Features Australia

Justice Harrison inadvertently highlights a key concern on the Voice

The perils of abandoning the separation of powers

3 June 2023

9:00 AM

3 June 2023

9:00 AM

Opponents of the Voice to Parliament owe a profound debt to Justice Ian Harrison of the New South Wales Supreme Court, for sending an email in May to Pat Conaghan MP in which he described the latter’s comments in Parliament regarding the Voice as ‘disgusting’, paternalistic, and racist.

It is now abundantly clear that if the Voice is inserted into the constitution in the form proposed, it will have equal standing in our nation’s rulebook with the three existing branches of government: the parliament, the executive and the judiciary.

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Scott Hargreaves is Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs

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