Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too may be new to this place, but I am not new to living with first-nation people. My electorate of Herbert takes in Palm Island, which is probably one of the largest discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the country. Native title is not just legislation that we can play with at our whim. It is something that is deeply based on the rights of the first-nation people of this country. As has been said—and as I will reiterate—we do not do things to people; we do things with people. We do not walk in front of people; we walk beside people. Consultation can be a deep, genuine and curious conversation or it can be an opportunity to talk at people and tick a box. We must make sure that, at all stages in working with first-nation people, we are having genuine and engaged conversations to ensure that their rights are recognised and provided for.

My community has had four major celebrations in the last month. Firstly we celebrated the 1967 referendum through which our first-nation people came to be counted in the census. That was a momentous occasion for the people in my community. Then we had the 25-year celebration of the Mabo High Court decision. That is really meaningful and important for my community because that decision grew from the grounds at James Cook University in Townsville where Eddie Koiki Mabo was talking to two professors—Henry Reynolds and Noel Loos—about his land. Those two professors talked to him about the fact that it was not his land; it was owned by the Crown. He simply would not accept that. He did not accept that and he fought. It cost him his life in the end. Unfortunately, he died six months before the decision was handed down, but his daughter Gail, his wife, Bonita, and their families still live in our community. That High Court decision changed the face of this nation. There was great hope for Indigenous people, and from that we have native title legislation. But that was only the beginning, and maybe people did not get what they were rightly entitled to as time went on.

We then celebrated the Bringing them home 20 Years onreport. Far, far too many children from first-nations families are living in out-of-home care. It is simply not good enough. There is much more to do, and giving people a place in the world is so important to ensuring that their children are going to be cared for at home, that they have the opportunity to live in loving and fulfilling families, and that they have the right to an education, the right to a job and the right to own their own home.

Most recently, last week, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the 1957 Palm Island strike. That strike came about through seven brave men who stood up and complained about the conditions in which they lived, the fact that they were not getting any wages and the fact that they were virtually slaves working on the island. What happened to those men? They were banished from Palm Island—banished, told to pack up and leave, to take their families and their children, and they were not allowed back. One of the sons came back after he was exempted from the act. What did that mean for those families? No wages means no inheritance. No wages means you have no opportunity to buy your own home. No wages means you have no superannuation. What does that do to families? On top of that, we want to treat native title legislation as if it is something we can simply play with at whim. That is not what we do.

That is why I am absolutely proud to stand here as a member of the Labor Party, because we believe that every citizen in our community deserves the right to a life of purpose, meaning, choice and citizenship, and that most definitely includes our first-nations people. If we are really to move on to a place of reconciliation with our first-nations people—and we must do that—we need to ensure that we pay due respect to native title legislation and do not play around with it as if it is a toy or a thing that we can manipulate to suit our own outcomes. That is not the purpose of native title. I say that the Indigenous people of this country teach us an enormous amount about hope and resilience.

Question agreed to.

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