Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Over time we've slowly learnt how egalitarianism, the fair go and mateship should apply beyond the Anglo-Celtic men who championed these values for each other from the 1860s onwards to include women and people of colour who have also embraced these values and helped build the nation we enjoy today.

As historian Clare Wright has recorded, 'Australian women helped stoke the fires of rebellion at Eureka, and Australian suffragettes led the world in the fight for women's political empowerment.' Australian trailblazers like Muriel Matters, Vida Goldstein, Dora Meeson Coates and Dora Montefiorie taught the United Kingdom a thing or two about how a nation's democratic institutions, how its symbols, must give voice to everyone within the nation. Slowly, this realisation was also extended to people of colour. Australia has travelled an enormous distance since the days of terra nullius and the Immigration Restriction Act to become the most successful multicultural nation in the world. We are a nation of over 500 Indigenous nations, 250 ethnicities. Collectively we speak over 350 languages and worship 120 religions.

We are only now learning the stories of people of colour who have helped build the nation of radical egalitarianism we have become—people who are not reflected in the institution of the British monarchy, the Australian monarchy and their representative in Australia, the Governor-General. They include people like Chinese-Australian Billy Sing, a Queensland drover, a kangaroo hunter, a cane cutter, an opening fast bowler and one of our greatest Anzacs—the most successful sniper in the trenches of Gallipoli and a winner of the Distinguished Conduct Medal; other Chinese-Australians like Caleb James Shang, whose fearless service patrolling enemy territory, attacking enemy snipers and acting as runner under fire on the front lines of the Messian Ridge, Passchendaele and Dernancourt near the Somme, won him a DCM, a DCM with bar and a military medal, making him one of our most dedicated Anzacs; and John Wing, who, as a 10-year-old, embodied Australian egalitarianism by writing to the Melbourne Olympic committee to suggest that athletes march not as separate nations in the closing ceremony but as one nation of friends in the 1956 Olympics—an Australian contribution of egalitarianism that the Olympic Games has adopted and continued to this day.

Our national symbols and institutions need to reflect these radical egalitarian values that we have built in this country. These symbols and institutions matter; they aren't just administrative issues. Our national symbols matter to the sense of connection that Australians feel with other Australians, with their nation and with the government. It matters whether Australians feel like they share a common stake in the hopes and achievements of their fellow citizens and that we are all in the same boat in this endeavour.

We, on this side of the House, believe in the potential for what we can achieve together with the power of collective action. Too often, progressives on my side of politics have discounted the important role that a sense of unifying national identity can play as an enabler of this collective action. There is a growing body of literature in sociology and political science that shows the very damaging effects that countries experience when they don't have this binding form of national identity when tribal identities, ethnicities and religion are the dominant forms of identity in a society. Think of the things that we have built in this nation together through this sense of shared endeavour, not just the physical infrastructure like the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme but the social infrastructure that relies on these common bonds of trust and national identity to establish. Institutions like the Australian welfare state and Medicare—an institution, I might say, that is the great legacy of one of our former governor-generals, Bill Hayden. We need to invest more time in the cause of nation-building in Australia. We need to invest more in building symbols and institutions that unite us in mutual sympathies and in common endeavour.

Upon our Federation, our first Prime Minister, Edmond Barton, said 'we have a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation' but we're not defined by a geographical land mass. We define ourselves through the national culture, values and symbols we build together as a people. Our head of state ought to embrace this, ought to reflect these common values and ideals. National identity is politically constructed and it's up to all of us—MPs and citizens alike—to build it. We do this every day. Prime Minister John Howard once declared that he and his supporters 'knew what an Australian was and always will be'. That was a nation-building statement from John Howard. He had a view of what it meant to be Australian. He didn't think that it needed to change. Perhaps it was bestowed by Sir Henry Parkes to Charles Bean and handed on by Bradman to us today and it has been carved in stone and not changed since that time. You'll be unsurprised to hear that I think that is a nonsense.

The idea of what an Australian is has changed radically since Federation and is continuing to change today. At Federation, we did not have room in our conception of Australian identity for women, for Indigenous Australians or for people of colour. We denied them equal status in the law in our democracy, in our institutions and in our symbols. The ethnically and culturally diverse Australia of today is very different to the official white Australia of our Federation. Is there anyone among us who would say that this is not for the better, that the Australia of the start of the 21st century is not a far greater nation than the Australia of the start of the 20th century? Is there anyone among us who would not be proud of how far we have come as a country since the days of Edmund Barton? If we can recognise that our nation has changed, and changed for the better, then we should also recognise that the symbols and institutions of our nation have also become outdated as a result of these changes and should change as a consequence.

There's a chance that we're about to enter a new period of nation-building in Australia, a new period of nation-building that will impact directly on the roles of the Governor-General and the monarchy in Australia. If the federal Labor Party wins the next election, the next term of the parliament will see the implementation of an Indigenous voice to parliament, constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians and a plebiscite on whether Australia should become a republic. We should not miss this opportunity. Properly seen, these processes are a chance to reflect on the way in which we think of ourselves as Australians. The British monarch, who our Governor-General represents, is no longer the single thread that unites us as a nation. The 'crimson thread' of the days of Henry Parkes is an irrelevancy to Australia today. At best, it is an irrelevancy; at worst, it's a symbol of our inability as a nation to recognise who we really are and who we have become. Our nation has been transformed by immigration, but our national identity has not evolved to reflect that demographic change. We need a truly representative national identity that would equally recognise the talents and experiences of members of the many Indigenous Australian peoples and our new diaspora communities.

As Noel Pearson powerfully argued in the 2018 Lowitja O'Donoghue Oration, Australia has a lot of symbolic nation-building to do: grappling with the legacy of 1788 from the perspectives of Indigenous Australians and European settlers, honestly dealing with our nation's fraught racial history through the White Australia policy, committing to land stewardship, making good on the Uluru Statement from the Heart and including a statement of Australian values. Pearson engaged with this symbolic nation-building in the form of a new 'Declaration of Australia', transcending and supplanting the outdated symbolism of our moment of sovereignty at Australia's Federation. Pearson began his proposed declaration with a statement:

Whereas three stories make Australia: the Ancient Indigenous Heritage which is its foundation, the British Institutions built upon it, and the adorning Gift of Multicultural Migration:

Pearson finished this declaration by saying, 'Three stories make us one: Australians.' It's a bold, confident vision of Australian exceptionalism that grapples with the often difficult path we have taken to become the nation that we are today. But it's a story that's not reflected in the office of the Governor-General or in the Australian monarchy. I believe this is a national conversation that's worth engaging with.

On the narrow substance of the bill before the House: I support it. The convention for settling the Governor-General's salary is uncontroversial. The amount references the expected salary of the Chief Justice of the High Court, whose remuneration is determined by an independent tribunal, and General David Hurley is of course deserving of this appointment as Governor-General and this salary. He is an outstanding Australian. Many members contributing to this debate have outlined the extraordinary work that he has done, particularly on organ donation, and I'm certain that he will comport himself with grace and honour in the role. For 42 years General Hurley served in the Australian Army and concluded his service as Chief of the Defence Force before being appointed Governor of New South Wales in 2014. Nothing in this debate detracts in any way from his status as an outstanding Australian.

But we need a new way of choosing the next David Hurley. We can do better as a nation. And we should do better, because these symbols and institutions matter. They matter to the way that we see ourselves, they matter to the way that we engage with our fellow Australians, and they matter to the way that people beyond our borders see and engage with us. I believe that we can do better and I hope that, if Labor wins the next election, we get the opportunity to do this symbolic nation-building, to set a new foundation for Australia to confidently move forward in the 21st century as an exceptional nation—modern, diverse and reflecting all of the potential that we know this nation has.

See this speech in context