supporter of the rejected Voice to parliament, I agree with Indigenous leaders that other policies must be acted on as a priority. One is closing the gap. Indigenous leaders are saying this, and even the Coalition agrees.

First Nations communities should certainly be consulted. Here the Liberals also agree, at least in principle. Peter Dutton’s alternative policy to a national Voice was regional and local consultative bodies. The best compromise might be a bipartisan policy, with advisory groups legislated but not in the Constitution.

The Liberals have been negative on many specific changes. They campaigned against the advisory Voice, and Dutton reversed his promise for a second referendum to only update the Constitution. At a state level, Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto withdrew bipartisan support for a treaty.

Let them contribute specific details to discussions about ‘‘listening bodies’’, and on better ways to close the gap. They might get help doing this from former Coalition Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt.

John Hughes,

Mentone