Malcolm Turnbull’s former son-in-law James Brown tells Q&A he will be voting no to the Voice

The estranged son-in-law of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed he will be voting no to the Voice.

James Brown, a father of two who separated from the former prime minister’s daughter Daisy Turnbull in 2021, is now running for Liberal Party preselection to replace the late Jim Molan as a senator for New South Wales.

The former Army officer who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands, told the ABC’s Q&A program he was opposed to the proposal for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice – despite his former father-in-law’s support for it.

‘I’m someone who I think is fair minded, who wants to see reconciliation but will be voting no on this referendum,’ he said to audible gasps from the program’s left-wing studio audience.

A heckler called out, ‘Shame on you.’

But Mr Brown said the creation of an Indigenous advisory body enshrined in the Constitution would be risky. 

‘My concern is the potential risks of a yes on this referendum outweigh the benefits,’ he said. 

‘For me, true reconciliation in Australia has to be a coming together of Indigenous Australia and non-Indigenous Australia, so it’s not enough to say this has been put up by Indigenous Australia, and therefore it shouldn’t be considered as to its impact.’

Malcolm Turnbull, who is ideologically associated with the Liberal Party’s moderate faction, wrote a column in the left-leaning Guardian Australia website last year declaring he would be voting yes.

‘If federal Parliament proposes an amendment to the Constitution to establish an Indigenous Voice in the terms set out by Anthony Albanese at Garma, I will vote for it,’ he said.

‘While I have some misgivings, I am satisfied that on balance as a nation we are better advised to approve the proposal than reject it.’

Nonetheless, Malcolm Turnbull in October, 2017 released a joint statement with his attorney-general George Brandis warning the Uluru statement’s proposal for the Voice ‘would inevitably become seen as a third chamber of Parliament’.

James Brown, a father of two who separated from the former PM’s daughter Daisy Turnbull in 2021, is now running for Liberal Party preselection to replace the late Jim Molan as a senator for New South Wales

This followed the First Nations National Constitutional Convention at Uluru, where 250 delegates called for an advisory body to be embedded in the Constitution.

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in July, 2022 told the Garma Festival at Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, he would push for a referendum on the issue, with a vote likely to be held later in 2023.

Following negotiations with Liberal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, pamphlets will now be going out to Australians detailing the yes and no cases.

Mr Brown, who is now the Sydney-based chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, said there was a danger no voters would be painted as racists.

‘This question of the Voice, it is a question on which Australia is divided, it is a tough question,’ he said.

‘My concern is I don’t want to hear one side of the debate completely ignored or viewed as an illegitimate position, there are a number of people who are weighing this question, as others on this panel are, who don’t want to go into a polling booth and be told that they’re a racist if they oppose this referendum.’

The Liberal and National parties will be campaigning for the no case, but backbenchers are still free to support the yes case. 

Julian Leeser, a Liberal from Sydney’s north shore who holds the seat of Berowra, two weeks ago resigned as the Opposition’s Indigenous Australians spokesman so he could campaign for the yes case.

He was replaced by NT Country Liberals senator Jacinta Price, an Indigenous-Celtic woman from central Australia who sits in the Nationals party room. 

Andrew Gee quit the Nationals in December last year because he supported the Voice. 

Simon Birmingham, a Liberal moderate from South Australia, is remaining on the Opposition frontbench but is remaining coy about how he will vote on the Voice. 

Paul Fletcher, the manager of Opposition business who reportedly spoke out against a binding no vote for the Liberal Party frontbench as a moderate, told Q&A he was not doing the numbers to replace Mr Dutton.

‘No. No. No,’ he said, shaking his head. 

As for the race to replace Mr Molan, Mr Brown is competing with former NSW transport minister Andrew Constance and former NSW Liberal Party president Maria Kovacic, who ran unsuccessfully in the federal seat of Parramatta in 2022.

Katherine Deves, who last year failed to retake Warringah for the Liberal Party, this week withdrew from the Senate vacancy race, after she stood by her previous comments where she referred to transgender children as ‘surgically mutilated and sterilised’.