Giving Voice to Indigenous peoples in a constitutionally conservative way: Edmund Burke, Walter Bagehot and the Uluru Statement from the Heart

This article illuminates high-level similarities and differences between the concept of a constitutionally guaranteed First Nations Voice, which failed at an Australian referendum in 2023, and the monarch’s conventional rights to be consulted, to advise and to warn in British and Australian constitutional tradition. In calling for a constitutionally guaranteed advisory mechanism, the Uluru Statement from the Heart used mechanisms of advice to peacefully reconcile historical conflict in a way that is respectful of parliamentary supremacy. Indigenous peoples thus proposed a constitutionally conservative reform in keeping with the conservativism of Edmund Burke and the political thought of Walter Bagehot, whose articulation of the tripartite convention also used processes of advice and consultation to reconcile the monarch’s ancient claims to authority with parliamentary supremacy. A constitutional Indigenous Voice deeply aligned with Australian and British constitutional traditions. Had it been endorsed by Australians, it would have been a Burkean constitutional evolution, rather than radical reform.