LEESER TO PROPOSE VOICE AMMENDMENTS

Credit: Michael Coghlan, Creative Commons.

Former Indigenous Affairs Minister Julian Leeser has said he will propose amendments to Indigenous Voice to Parliament legislation when bills are debated in Parliament next week.

He said the Voice should make representations to the executive government, but that function should be in legislation rather than in the Constitution, as the bill currently stands.

Mr Leeser is a long-standing supporter of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice but has raised concerns the current proposal will fail.

“The amendments I am proposing will improve the electoral prospects of the Voice,” he said.

His comments come after a Resolve poll, conducted for the Nine newspapers, shows slightly more than half of Australians now back an Indigenous voice, with the number of people who would vote 'yes' dropping from 58 per cent to 53 per cent over the past month.