Voice plans to speak to Cabinet, not just Parliament

“There is now an amalgamation of the view that you would be able to go to the High Court and prevent the implementation of the decision until the Minister has examined The Voice’s accounts,” he said.

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“The political problem will be that no conservative party or person will ever agree to that because conservatives have a fundamental view of keeping unelected judges out of politics and politics.”

Craven, a Voice supporter and director of Uphold & Recognize, an organization trying to build support for the referendum in conservative circles, said the coalition is unlikely to back the draft amendment as it stands and that without bipartisanship the referendum is at risk .

Professor Anne Twomey of the University of Sydney, also a member of the Legal Experts Group, said that while there has long been precedent for courts not to intervene in the work of Parliament, this does not apply to executive branch decisions and there is a possibility of litigation.

“The interpretation that people are concerned about seems improbable to the court [but] it cannot be completely ruled out,” Twomey said.

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However, she added that the likely effect of a successful challenge would be a court finding that the decision must be re-entered, taking into account The Voice’s advice. This would delay government action that would likely affect only a small category of decisions requiring urgency.

She said a solution to guard against legal challenges, aside from removing the words executive government from the amendment, would be for the government to put processes in place to ensure depictions of the voice are routinely taken into account.

“Just have a system in place where decision makers routinely check whether there were relevant representations to make the decision, have the documentation to show that they took that into account, and then you wouldn’t have delayed the problem,” she said.

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Minister for Indigenous Australia Linda Burney on Friday declined to say whether she supported the vote to have a say in executive branch decisions, but said she would be guided by advice from the working group, which is due to be completed by the end of the month to be expected.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Burney will address Voice supporters on Saturday in Sydney at a barbecue organized by Sydney’s Inner West Council as part of the Yes campaign’s Week of Action to recruit volunteers and raise awareness of the referendum.

Meanwhile, on Friday, opposition leader Peter Dutton reiterated his view that the referendum was on track to fail due to a lack of details on how the vote would work.

“I think the voice isn’t going to stand up and I don’t think it’s going to be successful,” Dutton said.