Community & Business
28 June, 2023
Voice is ‘just another department’: Katter
WITH the passing of the Voice Referendum in Federal Parliament last week, Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has questioned the huge cost in time and money on what he says is, essentially, “the establishment of another government department”.
WITH the passing of the Voice Referendum in Federal Parliament last week, Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has questioned the huge cost in time and money on what he says is, essentially, “the establishment of another government department”.
“Now we’re going to spend a whole heap more time and money on making Australia vote on creating another government department and listing the goals of that department in the Australian Constitution,” he said.
Mr Katter said he had spent his entire parliamentary career fighting “for a fair go for some of our most impoverished First Australian communities”.
“But let’s be fair dinkum, the Voice is simply another government department. It will employ bureaucrats to review the work of other bureaucrats that get their writing instructions from even more bureaucrats,” he said.
“Calling a government department, ‘The Voice’, doesn’t fool anyone. “Australians have already paid dearly for the failings of the now defunct ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission). What will happen to its replacement, the NIAA (National Indigenous Australians Agency). Isn’t NIAA chartered with whatever “the Voice” is supposed to achieve?”
Mr Katter said while politics was being played on a grand scale in Canberra, communities he represented were being ignored.
“Has anyone asked the people in Doomadgee or Mornington Island what they want? And if they did, they’d probably start off with asking for a decent feed - cheap meat, fruit and vegetables,” he said.
Community market-gardens have long been promoted by Mr Katter to be restored in those communities but successive governments have failed to act. For example, even if a lip head of lettuce is available in most remote First Australian communities, it costs upwards of $15-20.
Access to title deeds to promote home and business ownership and a sense of pride and self-determination has also long been promoted by Mr Katter but he says successive governments have failed to deliver.
“Not once have I heard a remote First Australian community call for another government department to be established to tell them what they need,” he said.
“Did anyone listen to their voice?
“While the feel-good brigade tout their message and use the Voice – another government department - as a political football, our impoverished First Australian communities languish in desperation for just the bare essentials.”
