Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Constitution is incomplete. It is unfinished business. There is a void—a hole, if you like—at its heart. George Williams, Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales says:

A silence lies at the heart of the Australian constitution. The document reflects Australia's history of white settlement, but fails to mention the much longer occupation of the continent by Aboriginal peoples. It is as if their history does not matter, and is not part of the nation's story.

It is a shame, a tragedy and a disgrace, and it needs to be corrected.

Bill Shorten has talked about the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need a place of honour in the Constitution. The opposition leader is correct. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it 'a great piece of unfinished national business'. The committee, in its interim report—tabled on 15 July 2014—said that a successful referendum must:

The committee has travelled the countryside, and in the next couple of weeks will literally have been from the Torres Strait to Tasmania. We have had dozens of submissions in relation to this report that we are tabling here today.

We have also had the benefit of the final report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act of Recognition Review Panel, led by former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, Ms Tanya Hosch and Mr Richard Eccles. They make the point in their report that the support for recognition awareness has actually fallen from 42 per cent to 34 per cent. In that regard, I commend the member for Hasluck in his leadership and his chairmanship of this report. He is absolutely accurate: we need political leadership from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to take this forward.

With only eight out of 44 referenda actually being put to the people successfully, we need bipartisanship, popular ownership, popular education, a sound and sensible proposal and a modern referendum process—a point Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles make so clearly. The moral force of the 1967 referendum cannot be forgotten. There needs to be both symbolic change and meaningful change—or real and substantive change—and Labor remains ready, willing and available to assist the government in a bipartisan way, as we did throughout the deliberations of this committee. There must be tangible change.

As Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles say in their report:

To vote to change the Constitution, Australians need to accept that there is a gap or problem presented by the current words and that the proposed change will fix it. At its core, the public needs to see that the change is worth the effort of a referendum.

…   …   …

Over 22% of currently enrolled voters were not of voting age at the last referendum in 1999. More than 62% of voters—

including myself—

have never voted in a successful referendum.

The possibility of racial discrimination is of critical importance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They have referred consistently in their submissions to this inquiry of the dispossession of their land, the loss of their language and the destruction of their culture since colonial settlement.

Witnesses to the inquiry referred repeatedly to the long experience of suffering racial discrimination and their desire for constitutional protection against future discrimination. They perceive real and substantive constitutional change deserving of support from all Australians as a prohibition of racial discrimination. Co-chair of the expert panel, Mr Mark Leibler AC submitted that:

At every single consultation that we held, there was a reference to substantive recognition—'We want substantive recognition.' What did that mean? It turned out that substantive recognition means something to preclude racial discrimination.

Mr Leibler submitted to our inquiry:

If we do not give effect to something that is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, we are wasting our time to begin with.

As Mr Les Malezer, the co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, reminded me recently, 'Nothing about us without us.' Noel Pearson, says on page 65 of his quarterly essay, A rightful place:

If conservatives assert that a racial non-discrimination clause is not the answer then what is a better solution?

We have a number of options in this report.

Witnesses, in their submissions both oral and written, overwhelmingly supported a prohibition against racial discrimination and real and substantive change; getting rid of the odious and repugnant section 25; not proceeding with the expert panel's proposal on section 127A; and real change deserving of Australia's full support.

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