Anthony Albanese ridicules Peter Dutton’s second referendum plan as Liberal MPs call it ‘tokenistic’

Several Coalition MPs have opposed or stopped short of endorsing Peter Dutton’s plan for a second referendum if the October vote on the Indigenous voice is unsuccessful, while Anthony Albanese has accused the opposition leader of not listening to Aboriginal people.

The Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer said she feared the campaign against the voice risked an “erosion of trust and goodwill” in future referendums, as she and colleague Julian Leeser urged Australians to back next month’s vote on the Indigenous advisory body.

“Many no campaigners have also complained about the cost of this referendum as well, yet are advocating that they want to repeat the process,” Archer told Guardian Australia.

Dutton has reiterated his preference to run an additional referendum on Indigenous constitutional recognition if the October poll fails. The Liberal leader – who first raised the idea in April when announcing his opposition to the Indigenous voice – has previously indicated he believed Australians would strongly support a vote on symbolic recognition.

The government’s proposed constitutional alteration begins with the acknowledgement “in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia”. The voice was designed to be a substantive form of constitutional recognition – as opposed to symbolic.

Indigenous campaigners who support a voice say symbolic constitutional recognition was dismissed in the lead-up to the Uluru statement from the heart, which called for recognition via a voice to parliament. They have long criticised Dutton’s preference for symbolic recognition.

“Voice is Constitutional Recognition. This was settled in 2017,” Prof Megan Davis, co-chair of the Uluru Dialogue and an architect of the voice, has previously said.

“It must be substantive, it must change people’s lives on the ground, otherwise why go to a referendum?” she said in November.

Albanese, speaking in parliament on Monday, ridiculed Dutton’s suggestion.

“They’re already planning the sequel while doing everything they can to sabotage the original,” he said.

“Their second referendum won’t be on what Indigenous people have asked for, just recognition.”

“The Leader of the Opposition says he’ll acknowledge that Indigenous people are here, and that our history goes back and that it should be acknowledged. But he won’t talk with them or listen to them.”

Archer, a long-time supporter of the voice, said she wouldn’t support a second referendum if October’s vote was unsuccessful.

“Obviously, I don’t believe it is necessary or desirable,” she said.

“I believe that recognition without the practical measure of the voice is tokenistic.

“I also fear that the approach taken by the [no] campaign in this referendum would potentially impact on a future referendum success because of the fear and division that has been employed in their campaign this time and the consequent erosion of trust and goodwill that a failed referendum will create.”

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Archer noted Dutton himself had said the referendum’s failure would set back reconciliation efforts in Australia.

Leeser, another longtime voice supporter, said he was focused on the October referendum.

“I want it to pass. I know from my visits and conversations that Indigenous Australians want it to pass,” he said.

The Nationals MP Keith Pitt, a voice opponent, said there was “only one referendum question before the Australian people and this is Labor’s proposition” – indicating a second referendum wasn’t on his radar.

“There has been no proposal for another referendum put to the National’s party room. If the Australian people say no in October the will of the people should be respected,” he said.

The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, also wouldn’t back the change. A spokesperson for the senator said she wanted further detail of Dutton’s suggestion, but said she would not support a repeat of the 1999 referendum to insert a constitutional preamble that included a recognition of “honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders” as “the nation’s first people”.

“The Australian people rejected that form of recognition in 1999; I see no need to ask them again,” Hanson said in a statement.

“If the Australian people again reject Labor’s voice amendment to the constitution (another form of recognition) in 2023, Peter Dutton should respect the will of the people and drop this idea of yet another costly and divisive referendum.”

In parliament on Monday, the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, scorned the prospect of symbolic recognition.

“After years of failed programs and policies, Indigenous Australians are not seeking a purely symbolic form of constitutional recognition, which would not do anything to turn things around,” he said.