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

It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak to this report on constitutional recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and, as a member of the joint committee, with the other members of the committee, to say to the Australian community that we've still got a lot of work to do. This is an interim report. It sets down some markers for us, but it doesn't finalise the questions which we've been asked to respond to.

At the outset, I acknowledge the way in which the work of the committee has been undertaken and congratulate both of the co-chairs—Senator Patrick Dodson, from the Labor Party, and the member for Berowra, Mr Leeser—for the way in which they've ensured that we have had a collegiate and collaborative approach to the deliberations of the committee and to the questioning of witnesses and interviewing of people. This committee has a genuine desire to try as far as possible to come up with what will be a comprehensive and bipartisan report with recommendations.

It might well be that, at the end of the day, we can't agree on everything. But I suspect there will be significant agreement over a range of questions. I point initially to the foreword of the report, which has been co-signed by both the co-chairs. On page vii, it says:

We support constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as part of the broader project of reconciliation and recognition of their unique status in our nation.

I think that is a very profound and important statement for this committee to make. It is being said with a backdrop of much public debate around the Uluru Statement from the Heart from Central Australia. The next paragraph of that foreword—and I think this explains a great deal—says:

We understand the frustration about the length of time taken to advance these issues. However, we also note that the Uluru Statement from the Heart represents a major change in the direction of the debate on constitutional recognition with its proposals for a voice, agreement making and truth telling.

And that is true. At page viii, the report continues:

This interim report indicates our progress to date and outlines what we will be doing next. It sets out the key areas of inquiry, asking specific questions on what a voice could strive for and how it would be designed. It acknowledges that, whatever form future proposals may take, a voice must be legitimate, representative and agreed between the parliament and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

And then, a paragraph or so later, it says:

We encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader community to make submissions examining the principles and models outlined in chapters 3 and 4 and addressing the questions we pose in chapter 7.

I turn to chapter 7 because it is the questions that we need to have addressed in the next processes of deliberation up until we table a report in November. This, I think, is an important statement. It flows from, in many ways, the recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are sick of having things done to them, or for them, without ownership of those things. At 7.27, the committee acknowledges that much of the work to be done should be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The committee also acknowledges that, in any co-design process, the government should take an active role in participating in any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led consultations so that the outcomes of the consultations are co-owned by the government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and government can have a richer appreciation for the authentic perspective offered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I think that is a fundamental issue, because we have got to have an understanding that the outcomes of these discussions and consultations need to be co-owned. I had the experience in a previous parliament of engaging in a similar process to establish the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan. What we did then was partner with NACCHO, the peak Aboriginal health organisation, and the First Peoples Congress to hold 17 or 18 consultations around the country. They were led by the co-chair of the congress and by the chair of NACCHO, and they were facilitated by an Aboriginal person. I was there at many of them but as a participant—as someone there to listen, not tell. As a result, we ended up with a policy which was truly something that was done in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And that is what we seek here. This will not work unless the outcomes of our deliberations are seen to be fair, reasonable and accepted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Against that backdrop, we've got to understand that—whilst it's up to us to have opinions, and we may have them—at the end of the day, what this committee needs to do is to deliberate over what has been put to it. That includes the detail of what a voice might look like. But, sadly—and this is something which I hope can be rectified—we've had the Prime Minister, as recently as last week, repeat something which he said after the Uluru statement was first released: that he was opposed to the idea of a body elected only by Aboriginal people.

Well, as this report makes clear, there are other Aboriginal organisations around this country which purely elect their representatives. Four of them are Commonwealth statutory authorities. These four statutory authorities are the land councils in the Northern Territory, and their elections of their office-bearers—in the case of the Central Land Council, there's a statement in this report which refers to it—are oversighted and carried out by the Commonwealth Electoral Commission. The only people who can participate in those elections are Aboriginal people—just as, when ATSIC existed, the only people who could participate in the elections of ATSIC regional councillors and ATSIC councillors generally were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is not new. And it's not hard to get your head around the idea that it is appropriate and fair for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, if they want to have a voice—and they do—and whatever it might finally look like, that it be seen as their voice, not ours, and that it is something which should provide advice to parliament, which is what they have described, and that we should be mature enough to accept that as a reasonable possibility and an outcome which we can accept.

There are questions about whether or not this voice, as it's described, should be designed first and then put to a referendum. The possibilities are endless as to what the voice might look like. And what this committee is now asking for is for people to put up the detail of what they propose in such a voice. I have ideas, and other people on the committee have ideas. But there are people in the community, both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who have legitimate approaches to this and want their views understood and their proposals heard—just as with proposals to amend the constitution. A series of proposals have been put to the committee about the possibility of amending the constitution. It's not beyond us to deal with that. Why would we want to be dog-whistling and saying that it's not fair or reasonable and that the Australian community will not accept it?

We have come at a time when we've got an opportunity. We need to take hold of that opportunity and make sure that we accept and address the needs that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have asked us to. That includes the notion of truth-telling and a makarrata and the possibility of treaties. It is not hard, it is not unreasonable and it is something which should be done.

I am very pleased with this report, and I think a number of people have been surprised by it, simply because of the depth of it and the considered way in which it has been put together in a very bipartisan way. And I recommend those who have an interest in this subject, including all members of parliament, to read this report closely, and, if they want to, provide submissions to us.

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