The opposition has moved to expose perceived weaknesses in Labor's Minister for Indigenous Australians, forcing the Albanese government to sharpen its advocacy of the "yes" case for the Voice to Parliament referendum.
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Since the enabling legislation was passed, Coalition MPs have dragged the diminutive Linda Burney repeatedly to the Dispatch Box to answer a series of attempted "gotcha" style questions.
Will the Voice try to change Australia Day? Will it weigh in on policy issues of no particular salience to First Peoples? Where does it say it cannot? Which issues affect non-Indigenous Australians that do not affect Indigenous Australians?
Burney, whose own voice struggles to project at time, has been dignity personified under such pressure.
![Linda Burney has been dignity personified under pressure from the Coalition this week. Picture by Gary Ramage Linda Burney has been dignity personified under pressure from the Coalition this week. Picture by Gary Ramage](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/8WgcxeQ6swJGymJT6BMGEL/8028e53a-0cb9-44b1-b867-d05166491034.jpg/r0_142_4000_2400_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Yet slightly wooden also as she reads from her brief. She has quoted from the clause to be included in the constitution should the voters approve, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the Attorney-General's second reading speech emphasising the primacy of the parliament.
Yet the dog whistling continues, its unmistakeable message to undecided voters being, the Voice threatens everything, including your way of life.
Ironically, the Voice does seek to endanger the way of life for some Australians - a people incarcerated at colossal rates, and dying a decade younger on average.
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Quite explicitly, it seeks to turn around decades of well-meaning but failed programs directed at health, education, criminality, suicide rates, endemic poverty, substance abuse and domestic violence.
On Tuesday, Burney rightly asserted that she had been respectful throughout the debate, always being prepared to hear alternative viewpoints, eschewing the politics of advantage-taking and division.
But on Wednesday, the opposition's tone seemed only to harden. In a welcome reinforcement of the government's purpose Prime Minister Anthony Albanese organised a question from his own side to lay a few facts on the table. He implored people to read the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Read the referendum wording. Listen to Liberals like Julian Leeser, Bridget Archer, Andrew Bragg. See for themselves that parliament remains paramount. And he reminded them what Peter Dutton had said about the Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 before walking out when it was delivered. Back then, Dutton had warned of unquantifiable consequences, including ruinous compensation claims. Albanese told the House that while Dutton has since accepted that he got that wrong, he was doing it again, drawing from the same playbook.
Burney too sharpened her retort. "I'm not interested in culture wars," she snapped after outlining the appalling living conditions in remote communities she had witnessed first-hand, "I'm interested in closing the gap".
It was a statement of moral clarity of which there will need to be more if the gathering scare campaign is to be blunted.