Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Can I acknowledge the last two contributions, by the member for Barton and the member for Berowra, and I will just make some observations about both of them, if I may. Firstly, I want to congratulate both of them for their expositions on the 1967 referendum. I do not intend to repeat that story in detail, but I think it says a lot about where we are currently that the member for Berowra could eloquently quote the words of former leaders of the Liberal Party in advancing the cause for change of the Constitution to recognise Aboriginal people as part of our population. It is worth just recalling that the question which was asked in the 1967 referendum was:

Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'?

That had enormous implications for the country.

I note that the member for Berowra and also the member for Barton referred to Jessie Street, Faith Bandler and FCAATSI and the work that they were doing. There were a lot of people involved in this project over a decade. They were not only Aboriginal people. I recall one person who I knew very well, Stan Davey, who was part of FCAATSI. Stan spent much of his life after that process working as a community development worker in Fitzroy Crossing, in Western Australia, and then later at Daguragu, in the Northern Territory. He is a man for whom I have the greatest of respect.

The other person I want to comment just briefly on was Joe McGinniss. Joe was a Kungarakanman who came from Paperbark People. He came from outside Darwin. I was involved in his family at one point, living with one of his nieces or grandnieces—he would say daughter. I met this man in the 1970s and was forever grateful that I had that meeting because he was a man of such stature, influence and quietness but such determination. And so were these others.

It led to promoting through the church and through the community the need for change to the Constitution, which took a long while. As the member for Barton said, the extraordinary success of that Constitutional referendum was down very much to their work but also, as I might say to the member for Berowra, to the leadership that was then shown by the leaders of the country in acknowledging the need for change. It took a long time to get them there, but they did. We find ourselves now at a point where we are talking about recognition. I noted the words of the member for Berowra and also those of the member for Barton.

It is worth recognising with the Uluru statement—whilst historically very important, and we should not downgrade its importance—that for a decade now there have been discussions around constitutional change. The expert panel did a lot of great work canvassing the country around the need for change in the Australian Constitution. They did it over a long period of time. Those important words, which they came to find, need to be part of our current deliberations, as do the words that were produced by the joint parliamentary committee, which was led by Senator Nova Peris and Ken Wyatt. They will inform us here, in this parliament, of what the debate has been over a period of time, not just recently—as important as that Uluru statement is—but over a period. We need to be contemplating, as members of parliament, the whole package of things that have been discussed over a period of time.

I am looking forward to those discussions and I am very much looking forward to participating with our colleagues on the other side. Ultimately, if we are to get fruitful change to our Constitution, it can only happen if there is largely bipartisan support. It is very simple. It will not happen if there is a division in the parliament. I countenance those who may be listening to this debate and those elsewhere in the community, who may have an extreme view or may have a very strong view that their view is the only one that should be prevail, that they need to actually relax a bit and allow this parliament to have due consideration of all views and then come down and sit down in a way where we can collaborate. No doubt, there will be differences. But ultimately it is our responsibility to give proper recognition to the Australian Constitution to the Australian first peoples. It is as simple as that.

I am totally behind the idea of structures, the importance of having s national representative voice and all that stuff. After all, I can understand the yearning that people have for such collaboration and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have their voice properly heard. We saw with the demise of ATSIC, in such an unseemly way, that that voice was just diminished. Since then, it has been encouraged to come back through the National Congress Of Australia's First Peoples, but it is not listened to by the government. They have defunded it. There is an important element here for how we make sure that Aboriginal voices are properly heard.

We are so lucky that in this parliament we now have five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are so lucky, but it has taken us so long to bloody well get here. What we need to do is recognise their eminence in this place and understand that they bring with them a great depth of knowledge, background, experience and cultural heritage. The member for Berowra talked about 60,000 years worth; it is the oldest living culture on earth. Then we go back to the other reason we are here today, which is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Eddie Koiki Mabo and the Mabo decision.

Let us reflect for a moment, and I am going to unashamedly use the words that Pat Dodson used in the Senate. We need to understand Aboriginal people have always regarded this place as theirs. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. There is nothing that we can say that will change that. The fact that we have a bunch of whitefellas arrive here a couple of centuries ago and claim it on behalf of someone who lives in England did not matter a tinker's cuss to the traditional owners of this country, and that has been their view ever since.

What we saw in the Mabo decision was the whole concept of terra nullius being given the boot, as it should have been. As Pat said in his speech in the Senate:

The first peoples were in this land as owners and governors of their respective countries before and when the colonists 'arrived' and began to gradually occupy their territories and rule over them. Today those native title holders under the Native Title Act are evidence of their descent from their ancestors and are the living testimony of their prior occupation of their lands and waters.

It is true. There is nothing we can say in this place that will change that construct. I think we benefit a great deal as a nation from the recognition of native title.

I was in the parliament. I was a member of the cabinet subcommittee led by the venerable Gareth Evans, who did a stint of 45 hours on his pitch here in the Senate to get the legislation through. I remember those discussions. I remember the representations of Aboriginal leaders, such as Pat Dodson and others, to the parliament around the importance of recognising native title. I remember the debates vividly. And I remember the division that it created.

Subsequently, we had the Wik decision—some of you here will recall that—and the shameless attitude of the then Deputy Prime Minister in attacking the High Court judges for the Wik decision. Shamelessly! And then there was the Howard government's 10-point plan to amend the Native Title Act, and the same Deputy Prime Minister talking about 'bucketloads of extinguishment,' trying to take back what the court had recognised in terms of native title to prevent Aboriginal people being given proper recognition of their land.

We have a unique responsibility in this place, but it is a unique moment in time. We have a confluence of events that have happened over the last 25 and 50 years. We now have the capacity and opportunity to carry on that discussion and to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the next step: recognition in our Australian Constitution in a way which meets and suits our aspirations and needs. I say to those who may be listening to this debate: we need, in this place, to take our responsibilities very seriously and to understand that we have a responsibility, all of us, to address our minds to what this means for us and for the nation, because if we do not we will be forever damned.

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