Barristers battle over Voice proposal amid racism claims
Sydney Barrister Louise Clegg says Bret Walker SC’s comments are “grotesque”, after he labelled arguments against the proposed model of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament as “racist”.
Ms Clegg has since written to the NSW Bar Association – asking them “to issue a public rebuke to Bret personally, for bringing the profession into disrepute and for the unacceptable moral bullying towards lawyers who may wish to openly engage in this monumentally important public debate.”
“It was reported in the Australian Financial Review that he had said barristers and lawyers were being racist,” she told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
“He’s come back from that and perhaps there was a bit of misreporting to be fair to him. He has just said that the ideas are racist – that’s a distinction without much meaning, I think if he put that submission before the High Court, they might say that too.
“I’m concerned that the Voice is too big, and I feel as a constitutional lawyer, a public lawyer, it’s quite radical and certainly experimental.
“We should be able to have this debate and the problem here is that in this process, no one is being given a platform to have this debate – and that’s what lawyers do.”

SKY