Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I'd like to thank all committee members for their work on this inquiry. I support the committee's recommendation that the bill be passed unamended. I was very grateful that the inquiry came to Orange in the Central West of New South Wales to hear evidence. That evidence included some very powerful testimony from Deputy Mayor Gerald Power, Councillor Jeff Whitton, Jamie Newman, Alisha Agland, Annette Steel, Roy Ah-See, Kim Whiteley, Helen and Sharon Riley, and Dinawan Dyirribang, or Bill Allen Jr. I think that evidence made a very significant contribution to the inquiry, and I wish to thank them for it.

Whilst, as we've heard today, the committee did hear some differing legal opinion, I found the evidence that the proposed words are legally sound to be highly persuasive. I thought that evidence was very clear, very strong, very consistent and very robust. As the member for Dunkley has pointed out, Bret Walker SC told the committee that the suggestion that the High Court could be bogged down in an endless procession of court challenges is 'too silly for words' and 'nonsense'. It wasn't just Bret Walker SC saying this. Other evidence supporting the constitutional soundness of the bill and the proposed words included former High Court Chief Justice Robert French, former High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne, Professor Anne Twomey, Professor George Williams and Dr Shireen Morris. They are some of the biggest rock stars in the constitutional law world, and they could hardly be described as flag-waving barricade-storming radicals. They were joined by the likes of the New South Wales Bar Association, the University of Sydney Law School, Adelaide Law School, the Law Council of Australia, major firms like Gilbert + Tobin and a whole host of others who believe that the words as proposed are sound. The Solicitor-General agrees with that conclusion as well.

I think this committee also served a very useful purpose in exposing some of the baseless fearmongering and outlandish statements that have been made and have accompanied some of the commentary with respect to the Voice. For example, the evidence clearly showed that it is ridiculous to suggest that the Voice, if it was to pass, could or would imperil Anzac Day, federal budgets or nuclear submarine contracts. I think those suggestions are as arrantly ridiculous as they are insulting.

I conclude my remarks today with some words from Gerald Power, the deputy mayor of Orange, who gave this evidence to the committee. He said this about the Voice, and why it needs to be in the Constitution:

What it is, simply, is that we need a voice. The 1967 referendum said: these are small steps. At the age of 61, I never thought that we would even come to this. I thought I'd be dead. I thought my son would have to pick it up. My mother died and my ancestors died without having a voice in the Constitution, and that lack of a voice is simply because we were never identified as humans. Why is it so important to have it in the Constitution? It is because it needs to be in there. It needs to at least acknowledge that there were humans here and that these are the oldest humans on the face of the planet—continuous, ongoing.

I again wish to thank all members of the committee, in particular Senator Green for doing an excellent job in chairing, and also the secretariat, who worked very hard in a very short period of time. I will expand on my remarks when I have my opportunity to speak on the bill. I commend the recommendation of the committee to the parliament, and I also urge Australia to get behind the Voice.

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