Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 bill. I believe that all Australians of goodwill on all sides of politics agree that we need to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. While there are areas of progress which we should celebrate, the simple fact is that, on average, Indigenous Australians will live shorter lives than other Australians, have poorer health outcomes, be less likely to be employed and have lower levels of education. The two parties of government have a shared responsibility in closing these gaps. Over many decades, both parties have made some progress but have left much still to be done.

The bill before this House, in my assessment, is motivated by two complementary desires. The first is to achieve practical outcomes in improving the lives of Indigenous Australians, and the second is to incorporate within the foundational legal document which underpins the rule of law in our nation a symbolic recognition of the distinctive place of Indigenous Australians as Australia's First Peoples and as the inheritors of a culture which is more than 60,000 years old. If this bill is passed it will authorise the government to proceed to hold a referendum which, if supported by the required majority of Australians and the majority of states, will amend the Constitution so as to establish the Voice to Parliament.

In my remarks today I want to focus firstly on why the Liberal Party is supporting this bill. Next, I want to review the bipartisan history in getting to this point and explain why it is so deeply regrettable that the current Prime Minister has abandoned that bipartisanship. Third, I want to make some observations about the choice now facing the Australian people.

Let me turn, then, to why the Liberal Party is supporting this bill and why, as a Liberal member of parliament, I am voting yes on this bill. The purpose of this bill is to authorise the referendum to proceed. It sets out the specific terms of the constitutional amendment which is proposed and which will take effect if the referendum is passed. From the time this parliament was formed in the middle of last year, and the Prime Minister announced that his government would be proceeding to a referendum on this matter, the Liberal Party's position has been to approach the question with an open mind and with goodwill.

We went through considerable deliberation. Our leader and our shadow minister attended meetings of the Referendum Working Group on the Voice to Parliament. We sought further details about what the Voice was and how it would operate. We asked questions, such as: Who will be eligible to serve on the body? How will members be elected, chosen or appointed? How many people will make up the body? And a range of other questions. It became increasingly clear, though, that the detail we were seeking was simply not available.

For these and other reasons the Liberal Party arrived at the position that we would not support the proposal to establish the Voice through an amendment to the Constitution. However, we were very clear that we supported the Australian people being in a position to take this decision. In turn, we are supporting the bill that is before the House today, and that is because this bill must pass if the referendum is to proceed.

I want to turn to the importance of bipartisanship. In 1967 the Australian people voted overwhelmingly to change the Constitution as it applied to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The 'yes' vote was almost 91 per cent. This was a remarkable, positive and unifying moment for Australia. As the Prime Minister acknowledged in his Lowitja O'Donoghue oration last night, it was achieved because the then coalition government led by Harold Holt took care to achieve bipartisan support for the referendum. The Liberal and Labor parties both recommended that Australians vote yes. The result of the 1967 referendum was that Indigenous Australians could rightly feel that they had been recognised and supported by the broader Australian community.

Of course, there is more to be done. This side of the House has long recognised that reality. That is why it has been our policy for a considerable period of time to support amending Australia's Constitution so that it contains formal recognition of Australia's First Peoples. Wisely, over more than a decade, both sides of politics have recognised that if we are to make progress towards this very important objective, that progress must be achieved on a bipartisan basis.

In 2007, former prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd both stated their support for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 2012, both the Liberal and Labor parties voted for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act. After the coalition came to power in 2013, then prime minister Tony Abbott, with support from then opposition leader Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, established the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 2015. This committee delivered its final report in 2015, recommending that a referendum be conducted to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. In 2015, the Referendum Council was jointly appointed by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and then Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten. It's job was to advise the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition about progress and next steps towards a successful referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution.

In 2018, the Liberal member for Berowra, my close friend and holder of the neighbouring seat, and Labor senator Pat Dodson were appointed as co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Arising from the final report of this committee, a Voice co-design process was carried out during the life of the last parliament, under the then coalition government, the Morrison government, with the agreement of the then Labor opposition.

I run through this brief history to underline the importance of bipartisanship in these processes, something which has been recognised over more than 15 years and which was previously the foundation to the successful outcome of the 1967 referendum. This is why it is so deeply unfortunate that, since the 2022 election, the Prime Minister has radically departed from this bipartisan approach. The government has chosen not to engage in any realistic or meaningful consultation, still less negotiation, with the opposition concerning the words of the referendum question and concerning the wording of the proposed constitutional amendment. The Prime Minister has chosen not to provide any significant detail in relation to how the Voice will be structured and how it will operate even though the Liberal Party have been clear from the outset that this is an area of great concern, we believe, for many Australians. The result is that we as a nation find ourselves in a position where there is a real risk that this referendum will divide the nation rather than unite it. Rather than delivering a result which enhances mutual understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, which increases confidence amongst Australians that they are greatly respected and valued by the entire nation and which tells the whole world how proud every Australian is of the distinctive culture, history and society which has developed on this vast southern continent over more than 60,000 years, we face the real risk that the result of the referendum will do none of these things. In my opinion, we face that risk should the result be 52 to 48 for the referendum or 52 to 48 against.

I fervently hope that risk does not materialise into reality. But, if it does, a fundamental reason will be that the Prime Minister chose to abandon bipartisanship, chose to make no attempt to secure wording which enjoyed support across the political spectrum and chose to go ahead to put a referendum to the Australian people in circumstances where the meticulous preparatory work required to secure strong majority support simply had not been done.

Let me turn, then, to the choice now facing the Australian people as they cast their votes in the referendum. The vote that I will exercise as the member for Bradfield will be to support this bill so that my constituents and people around Australia in turn get to exercise their votes as they see fit. From the point that this bill passes the parliament, each member of this House and each senator has one vote in the referendum, a vote worth no more and no less than the vote of every one of the more than 17 million Australians on the electoral roll. It is my hope that we have a respectful and fact based process under which every effort is made for Australians to receive the information they require to cast their votes as they see fit.

I want to express my respect for the many Australians of goodwill who intend to vote 'yes' and the many Australians of goodwill who intend to vote 'no' on this referendum. As I have spoken to my constituents in Bradfield, it is clear that many are thinking carefully about this referendum. It is also clear that many people feel that the information they need to make a decision has not been made readily available. Many are uncertain precisely how the Voice will work. To help address this uncertainty, I am pleased that there will be a pamphlet written and distributed to all Australians setting out the case for 'yes' and the case for 'no' on the particular referendum question. This has been a standard requirement in referendums for many years, but, curiously, the Albanese government initially proposed removing this requirement. The Liberal Party pressed for the normal requirement to apply, and I am pleased that the government ultimately agreed. It is for this reason that some Liberal members in this chamber will vote to oppose the bill so that they can formally provide input into the preparation of the pamphlet. It is a legislative requirement that if a parliamentarian is to provide input into the 'no' case then that parliamentarian must vote no to the bill presently before the House.

Let me turn to the Liberal Party support for regional and local voices. These will be local and regional advisory bodies which provide grassroots advice to bring about practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians. The establishment of local and regional voices was recommended in the Calma-Langton report written following the co-design process I outlined earlier. Indeed, this was the policy commitment which we took to the last election, along with a commitment to spend $31.8 million to establish local and regional voices. The approach of starting first by legislating local and regional voices would allow the new system to establish itself and to prove its worth, and, should it prove to have problems, the legislation can be amended to fix the problems.

It is interesting that objective observers have commented there is a considerable amount of agreement between the two major parties. As Constitutional law professor Anne Twomey wrote:

Despite the political acrimony over the Voice referendum, what's most striking is the similarities between the positions of the Coalition and the Labor government.

Both agree Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be recognised in the Constitution. Both agree practical outcomes are needed to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. Both agree parliament and the executive government need to be better informed about the laws and policies they make, and that they need to hear the voices of those on the ground who are affected by those laws and policies.

Of course, there are also areas of disagreement which are well understood.

I conclude by observing that this is an important bill. I am pleased to support it and, in turn, to cast a vote for the referendum being able to proceed. This decision will now be in the hands of the Australian people, and I am confident they will apply their trademark common sense and wise judgement in arriving at a decision for our nation.

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