Jenna Price | Scott Morrison's input on the Voice to Parliament is a bit rich

Rumour has it that he will stay around until he finds another job - I'm guessing that he will be struggling for references from his employers, the citizens of Australia. At his last report, the 2022 federal election, he got booted off being in charge of the island.

All of this means he might be around a long time. I have some sympathy for those who live in his electorate. So I'm revisiting his lengthy speech on Wednesday because it makes me so mad.

Basically, Morrison said he was concerned about the impact of the Voice on the operations of executive government. He said the Voice created significant constitutional risks and that those risks were not easily remedied.

He said: "It presents serious and unnecessary risks both known and unknown to the operations of the executive government and our parliament, upon which all Australians depend."

Haha. Speaking of known and unknown, this is a man who appointed himself to five ministries at once - and I don't mean ones behind a pulpit, although I guess that was also possible - and kept it a secret from just about everyone except Governor-General David Hurley, who also kept it a secret. The known and the unknown.

If that's not a risk to executive government - and a risk to the Australian people - I do not know what is. It is a shrieking example of lack of accountability and lack of transparency in executive government and one he presided over, only vaguely remorseful when caught. Soz, Frydy, soz matey. Shoulda told you sooner.

Tell me. Is this not an escalating exponential (I don't care if that's too many increases. You know what I mean) hypocrisy?

A minute into the speech, Morrison says this referendum "is not a decision for companies or unions or sporting codes or any other group". This is precisely the same politician who touted his late-onset love of the Cronulla Sharks and used it as a political tool, to try to pretend he was a man of the people. Let me tell you, the people really only support the Bunnies. Ok, the Raiders. And the Eels (I would like to stay married).

And to give himself some credibility, Morrison summarised his contribution to the state of First Nations in this country (with an oblique snipe at Peter Dutton - nya, nya, I was at the Apology and you weren't).

Now it is perfectly true to say that during his prime ministership, he entered into the first ever partnership agreement on Closing the Gap.

His government made it possible for the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations to actually be involved, to have a partnership of responsibility. But it is also true to say that under nearly a decade of Coalition government, we are barely closer to closing that intractable gap.

The ANU's Francis Markham says Morrison - and the first First Nations Indigenous affairs minister, Ken Wyatt - were a marginal improvement on the administrations of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull in First Nations policy.

In particular, the decision to include the Indigenous Coalition of Peaks in Closing the Gap negotiation was a positive move, recognising the failure of top-down policy decisions driven by politicians and bureaucrats. It was under Abbott that Australia's most damaging budget, the 2014 catastrophe driven by treasurer Joe Hockey, cut $534 million from Aboriginal programs, including more than $160 million of cuts to Indigenous health programs.

That was the same budget where the government revealed the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples would not get $15 million earmarked for the representative body over the next three years.

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Indigenous affairs were mainstreamed - folded into other areas. The focus disappeared, says Markham, and an undermining of self-determination ensued. ATSIC gone. CDEP gone, replaced with punitive and futile work-for-the-dole schemes. The Indigenous Advancement Strategy implemented in 2013 was already considered a failure by 2017 after a scathing audit report.

Now years later, data from the Productivity Commission (which three years ago began measuring the targets for Closing the Gap) reveals there is a long - long - way to go.

In March, the Closing the Gap dashboard revealed that of the 19 targets, there are seven where there is some improvement but not big enough to meet the target goals.

For four targets there currently are no data available to assess progress: family violence, Indigenous languages, digital inclusion and community infrastructure. Four will meet targets based on current trajectories. Four are worsening: children developmentally on track, adult imprisonment, children in out-of-home care and suicide rates.

Suicide rates. Who are we as a nation?

Director of Jumbunna at the University of Technology Sydney Lindon Coombes says that the introduction of the National Indigenous Procurement Policy in 2015 has been a success (although there has been some concern around some businesses "black-cladding").

"But I never felt that [the Coalition government] was a genuine approach to Closing the Gap," he says. "Very little progress has been made."

Coombes says the Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney was terrific in opposition.

"But even in government, it will take years before you see the outcome of good work."

One approach, he says, might be to develop an Aboriginal transport network - that would feed directly into cutting costs for those who live in remote and regional communities.

That would assist health in a number of ways (my God, have you seen what a loaf of bread costs in a remote community?)

So as Morrison hectors and rants, we would do well to remember another former prime minister and adapt her words.

Do not be lectured about executive government and the First Nations Voice by this man. Do not. And the Australian people will not be lectured about racism and inclusion, or about politics and sport, by this man or his mates. Not now, not ever. We've already voted "no" to Morrison. Vote "yes" to the Voice.