Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to support the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 and to say that I will campaign every day between now and referendum day for this referendum to pass, because I want our Constitution to recognise First Nations Australians and I want to see a voice to parliament. This bill sets out the proposed alteration to Australia's Constitution which people will vote on later this year. It gives this country a wonderful opportunity, a nation-building opportunity, to recognise 65,000 years of Indigenous history and culture, to listen to Indigenous voices on the issues that affect them, to close the terrible gap in life outcomes and to come together, as Australians with big hearts and generous minds, in a spirit of reconciliation and national unity.

This referendum is the culmination of an extraordinary democratic process. The Uluru Statement from the Heart was born out of a series of regional dialogues—dialogues held in every state and territory—finishing appropriately in the heart of our country, at Uluru. These dialogues involved 1,200 delegates. We've never seen anything quite like it. It was an unprecedented exercise in grassroots democracy, led by First Nations Australians at every stage and building on a much older movement for reconciliation. The Day of Mourning first took place in my electorate in 1938. There were the Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963, the Barunga Statement in 1988 and so many more moments in our history when this perfectly reasonable request was made of us as a nation.

We owe it to the people who participated in these dialogues to take their proposition seriously and not to disrespect their hard work by rejecting it out of hand or by calling it a Canberra voice, when this couldn't be further from the truth. This is a voice to Canberra, not the voice of Canberra. Delegates came from all over the country to Uluru—from big cities and small towns, and from remote communities right across Australia. They came from Redfern in my electorate. There's something deeply unfair about dismissing that contribution, and I really do plead with the Leader of the Opposition, who now acknowledges that he was wrong to reject the apology to the stolen generations: please don't make the same mistake again; please don't turn your back on the rightful request of First Nations Australians for recognition in their own land.

As Minister Burney and the father of reconciliation, Senator Pat Dodson, have both made so clear, this is a referendum about two principles: recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of Australia in our Constitution and listening to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when it comes to the laws and policies that affect them. It does this by establishing a representative body made up of First Nations people that will advise parliament and decision-makers on relevant topics, and it entrenches that body in the Constitution.

This was a very important point for First Nations peoples at the constitutional convention. The Voice should be rooted in the Constitution so politicians can't sweep it away when they feel like it. But the design of the Voice—its size, its reach, its composition—can be amended by the parliament of the day, just as the original Constitution said that the Commonwealth would be responsible for defence without specifying how big the Army would be or what the chain of command would look like. This referendum will establish the body in principle while leaving room to refine the model as we learn more over time. One thing the Voice doesn't do is give a veto over government laws or decision-making, and I think it's important to combat that misinformation that some people are engaged in.

As I said, this referendum is about recognition and it's about respect. We are so lucky to share this country with the world's oldest continuous cultures. As the Uluru statement puts it, First Nations people have called Australia home:

… according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from 'time immemorial', and according to science more than 60,000 years.

It makes me so proud. I was recently in Paris, where I saw an exhibition of First Nations art. To see these enormous paintings that tell the stories of the songlines; to see the creation of the artists; to be able to show that to the world and to feel pride that this is an example of Australian art and culture; and to have the experience of First Nations people saying to us: 'It can belong to all of us. Recognise this history and culture in our Constitution', is an incredibly moving experience.

There's been a palpable change in my lifetime, as Australians have grown to understand just a little bit about the scale of this history and culture. When I was growing up—and I'm sure other members have experienced this as well—we didn't do acknowledgement of country or welcome to country when we were at school. In fact, I went to our school library to ask my history teacher: 'Who were the people who lived here? Whose land are we on?' My history teacher couldn't tell me. My school library couldn't tell me. I went to the Sutherland library, next door to the council chambers in Sutherland, and I couldn't find out there either. It is incredible to think that. There is no child anywhere in Australia today who couldn't tell you the names of the traditional owners of the land their school is on. What an amazing bit of progress that is.

Yes, it's progress, but that progress comes slowly. It comes at a cost to the elders and others who are teaching and sharing their culture, and fighting for recognition. Many of them have been doing this for their whole lives. Can you imagine how exhausting it must be right now to be a First Nations Australian saying, 'Please recognise us in the founding document of our country'? Can you imagine how exhausting it must be, after decades of activism, to have to make the case, again, that our founding document should admit the clear and certain fact that this was not an empty land; that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the original inhabitants of this continent; that they carry a special and unbroken connection to our land; that this place is their home and always was and always will be; and that our founding document should reflect that truth?

In 1901, when our Constitution was written, terra nullius was still the uncontested law of this land. Aboriginal people weren't counted in the census or commonly allowed to vote. In 1901 we didn't recognise land rights of any sort. Mabo and Wik destroyed these lies, but that didn't happen for close to a century after our Constitution was written. Our Constitution was written in a different age with a different understanding of First Nations history, and we can't let that misunderstanding remain unchallenged. This referendum is an opportunity to correct the record. It's an opportunity to tell the truth about Australia's First Peoples.

That brings me to the second principle that's alive in this proposition, which is consultation. It shouldn't be a controversial point that listening to communities leads to better decisions and better outcomes, but dialogue and conversation will make government more responsive and more relevant to people on the ground. Australia's handling of the HIV crisis led the world because we asked communities at risk to shape our response. When we have been successful at reducing gender inequality, it's because we've asked women what they need. Disability advocates and others have popularised the expression and, more importantly, the practice of 'nothing about me without me', and that's exactly what the Voice is about. It's about building an institution, led by First Nations peoples, that will help governments understand the needs and the experiences of Indigenous communities. It's about doing things differently, because, frankly, what we've been doing up until now hasn't worked as well as it should.

We still have shameful gaps in life expectancy, health outcomes, school completion rates, kids ending up in jail, homeownership, community wealth and so many more areas. The Voice is a tool to help close these gaps, to make better policies and to produce better outcomes. It's a principle I've seen at work in my community in Redfern. Redfern has been a pioneer in Aboriginal-controlled community organisations: the Aboriginal Legal Service, established in 1970; the Aboriginal Medical Service, established in 1971; Mudgin-Gal Women's Place, established in 1992; Wyanga Aboriginal Aged Care Program, established in 1996; Babana Aboriginal Men's Group, established over a decade ago. We've seen the differences in outcomes of quality of service and care when communities are empowered to make decisions over their own lives. It's something the people that I represent in Redfern have fought for and succeeded in for many decades.

When Redfern locals decided they needed to reduce youth crime and get kids to school, they did it with the Clean Slate Without Prejudice program, run by Tribal Warrior and the Redfern local area command of the police. When they saw that some families needed support to keep their kids safely at home and navigate the child protection system, they did it with the H.O.M.E program. When they saw that people leaving prison needed help to reintegrate back into community and never reoffend, they did it with Never Going Back. And when our community decided that services needed to work better together, they coordinated themselves with the empowered communities strategy. We have leaders in Redfern. We have solutions in Redfern. They know what their community needs and they know how to deliver. In the same spirit, the First Nations Voice will advise on these types of issues: health, aged care, justice, housing and education. I have no doubt that this advice will help parliament make more thoughtful and more effective decisions.

As well as seeing firsthand the benefits of self-determination in my electorate, I see it in the environment and water portfolios. Indigenous Australians have actively managed their country with all sorts of methods—controlled burning, established fisheries, management of native vegetation. They have unique experience when it comes to landscape management, and we've tried to value that better over the last year in government by doubling the number of Indigenous rangers because we know this leads to better outcomes on the ground—for rangers, for the communities they live in and, of course, for the environment that is cared for so expertly. We're adding 10 new Indigenous protected areas which now form a crucial part of our national estate. We're doubling funding for Commonwealth national parks, including parks like Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kakadu, and renegotiating leases with traditional owners to take a joint management approach. We're working better to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage by nominating the Murujuga Cultural Landscape for World Heritage listing, as one example, and by systemically changing our cultural heritage laws in a co-design partnership with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance. The destruction of Juukan Gorge was immoral, but it's shocking to think that it wasn't illegal. Our laws need to reflect the value of Indigenous cultural heritage and need to be much better at protecting it. When we rewrite our environmental laws we will have established a new national standard for First Nations consultation.

This constitutional change is a reasonable proposition. It's a thoughtful proposition that complements our system of government. It's something that can make a practical difference to the lives of Australia's First Peoples. At Uluru, First Nations delegates presented this nation with a gift, with an opportunity. This referendum is a chance for Australia to do something we can all be proud of: build a better country together.

See this speech in context