WANNON MP, Dan Tehan appeared on the panel of ABC’s Q+A program earlier this week and, especially on the subject of the Voice referendum, found himself the brunt of unsympathetic questions and challenges from both the audience and other panel members.

He was seated next to Cape York Institute founder, Noel Pearson, and the two disagreed on a variety of issues, most notably when Mr Pearson told Mr Tehan he was “conflating the creation of legislation with the adoption of a constitutional referendum”.

Discussion on the broader subject began in earnest about 10 minutes into the program when an audience member posed a question about alleged ‘misinformation’ that was given at a polling booth to him - Mr Tehan was challenged to defend a No female booth worker claiming a Yes result would mean she would have to pay “reparation and rent”.

After Mr Pearson dismissed the claim and said, “this is a very safe referendum, this is a safe proposal,” Mr Tehan was asked by host, Patricia Karvelas, to speak to the issue.

“Does it worry you to hear that there are people on booths saying things like that?” she said.

Mr Tehan said he “hadn’t heard what the lady said” - to which the audience laughed - and further said “I don’t know the background, I don’t know the context of what she was saying”.

He went on to speak about the lack of “proper bipartisanship, right through this process” with the Federal Government and how it led to “the great shame” of poor debating “from the Yes side and from the No side”.

Mr Tehan went on to point out the ALP’s poor track record with constitutional changes and said the prime minister had missed an opportunity to make sure it would work.

“The Labor Party have put forward 25 changes to our constitution - 24 of those have failed,” he said.

“The only one that’s been successful was one which had true bipartisanship, which was about giving social security to every Australian.”

Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Health assistant minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, questioned his version of events and said, “the Nationals walked, even before any of this process began” and added later, “it’s still not too late for them to turn around now and vote Yes”, which the audience applauded.

Mr Tehan did have an ally of sorts in one other panelist - Centre for Indigenous Training director, Wesley Aird, who said given the wide range of information and stakeholder sources, the claim from the polling booth worker wasn’t unreasonable.

“If you’re consuming news online, in the paper, there are Yes campaigners saying this is about treaty and reparations,” he said.

“So, you’re saying it’s fair game?” Ms Karvelas said.

“No, I think it’s unfortunate,” Mr Aird said.

“I don’t think it’s the sort of debate that we wanted to have as a country.”

Actress and author Pia Miranda challenged Mr Tehan, who had said on Twitter, ‘if you don’t know, vote No’ which she found “disappointing” and “I think it would be just actually a better thing to (say) if you don’t know, here’s some information and clear information that I’m going to give you”.

Mr Tehan again said he would’ve preferred a different path for Indigenous representation to be enacted - “Noel himself suggested that it would be much better if we (would’ve) had the legislation produced about 12 months or 18 months before we went to a referendum, so we had a sense as to what a Voice would look like” but put the blame for no bipartisanship squarely on the ALP.

“We put forward three very sensible suggestions as to how it could be improved and yet they were just outrightly rejected,” he said.

Ms Karvelas said the Opposition should’ve used their numbers in the Senate “so you could actually construct it with the government” but Mr Tehan responded, “numbers on the committee are very different to the numbers in the Senate”.

It was at this point that Mr Pearson derisively told Mr Tehan, “I think you’re missing the point, mate” with the audience showing their approval.

“It’s like that social welfare legislation, right?” Mr Pearson said.

“That was passed by the Australian people. All of the legislation that was generated under that provision was not known at the time the referendum passed, we passed all rafts of social welfare legislation under that power.

“In the many decades since then, we’re just talking about a constitutional power as opposed to the legislation. The legislation is your responsibility as a parliamentarian.

“Not only that, in five years’ time, you can change it, you have the full power to repeal it and replace it.”

But Mr Tehan maintained enshrining a Voice in the constitution was not a good way forward.

“Once it’s in the constitution, it cannot be changed or to change it, you have to go to a referendum,” he said.

“Oh my goodness,” Mr Pearson said, with the audience outraged.

“That’s not true!” Ms Karvelas said.

“It is true,” Mr Tehan said.

Mr Tehan said Mr Pearson needed to take a closer look at the legal ramifications.

“One of the things about getting through bipartisanship and where referendums have been very successful, is where there is absolutely no legal doubt,” Mr Tehan said.

“Yet there are very learned legal opinions which say that there is legal issues with enshrining the Voice in the constitution, because the type of representations that need to be made or would be made ultimately, in the end, might need to be appealed to the High Court.

“So you do have that sense of legal risk.”

Ms McCarthy questioned his argument.

“Your previous shadow attorney-general, and Indigenous affairs minister, Julian Leeser obviously did not agree with that, because he’s stepped down and supported this,” she said.

But Mr Tehan maintained his position and said it was Mr Leeser who had “offered in a very bipartisan way, suggestions of changes, which could have been made, which would have improved that and taken that legal risk away and those changes weren’t taken up by the government”.

“That’s why we are where we are.”

Mr Aird again offered some support to Mr Tehan when he was asked about his time on an Indigenous council for former prime minister, John Howard, and how that would be similar to the Voice.

“Here’s the funny thing - when I was on that council, we were asked by the then Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, where do we want to be in 10 or 15 years and we all said unanimously: ‘not here, out of a job’,” Mr Aird said.

“What the Voice is going to do is going to lock disadvantage into the constitution in perpetuity and I really struggle with that as an Indigenous person.”

After the show, Mr Tehan said his position was based on informing the community and was confident in his ability to understand how government processes worked.

“I made the point it would have been better if people knew the detail,” he said.

“I think I’ve got a good understanding of how the parliament works from my 14 years now.”