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Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney says the government won’t appoint members to the voice – and that the body would help negotiate treaties with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
At a referendum forum in Canberra, Burney said there would be “no government appointments, none” to the voice. Some critics have recently questioned whether the voice would feature members appointed by the government – despite design principles of the voice, released publicly by the referendum working group, saying members “will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people based on the wishes of local communities”.
The only increase in the defence budget over the next three years is compensation for the increased cost of imported military equipment flowing from a fall in the value of the Australian dollar. Excluding this, the core funding of Defence (not including the Australian Signals Directorate) has actually been reduced at a time when unprecedented demands are being placed upon it. Between 2023-4 and 2025-6, defence funding, excluding compensation for adverse foreign exchange movements, drops from $154bn to $152.5bn.
With unemployment at near record lows, Defence has been unable to meet its recruitment targets, which has been further exacerbated by increasing separation rates among uniformed personnel. Defence had planned for the ADF to raise its numbers this year (2022-23) by 2,201 but instead faced a contraction in size by 1,389 uniformed personnel.
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