Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

URPHY () (): The member for Herbert just ended his speech with the line, 'We must walk together as one.' I absolutely agree with him that we must walk together as one. While there are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in today's Australia who have had magnificent lives, have succeeded and are role models—and I'm sure the member for Herbert's wife is absolutely one of those people—the truth is as a country we haven't walked as one. We haven't walked as one since 1788 and we surely haven't walked as one since the Constitution was adopted in 1901 and didn't recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Nations people of this country and, in fact, didn't recognise them as people. The ancestors of the member for Herbert's wife, not that long ago, weren't recognised by our Constitution or Australian governments as people.

When we ask, 'Why are we having this debate in the first place?' and the member for Herbert says, 'Because we need to do better; because we need concrete outcomes on the ground,' I agree with him. We need to do better. Because the unfortunate and damaging and distressing history of our country is that our ancestors did very badly at the start, so damagingly badly. And governments over the years—some with bad intention, I would say, and bad attitude about race; others with the best of intentions—haven't done well enough. They haven't. Where I part with the member for Herbert, the Leader of the Opposition and the National Party is at the conclusion that the Voice won't do anything to fix that.

It is inexplicable that anyone in this chamber could stand here and say, 'We need to do better—more needs to be done—but we don't want to do it differently.' We know that one of the problems that has existed in this country for 200 years is that non-Indigenous people have done things to Indigenous people, not with them. The policies that have been introduced, from the stolen generations onwards, have been done by non-Indigenous Australians to Indigenous Australians, not with them, and most of the time—pretty close to all of the time—without even having consulted them. When people talk in this chamber about horrific circumstances that some of our First Nations people live in, that children experience and that communities grapple with, they should acknowledge that is not because First Nations people are inherently alcoholics or don't love their children or don't know how to look after their children or don't want to live in secure accommodation. It's because, for a very long time, we—those of us who aren't Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander—have said, 'This is how you should live your life,' or, 'This is how you should address the problems in your community.'

Now, in 2023, we have an opportunity to change that. We can say that we might not be the people who committed the wrongs, that wrote the Constitution that ignored 60,000-odd years of civilisation—that wasn't us—but we're going to be the people that address it. The Voice might not immediately fix the situation of the young boy that the member for Herbert was talking about, but how can you say that making sure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people get to play a role in decisions that are made, in policies that are developed, that impact them directly couldn't be better than what we've got now?

This is not a political plaything. This is not emotional blackmail from the Albanese government. This is not the Albanese government's Voice or Labor's Voice. This is the culmination of a decade of consultation, of so many processes, which Aboriginal people have designed themselves and have participated in themselves. They have produced one of the most beautiful pieces of writing we will see in modern Australia, in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and have said, 'We ask for voice, treaty and truth, and we ask you to walk with us to get there.' This is not emotional blackmail of those on the other side or of any Australian to say why you should vote for the Voice. It is just a clear and simple entreaty to say: be part of a new chapter in Australia's history where we aren't divided on race, where we don't have to hand down a Closing the gap report every year that shows that First Nations people struggle under socio-economic conditions that are far worse than in the rest of the community. Be part of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to say, 'We are bigger and better than that, and so can our future be.'

I thought I was going to come in here a bit angry about some of the spurious arguments that have been put forward in this place—which is supposed to be a place of fact and debate—against the Voice. But I can't find it in myself at the moment to be angry as much as just so deeply disappointed on behalf of my Indigenous friends who have dedicated their lives to making the lives of their community better. I am disappointed on behalf of two women who work in my electorate of Dunkley, Karinda Taylor and Deb Mellett—two smart, hardworking, fierce, take-no-rubbish, take-no-step-backwards women. Deb Mellett runs the Indigenous gathering place, and Karinda Taylor is the CEO of First Peoples' Health and Wellbeing. If anyone met these two women they would say, 'That's who I want my daughter to grow up to be.' Whether they be black or white or Asian, whatever their background is they would look at these two women and say, 'They possess all the characteristics—love, compassion, strength and a dedication to others—that I want my children to possess.' But they also have to fight every day for their community—and they should be heard. Neither of them want to be a parliamentarian—although I think Karinda should be! They don't want to be in parliament; they want to be with and for their community, but they want their knowledge and the knowledge they have inherited from generations and generations of First Nations people to be heard when governments and politicians are making decisions about their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. That is not too much to ask.

Put aside the legal sophistry about proposed section 129, because, as I've said in this place before, the overwhelming majority view of legal experts is that that section is properly crafted and will adorn our Constitution, and that the ridiculous arguments about it gumming up parliament and ending democracy as we know it are just that—ridiculous. Do what the member for Herbert said: know your facts, do your research. Put aside the ridiculous arguments about 'not enough information about the Voice' and the far-flung suggestions about the consequences of section 129, and just look deep into your heart. Which side of history do you want to be on? I want to be on the side of history that says, as a country, we want to move forward, to honour our First Nations people and make sure that no government ever again can dismantle the mechanisms for them having a role in issues that affect them. I tell you what: a lot of good people do. A lot of good people want to be on that side of history.

In conclusion, I want to say how proud I am of the Criminal Bar Association in Victoria, of which I used to be a member before I got elected to this parliament. Dave Hallowes SC, the chair, who is an old and dear friend of mine, put out this statement:

The Victorian Criminal Bar Association supports the proposal to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the First Peoples of Australia by the establishment of the Voice.

As the Uluru Statement from the Heart recognised:

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people o n the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

The unacceptable over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody persists notwithstanding that more than 30 years have passed since the landmark final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. That report examined the many ways in which our criminal justice system failed to deal justly with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. It also examined the disadvantages that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons confronted, disadvantages that frequently continue to inform the prevailing circumstances when First Nations persons come before our criminal courts.

Whilst criminal justice primarily falls within the province of State legislatures, it does not do so exclusively. Moreover, the Commonwealth has wide scope to make laws on matters relating to, or which affect, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. The Voice would provide a mechanism by which First Nations persons could communicate their views on such matters. The Victorian Criminal Bar Association—whose membership consists of barristers who prosecute criminal cases, barristers who defend persons charged with criminal offences and barristers who do both—considers that mechanism to be a fair and proportionate measure which has the very real potential to address injustices that are so often seen by those of us who practise in criminal law.

To Dave Hallowes SC and all the members of the criminal bar in Victoria: I acknowledge your support for our brothers and sisters who are Indigenous Australians and for those of us who aren't Indigenous Australians who want to take up the generous request of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and say, 'We want to walk with you, and we want to walk forward into a country where we're walking beside each other, as one and equal.'

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