Young Liberal’s huge call on the Voice

The leader of the Young Liberals has said he is “open” to an indigenous Voice to Parliament.

President of the Federal Young Liberals Dimitry Chugg-Palmer made the comments when asked whether the junior organisation would stray from the Coalition’s stance on voting no to the Voice.

Mr Chugg-Palmer said that his organisation did not have a formal position however there were many inside of it who wanted to vote yes while speaking on QandA.

“I can say that my view is that I‘m open to voting yes, but I think I along with many other Australians, just want to get a few more answers and a bit more clarity on what exactly it is that we’re voting on,” he said on the program.

He was then challenged by host Stan Grant who pointed out that the Liberal Party had already landed on the position of voting no after asking questions of the Labor Party.

Mr Chugg-Palmer said that he “gets to make up his own mind” about how to vote in the upcoming referendum despite Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announcing that the party’s formal position is to vote no.

He also said that the party should take up the chance to engage with the committee process into the Voice legislation, something that was objected to by Labor Senator for WA Fatima Payman.

“The Opposition leader had almost eight chances and eight opportunities to engage in the consultation process…it just seems like Mr Dutton used excuse after excuse to just keep campaigning for no,” she said.

Senator Payman said that despite the lack of bipartisanship, she believed that Australia would overwhelmingly vote yes at the upcoming referendum.

“I have faith in the Australian people. I have faith in grassroots level organisations. I have faith in our community groups, our faith groups that we can do this without the coalition support,” she said.

“We have given you guys and your coalition party, multiple opportunities to come to the table to discuss the question posed to the Australian people and we‘re not afraid to continue campaigning for the yes vote and we have complete faith in the Australian population.”