Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his comments. He's one of my favourite members on the other side too, although he's wrong on most things.

I want to thank the member for Jagajaga for reminding us about the 15th anniversary of the apology to Australia's Indigenous people, which we commemorate more formally next week. Like the 1967 referendum, delivered successfully by the Holt government, the apology endures as a landmark in our Australian story. Kevin Rudd realised that the apology had to mark the start of a change, rather than to be an end of itself. As he said:

… symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

From the apology, the Closing the Gap process was born and eventually revamped. It was revamped because of the realisation that progress was not possible until progress was a true partnership with Indigenous Australians. And I pay tribute to the former minister Ken Wyatt and the Coalition of Peaks for this work.

Under the new process delivered by the previous government, it's not only the Commonwealth reporting on progress against our goals. Every state and territory and the Coalition of Peaks are all reporting on their shared goals. Buy-in has grown; responsibility is now shared across the country. More people now feel the weight of that responsibility—a weight of responsibility that must be felt if we're to close the gap.

Symbolic change and practical outcomes go hand in hand. It's a reason why I'm a supporter of the idea of a voice. But from today's poll, we know the debate hangs in the balance. The idea has majority support, but half of that support is considered soft. As a supporter of the idea of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, I'm deeply concerned by where the debate is at. The government is tripping over itself through lack of detail. The government is mucking this up. The lack of detail is actually damaging support for the Voice. Yesterday it was questions about advising both the parliament and the executive; today it was questions about the Voice being a voice to National Cabinet; and who knows what tomorrow's questions will bring.

We're seeing proponents stumbling over how the Voice might or might not work. The lack of detail is actually hurting the Voice. This was predicted years ago. In 2018 Senator Dodson and I co-chaired the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Some prominent Aboriginal leaders and legal experts were quoted in our final report. Mick Gooda said:

… if Australians don't understand what they are voting for in a referendum they will vote no. …

… If we went to a referendum now … without any detail about how it's going to be formed and constructed, it's a guarantee of failure. We're committed to a voice, but we think there's a process we've got to go through.

Professor Tom Calma said:

… nobody knows what the Voice might look like and how it might operate. Once that's determined or recommended, if there's broad support for it, then we should go into another round of campaigns.

Cathryn Eatock, the co-chair of the Indigenous Peoples Organisation, told the committee:

We believe that a governance body should be established through legislation before the issues around a constitutional referendum are addressed, and that that also requires a period of bedding down. We've seen fear campaigns before …

She went on to say:

It's actually the government's responsibility to educate the Australian population and … bring them with us so it's a joint journey of healing for the Australian community.

Indeed, the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, in arguing for a constitutionally enshrined voice said, 'A Voice to Parliament established through legislation may provide a practical interim first step.' As the report noted:

Mr Mick Gooda, Professor Tom Calma AO and Ms June Oscar AO argued that a constitutional change would only be successful if it was accompanied by clearly articulated legislation, defining and road-testing the implementation of The Voice, after a co-design process.

Professor George Williams also warned us of the necessary preconditions for successful referenda—namely:

There's that word again: 'process'. That is the thing that's lacking now under this government and why this is so important. As Dr Jackie Huggins, the then co-chair of Congress put it in 2018, 'a failed referendum would be another blow to Indigenous Australians.'

A referendum requires a serious act of persuasion. We owe it to the First Nations peoples of this country, and to our shared national story, to give this referendum every chance of success. The government's strategy must be: details first, referendum second. That's how to make the idea of a voice a reality. Detail creates confidence; detail creates the scope for debate. Detail will stop the daily sloppy interviews we're seeing from this government in the debate, from the Prime Minister down. Noel Pearson anticipated this a year ago when he said in an address:

Let us complete the legislative design of the Voice, and produce an exposure draft of the Bill so that all parliamentarians and the members of the Australian public can see exactly what the Voice entails.

I'm drawing the Chamber's attention to these statements because they demonstrate that, when we call for more detail before a referendum, we are not alone. In fact, prominent Indigenous leaders, lawyers and people who are now advising the government have previously made the same argument. So my plea to those opposite is to adjust course. Please, please, please, please adjust course.

Debated adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:32 to 16:00

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