'Flat-earther' Shaq's foray into Australian Voice debate risks derailing a dignified campaign for change

Zak Kirkup Published September 2, 2022 at 7.29am (AWST)

opinion

I love basketball as much as the next person, but I wouldn't take an American NBA player seriously when it comes to constitutional reform, so why did the Prime Minister?

Anthony Albanese has a long and storied history when it comes to furthering the Voice to Parliament well before he became PM.

One of his most memorable moments was in February 2020, when as Opposition Leader he made a powerful speech about the need for the Voice:

"Enshrining the Voice in our Constitution is a great and unifying mission, more than a century overdue," he said.

"But that recognition is not the end of the road, it must be a clarion bell of a change from what has been... ensuring the Voice advocates the rights and interests of First Nations people, that is a task for national political leadership."

Watch Mr Albanese and you get a real sense of what he sees as his duty to deliver on this issue.

Time and again on the Voice, he has managed to carve out a sense about what it means to him and what he believes it means to Australia.

He's been dignified, considered and solemn.

So what changed last weekend?

Why on earth was an American basketball player in Australia, alongside our PM and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney talking about constitutional reform?

After years and years of working diligently, calmly and methodically on forwarding the Voice, the Prime Minister turned into a full fan-boy and succumbed to a full 'Shaq-attack' stunt.

It was an incredibly poor decision, one which Mr Albanese has been roundly criticised for, sparking him to tell us all to 'chill out' about it.

When the Australian Prime Minister is leading the charge of constitutional reform by relying on an American sportsman who believes the earth is flat while being paid to shill a multinational online gambling platform, I don't think that's something to be 'chill' about.

Even being as generous as I can to the Prime Minister, it still was a poor call, maybe made with the best of intent but it was a moment of extreme immaturity from the government.

Former WA Premier Colin Barnett would remind me often that governments don't do stunts, oppositions do.

So it's not surprising that from time to time a new government has these kinds of occurrences where things slip a bit and they want to go back to their old ways.

The concern I have is that this was a slip on something that all of us consider is of extreme significance to the direction of our country.

How we discuss the Voice to Parliament is incredibly important. Not just what we say, but how we say it.

All sides of the debate should understand the need for maturity, diligence and to approach this with an air of understanding the task ahead that comes with a referendum on constitutional reform, particularly as it relates to our First Nations people.

The Shaq stunt almost tokenised the importance of the work ahead. While it certainly didn't ruin the work of the PM and the scaffolding he has built over many years, like with the speech in 2020, it has made many doubt whether we're ready for the mammoth task ahead.

Shaq is an impressive basketball player for sure. He's a great family man with an empowering story. His questionable beliefs about whether the earth is flat aside, he's not someone the nation needs to be taking advice from though.

The Shaq press conference should be forgotten except for one critical part: it should serve as a reminder to us all about how vulnerable this whole debate is, and more than that, how wrong it is to allow for stunts like this on something of such extreme significance to the future of our country.