Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has stated that she would need to see the government 'take more action' on issues such as youth incarceration before she voted in favour of the Voice to Parliament.
Thorpe, a vocal advocate of treaties with First Nations people preceding a Voice, said her vote would depend on how many lives can be saved between now and the referendum date.
"If all the states and territories can agree to a Voice, then why can't they agree to raise the age of legal responsibility?" she asked on the ABC's Q&A program.
"In the Northern Territory right now [prisons] are full of our children and our people.
"So, unless I see Labor move on those and include sovereignty into the Australian Constitution... then I'm not saying where I'm [voting]. I want to see action."
Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Health Malarndirri McCarthy pushed back against Thorpe's criticism of a lack of will by government to combat such issues.
"We've got Senator Pat Dodson, who was... on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and I've never worked with anyone who is more passionate in wanting to ensure that the incarceration rates in this country drop," she said.
She also reiterated the government's assurances that a Voice would have no impact on First Nations peoples' sovereignty.
"I'm an Yanyuwa Garruwa woman from the Gulf of Carpentaria, we've never ceded sovereignty. And do you think I'd stand by and let that happen?
"No way... Sovereignty will not be taken over or lost in this process."
Criticism of potential Voice Advisory board
The panel also debated the possible make up of the Voice.
Thorpe took issue with the government's planned control of who will sit on the advisory panel, and said it echoed a lack of community consultation around the Uluru Statement from The Heart meetings.
"The people that rocked up were the ones that were picked by the Referendum Council," she claimed.
"They were from organisations and corporations who already have a mandate in controlling our fears in our communities."
Co-Chair of the Voice Co-design group Tom Calma, said that although he wasn't there, it was actually led by community.
"That's part of a democratic process. But yeah, we can't say that it was the government or anybody else [that] picked these people.
"That community nominated who they wanted."
As the government tries to raise the debate above the opposition's call for more detail, Ms McCarthy attempted to cast the referendum in a simple light.
"Firstly, the question is really about whether Australians want to enable First Nations people to have involvement in policies that impact and affect them," she said.
"And I think we have to be very clear that that's what we're asking through the question that the Prime Minister proposed at Garma, on Yolgnu country as a question to all Australians."
