Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I join with my colleagues in welcoming the tabling into parliament of the report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This committee has spent many months travelling across this vast continent and heard and spoke with many organisations. It has engaged with a remarkably diverse group of people that are intensely interested in its important inquiry, which is of national significance. They're also interested in the recommendations of this final report that has now been tabled.

I want to note where this committee travelled to: Kununurra; Halls Creek; Fitzroy Crossing; Broome; here in Canberra, of course; Dubbo; Sydney; Adelaide; Perth. The committee attended a meeting of the four Northern Territory land councils at Barunga. There were hearings in Wodonga, Shepparton, Melbourne, Thursday Island, Townsville, Palm Island, Brisbane, Redfern and Albury. This is a remarkable amount of travel for a committee to do, and I want to commend those members of the committee that did apply their dedication to this great work and took time away from their families and all their other work.

I think this report will one day be reflected on as a report of historical significance to this parliament, and those committee members who were active participants in it can be rightly very happy with their work. The co-chair of this committee, the member for Berowra, Julian Leeser, was elected to the parliament on the same day as me. We share a deep respect for the Constitution of this country. I know that he applied himself entirely to the work of being co-chair of the joint select committee and the extraordinary responsibility of the inquiry the committee undertook into the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. In the course of this work there's been a new addition to his family, James. It's a great burden to be away from a newborn, but also a great burden on your partner, and I'd like to pay tribute to Mrs Leeser. I want to acknowledge her part in this, as well as the contribution of the member for Berowra.

He had the great honour of being co-chair alongside Senator Patrick Dodson, Senator for Western Australia and the father of reconciliation in this country. Improving the lives and futures of Indigenous Australians, ensuring their equality and delivering this nation's reconciliation with its past is Patrick Dodson's idea. He lives for his people. If I ruled the world and could have all my wishes granted, Pat Dodson would be Australia's first Australian head of state. But in the meantime all I can do is to thank him for his commitment to his work as co-chair of this committee and for his commitment to this inquiry.

I also want to recognise the contributions of the member for Barton, Linda Burney; Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator for the NT; and the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, who spoke earlier on this report. All have been active participants and dedicated to ensuring that the Indigenous peoples of this nation are recognised in the Constitution, but they also work on many more issues of great concern for Indigenous peoples. Alongside Senator Dodson they have fought for many years for equality and fairness for Indigenous Australia.

As a member of Labor's First Nations caucus committee, I had the extraordinary opportunity to attend one of the meetings of this inquiry. I attended the meeting at Barunga, where the committee met with the four Northern Territory land councils—the Anindilyakwa Land Council, the Central Land Council, the Northern Land Council and the Tiwi Land Council. Sometimes in your life you find yourself in a place you never knew existed or never really imagined. I was aware of the Barunga Statement, delivered 30 years ago, but had not really turned my mind to where that was on this earth—the place where it was delivered to PM Bob Hawke by Indigenous leaders. To go there and be at that meeting place and witness the land councils meeting with this parliamentary committee was extraordinary and unforgettable. This meeting was held under a large canopy in Barunga just prior to the start of the annual Barunga Festival. Since being elected just over a couple of years ago I've seen some committee hearings, but nothing like this. It's hot in Barunga. It's an hour's drive from Katherine.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

I reckon it's hot, Warren! It's in the middle of the country. The setting was a million miles away from the hearings we held here and in cities around the country, but it was much more than the setting that was very different. Together with my friend and colleague here today, the member for Newcastle, Sharon Claydon, we sat under a tent and watched and listened to the hearing for some hours. For those who don't know, Sharon Claydon was an anthropologist before she became a parliamentarian. She's skilled in the observation of people and their behaviours and she has been an important participant in the whole parliamentary committee system since being elected in 2013. As we watched, Sharon asked me quietly, 'Where have you ever seen so many people so deeply engaged in such a lengthy and detailed discussion about the Constitution?' It was quite an observation. I was a student of constitutional law, I've been a lawyer, I worked at a university for 10 years and I've been a parliamentarian for two years, and never in that time have I seen such an engaging discussion about the Constitution of this country—not in a lecture theatre, not in my community and not in this parliament. I saw such a wonder and it was in that tiny little remote town in the Northern Territory known as Barunga.

More than a hundred Indigenous Australians, organised in their land councils and groupings, sat, listened and caucused on how they'd speak to the committee. They talked about the points that needed to be made and what had been said and what had not been said. There was good humour, there was harsh reality and there was thoughtful consideration of recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution by those themselves seeking to be recognised and included 117 years after they were excluded.

The people participating in this meeting in Barunga have some very significant issues to deal with. Extraordinary inequality exists between that community and urban areas around the country, as it is for all remote communities around this country. But you can fight battles on more than one front, and the people at Barunga who participated in the inquiry on that day know that. They live the inequality that we here cannot imagine and they argue for a better Constitution and a better country. We need to listen; we must listen. We must listen to what they said 30 years ago in the Barunga Statement and, more recently, the Uluru Statement from the Heart. As the member for Lingiari said, it has to stop where we deliver things from on high and expect it to magically happen. We have to listen to the people who these things affect.

The three days I spent in Katherine and Barunga earlier this year were remarkable and unforgettable. I learnt from my new friends, the Indigenous members of the Labor caucus, Pat, Linda and Malarndirri, and the wonderful representatives of the NT, Warren Snowden and the member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, and others who were with us—the member for Newcastle and the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, who, 30 years after the Barunga Statement was delivered, committed Labor to recognising Indigenous Australia and ensuring that Australians everywhere opened their hearts to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The Barunga Statement, from 30 years ago, called for Aboriginal self-management, land rights, respect for Aboriginal identity, the end to discrimination and the granting of full civil, economic, social and cultural rights. The statement hangs on the walls of this parliament for all to read. It sits opposite the suffragette tapestry of a young Australia urging an old Britain to permit women to vote. The requests of the Barunga Statement have not been met. Now we have the Uluru Statement. Part of that statement, as delivered by the Indigenous peoples, says:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

It is an aspirational statement, as the report observed, but it is an aspiration that we must grab hold of and make sure we meet.

The final report of the select committee has been delivered. As the report states, the key point of this report is that the voice should become a reality and be co-designed with government by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples right across the nation. I support this recommendation. I support the report. I know that not everyone will support it and that not all parts of it will be supported, but it is an excellent starting point for this country to move forward.

Labor will be guided by the recommendations of the report. We hope that members of the government all take it on board—that they read it, listen to it and listen to people in their community, and that they go further afield to all of the places that the committee saw fit to visit. More of us could do more to reach out to Indigenous communities that we don't normally have interaction with, so that we might ensure that they are more well represented in this parliament, whether it's as representatives or, as we're meant to represent people, by us talking to them, listening to them and bringing their representations to the parliament. Most importantly, we must recognise what the voice is and what has been asked of us. We need to act in the best interests of the nation and our Indigenous sisters and brothers. It's time that we met the requests of the Barunga Statement and the Uluru Statement from the Heart and committed to a voice for Indigenous peoples in this nation.

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