Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

With all due respect, you say it is hypothetical. I say we are talking about the impacts of a change to our founding document, our nation's rule book. You're asking the people to vote on this later this year. This is a change that is intended to affect the way government works in our country. All we are doing is exploring how this will work in practice. What you are saying, by not being able to answer this question, is that you're unable to tell the Australian people how the Voice will work. It's actually a very simple question for them: how will the Voice work? I would have thought the government would have—other than its design principles, though we also now know that there will be, to quote Senator Watt, a 'handy information booklet'—some very serious, considered answers from your group of legal experts who have been looking at this so you could at least provide some information to the Australian people. What I've got so far tonight reinforces, as I said, what Senator Nampijinpa Price and Senator Kerrynne Liddle have so articulately stated time and time again: 'If you don't know, vote no.' At this point in time, all I'm getting is: 'That will be a matter for the parliament to decide.' When you are talking about the impacts of change to our Constitution, quite frankly, 'That will be a matter for the parliament to decide,' is not a sufficient answer. Is there anything in this bill that would prevent Voice representatives from being aligned with different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or organisations?