Before I jump into this, I just want to say I am a huge admirer of Queen Elizabeth II.

Massive.

Like have a-portrait-in-my-apartment level admiration.

It seems though that my devotion towards the Crown has been exceeded though by none other than the Victorian Premier.

Honestly I never thought I would live to see the day when a very left-leaning premier decided he wanted to embrace a monarch as much as I have with Dan Andrews.

He clearly got the pre-election poll-driven message that the vast majority of voters were upset about the Queen's passing because last week he decided to sacrifice himself at the altar of public opinion like something I've never seen before.

Importantly, not only did he decide to go 'all in' and don himself a monarchist, he did so at the expense of the sentiment of Indigenous Victorians.

https://www.nit.com.au/petition-to-scrap-erasing-of-indigenous-hospital-name-in-honour-of-late-queen-launched/

In so doing Mr Andrews has revealed the biggest weakness any proposed Voice to Parliament will have.

The short story is Mr Andrews wants to rename Maroondah Hospital to Queen Elizabeth II hospital.

Maroondah is a local Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung word meaning throwing of leaves.

For some in the community, they found the replacement of an Indigenous-named hospital with that of our beloved late Queen a step too far.

The First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria spoke out to express their concern about this proposal.

This Victorian "Voice to Parliament" was then told by the left-leaning and opportunist premier to stick to their lane and mind their own business.

Mr Andrews didn't want the extinguishing of their Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung language on a government building to be subject to the opinion of the traditional custodians.

Instead, he wanted them to remain muted and stay drafting a Treaty instead.

This is the inherent problem with the Voice and why I have been an advocate for a Treaty.

A Voice, as it is being proposed for the country, will allow politicians such as Mr Andrews to exploit it when it has political benefit, but ignore it when it detracts from the government's agenda.

What Dan Andrews has done with his treatment of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria is exploitative.

When it started out, he was all over the Assembly, lauding it for the great progress it was making to Truth and Treaty.

Yet the true test came when the Victorian Voice spoke up; it was summarily shut down in a manner which I can, at best, describe as patronising in the extreme.

This week we saw the compelling ads released to start the campaign for why proponents believe we should see a national Voice to Parliament implemented by way of referendum.

The Victorian example is something that needs to be paid attention to, because there is zero point putting as much time and energy into this national conversation if a Voice can so easily be dismissed as irrelevant to the debate.

I have argued previously that eventually a Voice would be ignored by politicians, I just didn't think it would be so soon.

• Zak Kirkup is of Yamatji heritage and is the former leader of the Liberal Party in Western Australia