Slade Brockman on why he is voting no in the Voice referendum

It is the foundation upon which our democratic and legal institutions sit, and from which our society - I think, the best in the world - has grown.

Any change to that foundation must be made with seriousness and caution.

Our Constitution is a living document; it is designed to accommodate change but with care.

A change requires the majority of Australians, and also by a majority of States, to agree.

This was an important provision that reflected our desire - Australia's desire - to preserve institutions and to avoid change not strongly supported by most Australians.

In practice, changing our Constitution requires a supermajority.

This high hurdle has prevented significant overreach by governments in the past.

You don't have to look far through the list of failed constitutional amendments to see that the Australian people have a lot of common sense in this regard.

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Australians, in their wisdom, defeated repeated attempts of government overreach - from the power to takeover industries to the power to regulate political thought.

We, as a Western democracy, are a part of the great Enlightenment tradition.

The Enlightenment ideals - the need to separate and limit power; checks and balances to avoid the tyranny of the majority; equality of the individual as a key source of freedom; a robust Federalism - turned sceptical ideas into a robust and meaningful set of institutions - our parliaments, our courts and, at the heart of Australia, our Constitution.

Enlightenment thinkers distrusted mob rule and revered the rule of law.

The Enlightenment project is the origin of the modern world and of modern Australia, but it has never claimed perfection.

That is why we need mechanisms like referenda - to give us the ability to change, albeit with caution, our foundational document.

However, we should acknowledge there is a stain on our foundational document in the form of the 'race' power.

Looking over the words spoken in the 1980s at our Constitutional Conventions as justifications for that race power make for very uncomfortable reading.

It was a Constitutional provision that was based on highly racial worldview.

Some leading proponents of the Voice today were, just a short decade ago, calling for the repeal of that 'race' power; for it to be removed from the Constitution.

I believe they were correct in their views then.

Strangely this view has fallen away, replaced with a proposal to enshrine a permanent Indigenous Voice in the Constitution, rather than remove race from our Constitution.

However, I ask you to consider a moment, that one of the first acts of the new Commonwealth 120 years ago was to enshrine in law the White Australia Policy.

One of its chief proponents, Chris Watson, first Labor Prime Minister of Australia, used his position on the crossbench to secure its passage.

A few years earlier, he had tried unsuccessfully to be elected as a Labor Party delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

If views like his had more prominence at the Constitutional Conventions, might we have seen that White Australia Policy enshrined in our Constitution?

If so, how and when would it have been removed?

The Constitution is after all difficult to change.

The fact that the race power there is an anachronism.

It should go.

But, as I have said, the Enlightenment project is an ongoing one.

Our Constitution can be improved, but the current referendum proposal does not do so.

Sadly, it seeks to divide, not unite.

It does not champion universal principles of equality and a steadfast defence of the individual, regardless of heritage.

Over the 19th and 20th centuries we've seen many manifestations of anti-enlightenment thought from both the far right and the Left, from fascism to communism.

Today's anti-enlightenment movements are less obvious.

They reject inquiry and debate as the centrepiece of democracy.

Instead, they claim all virtue, as though it comes by way of instinct, as a quasi-mystical driver of our decision-making, and all those who disagree are wrong (if not evil).

This is the new methodology of the anti-enlightenment.

They claim a purity while silencing what they deem as unacceptable speech.

We need to return to core principles of liberty, progress, freedom of thought and expression, constitutional government, equality of citizenship and primacy of the individual.

The Voice constitutional amendment does not achieve those ideals.

That is why I will be voting 'no'.