Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to speak on the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022. At least, I think I rise to speak on the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022; although, based on much of the debate we have heard from the other side and the crossbench today, you could be forgiven for thinking that we are discussing a bill to implement a referendum regarding an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. That, of course, is not what this bill does. It changes the operation of referenda, not just for the forthcoming referendum on the voice but, presumably, for all referenda which may follow.

This bill goes to the public information campaign and the quality of informed debate regarding proposed questions and constitutional changes to be submitted to the Australian people for a decision. The bill also makes some changes to transparency arrangements regarding expenditure on referendum campaigns and imposed reporting requirements akin to the current laws, transparency and obligations which apply to Australian elections. As currently drafted, the bill suspends the operation of the provisions for the referendum act that require the preparation and distribution of a pamphlet with 'yes' and 'no' cases to the referendum question. It also prevents any Australian government spending money on referendum campaigns.

Early last month the Prime Minister indicated the government would, in fact, relent and provide 'yes' and 'no' pamphlets to all Australian voters. Yet where is the government bill to that effect so we really know they will be provided? Aside from the pamphlet, the government remains resolute that it will not fund the campaigns for or against the change. I have heard many members get to their feet here today and talk about the 1999 referenda on two questions—an Australian head of state and the transition of Australia from a monarchy to a republic—and proposed changes to the preamble of the Australian Constitution which would have, among other things, included the following phrase: 'We, the Australian people commit ourselves to this Constitution honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as the nation's first people for their deep kinship with the lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country.' That would have been the first step towards proper constitutional recognition of Australia's first peoples.

Despite significant support on all sides of politics, the proposed preamble referendum was resoundingly defeated and this was particularly the case in my electorate of Flinders, with 63 per cent voting against. At the time, my electorate equally voted against the transition to a republic, with 58 per cent voting against. Many in this place who have spoken before me have indicated that they have only faint memories of the 1999 referendum. However, I remember it well and so do most of my constituents, because more than 50 per cent of all residents of Flinders are older than 40. I remember it particularly well because at that time I was a very young adviser in the office of the Attorney-General, down on the blue carpet in the ministerial wing of this building. I had just joined the office of the Attorney, then Darrell Williams QC, and was tasked with the responsibility of constitutional law, an area which I loved and had worked in for more than a decade by the time I made it there.

I had a peripheral role in relation to the logistics of the referendum. I answered calls from the public about it. I listened to their questions and, indeed, I was witness to their marvellous curiosity about what the proposed changes would do and what they would not do. Those calls numbered in their hundreds and they were accompanied by thousands of letters from interested Australians who took the changes to the Constitution very seriously indeed. We know from AEC research that almost half of the people who received mailed material would use this information as their main source of information in casting their vote. I cannot help but wonder if the government feels we have moved beyond the information age—that is, the age in which you would give the public information—to the age of the 'vibe of the thing'?

I have heard so many frankly silly references to the Australian Constitution as some kind of mission statement, an expose of our values, our history or our birth certificate—as I think the Prime Minister likes to call it. It is nothing of the sort. It is a pragmatic and practical document which brought together a bunch of errant colonies—in particular, the most mischievous of all the colonies, Western Australia, which for most of the time during the Constitutional Conventions, which ran between 1890 and 1898, wanted to go it alone. As the covering clauses state, the Constitution was designed:

… to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, …

It spelt out the operation of this place and the powers of the Commonwealth parliament, which, at the time, were largely focused on logistics—matters like quarantine, lighthouses, stamps, currency, telephony and railways. It provided for the courts and the appointment of an executive government.

The 1999 referendum was, for many people, their first real examination of the Australian Constitution and its provisions. Copies of the Constitution were readily available and even more readily read. Our civic awareness and engagement were at an historical peak. It was a moment to be celebrated and, indeed, to be repeated, rather than condemned to history as old-fashioned, out of date or archaic. On the walls of this building at the moment, in the public areas, there is a mini exhibition of constitutional reform of times gone by. It describes the circumstances which led to the 1942 Constitutional Convention, the first which occurred after Australia's Federation in 1901. The convention, undertaken in wartime, considered a proposed new section 68 of the Constitution to provide this parliament with the power to undertake all measures which, in the declared opinion of the parliament, will tend to achieve economic security and social justice. A general outrage was precipitated by this egregious catch-all provision, and it was later watered down. But the modest exhibition on the walls of the first floor of this building describes the 1942 process as follows: 'State and federal political leaders met to discuss the proposed new powers: the repatriation of service personnel; employment and unemployment; marketing of commodities; company legislation; trusts, combines and monopolies; profiteering and prices; the production and distribution of goods; foreign exchange and investment; air transport; railways; national works; national health; family allowances; and the power to make laws for Aboriginal people.' It goes on upstairs: 'After extensive debate, the premiers agreed that the states would voluntarily transfer the proposed powers to the Commonwealth for a period of five years after the armistice. However, some premiers soon faced opposition from their respective parliaments and could not fulfil their agreements.'

On 19 August 1944 the Commonwealth government held a constitutional referendum to ask the Australian people to approve the 14 powers listed. That proposed amendment did not pass. The Constitutional Convention and its aftermath had tested the Constitution's limits on Commonwealth power. Inputting the question to the Australian people at that time, then Prime Minister John Curtin used lofty terms, equal to those we hear in the debate today about constitutional reform. On this occasion, leaders of His Majesty's government and His Majesty's opposition from all seven parliaments in Australia were gathered to consider from a non-party and a national point of view the course of action to be followed at one of the greatest turning points of our history, saying, 'We shall be dealing with matters which profoundly affect the future welfare of Australia,' and yet the Australian people said no, as they had done 36 times before—having said yes only eight times before. And so what does the Albanese government propose? Not to tell people what is proposed. Not to think through the potential consequences of any mooted changes. Instead, he proposes to keep the Australian people in the dark, with no funding for the 'yes' or 'no' campaigns and, until recently, no pamphlet explaining in simple terms what the referendum choice is all about.

The Voice is not a burning issue in my electorate. People are focused on the challenges which befall their days: how to find staff, how to meet the ever-increasing repayments on their mortgages, how to absorb hundreds of dollars more in increased energy bills, how to find affordable accommodation, how to buy a first home and how to save for their futures without fear that their sacrifices will be wiped out by ad hoc and retrospective change to superannuation, capital gains tax, negative gearing or franking credits. But when I raise the Voice with my constituents, invariably the response comes back, 'What exactly is it?' Much as I wish I could, I can't answer that question and, to be fair, nor can the Prime Minister. Some days it sounds like it's a voice to parliament; other days it's a voice to the executive government; and other days still it's both. Either way, the Prime Minister is proposing to give people a say about the concept but not the construction and, more importantly, the consequences of the referendum.

This bill is, quite simply, an attack on fundamental pillars of democracy, and it has a shallow disregard for the Australian electorate. It comes from the heart of a government which has given up on its people as informed citizens capable of thinking through constitutional choices for themselves. It is essential that we all in this place defend the rights of voters to be informed not just for the imminent but for all constitutional referenda and for our constitutional reform to pursued with integrity and accompanied by rigorous and respectful debate. We have done it before, and we can do it again.

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