Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have been custodians of this land for more than 65,000 and pay my respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people on whose ancestral lands our parliament meets. I extend that respect to the First Nations people present or those who are watching and listening. I also proudly acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin nation, traditional owners of the land on which my electorate of Maribyrnong resides.

Last Friday, it was six years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented, and it has been six years since the Liberal and National parties dismissed it. I acknowledge the then Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has subsequently expressed his deep regret at his initial rejection. I remember attending the subsequent Garma Festival after the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The sense amongst Indigenous politicians of being let down by politics as usual was palpable but so too was their determination to keep going. Just as our First Nations people had to fight for land rights, the right to vote, to be counted in the census and to have the grief and loss of having children forcibly removed from their families acknowledged, this year our fellow Australians will ask the rest of us to support a change to the Constitution that will right a historic wrong, to finally recognise First Australians in our modern nation's birth certificate, a decision to be embedded in the memory of future generations.

Unfortunately, these words are not without opposition. The instinctive reaction of the coalition six years ago was: 'This idea is different. We weren't expecting it, so we shouldn't do it.' Still they cling to this, as if somehow the previous century of failure was proof of the wisdom of staying the course.

Disingenuous voices saying that they need more detail are—as my colleague the Minister for Indigenous Australians has pointed out—looking for excuses, not answers. We vote in a referendum on a principle, just as we did in the 1967 referendum about whether Aboriginal people should be counted in the census and if the Commonwealth should enact laws for Aboriginal people. In 1967 there was no demand to show how a 'yes' vote would impact every law. In 1967 the referendum did not divide the country. In fact, 90.7 per cent of our fellow Australians who voted then agreed with the principle.

It is fair to say that this nation since Federation has made strides in justice, Indigenous rights and opportunities and law enforcement, but it is also true that there are still giant strides yet to be made. There is still widely accepted recognition amongst all people of goodwill that we need to do better and that we know we can do more. We've failed to remove economic, health and education barriers for Indigenous Australians. But I think there's recognition amongst the vast majority of the Australian people that we have failed to remove barriers less clear to the eye that come from the chasm between words and actions, between promises and results. Indeed, our failings as a society and of our political system have condemned Aboriginal Australians to live in the shadow of disappointment, the shadow of the tyranny of low expectations.

The wait for recognition in our Constitution is painful. The lack of recognition and the lack of empowerment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is a tumour in the health of our society, but it can be cured. Other new frontier societies have taken steps to reach accommodation with their first nations people. Now it's our turn in Australia. We are not going first; we are catching up.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart offers a creative, generous path to recognition. I recall delivering the response to the Closing the gap report as opposition leader in 2018. Already the resistance and misinformation about the Voice had begun. I'm proud that I offered Labor's full-throated support for the big, bold idea that could potentially be the antidote to year after year of incremental disappointment as we failed to close the gap for Indigenous Australians.

Five years ago I stood here and I asked, 'Who are we to tell 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from 12 regional dialogues to go back to the drawing board and try again because here we don't like it?' I stand in the parliament today, five years later, as this approach to constitutional recognition has now been termed divisive and dangerous, and I ask the same question: who are we to tell people that our failures of the last 120 years should simply be accepted as the antidote for the future?

Tonight I want to say that the key to recognition is not the racist—the never-evers are what they are and, thankfully, they are in the minority—nor is it the undecided Australians, who are still to engage in the Voice referendum, whose questions are sincerely set forth and whose anxieties we can allay. I think the key to constitutional recognition is the quiet conservative, who is perhaps more devoted to the status quo than understanding the fairness of our argument. They are good people, not racists and not mean. They are people who say that they agree with the goal of recognition, but not just this particular method. They are people who believe that they should be able to personally set the timetable for another vote on recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution at another more convenient time. These quiet conservative, good Australians, who live perhaps by an insular concept of time, constantly advise First Nations people to wait for the better words and the more convenient time. Martin Luther King Jr said that the shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than the absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will and that lukewarm acceptance—the convenience of delay—is much more bewildering than outright rejection. Now is the time for strong moral leadership from traditional Liberals through the commitment to the idea of empowerment, not deterred by arguments of propaganda, and wise enough to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not asking for, nor shall receive, any special rights through a 'yes' vote.

Let me be clear. The Voice to Parliament will not be a body with the power to veto over the representatives elected by the Australian people. It will not be a third chamber of parliament. It will not be a distraction from the on-the-ground problems nor a peripheral ball to be kicked out of bounds of day-to-day life. My hope is that the quiet 'no' voter takes time to appreciate that our constitutional status quo was never meant to be frozen forever in time. Our constitutional status quo exists for the purpose of establishing fairness and recognition of all Australians. But, when our constitutional status quo becomes a frozen obstacle blocking the flow of progress, then passive, unquestioning rejection of constitutional recognition inhibits our nation's journey to the future. The founding fathers of our Constitution never intended that this document should be frozen in 1901 and should never be able to be changed. To the quite conservative, I ask you to reject the myth that there's no hurry to recognise First Nations people in our Constitution. It is folly to assume that the very flow of time cures all ills and that somehow time will cure it. Time is, of itself, neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. Now is the time to lift our Constitution from the museum of 1901 to the modern house of 2023. 'Do nothing-ism' is the valium of progress. The unrecognised cannot remain unrecognised forever. The yearning to be recognised is legitimate. It is not enough to do nothing and ignore the trauma of remaining unrecognised.

Too many dismiss the intractable economic and social tragedies gripping Aboriginal communities. They use it as some kind of permission to turn away and do nothing—to shrug our shoulders and put this in the too-hard basket. Too many people ask how they can be blamed for the sins of those who went before them and say that what's past is past. But the past is not past. 'Past,' according to Shakespeare, 'is prologue,' and nations live with their past. Other nations have come to terms with their past. We might try to concrete over it, but it seeps through like green shoots appearing through the cracks. As much as the noise of our lives and the wonders of the nation we've built distract us, we cannot, and should not, deny that this place we call home has an Aboriginal foundation. We cannot ignore what Henry Reynolds called so beautifully 'the whispering in our hearts'—the whispering that cannot be quieted until all Australians walk together in reconciliation. There is the quiet nagging conscience which says that repeating the same processes in the same way will not give us different outcomes.

We're proud of being the most successful multicultural country in the world, but we also have the oldest continuous culture on earth right here before us, and we need to celebrate it in our Constitution. Our Constitution does not recognise their physical, emotional and spiritual bonds with the lands, sky and waters of our marvellous continent. It does not acknowledge the rich 65,000 years of culture, arts and languages, or their songlines or Dreamtime. By Indigenous people making representations on matters that affect them, we can help preserve their past and shape their future. If we needed to build a railway, we would create the infrastructure. If we are to build a corridor to proper equality, we need to create the constitutional infrastructure. The Voice is integral to that process.

If we pass this referendum, we do it for the Aboriginal people who were excluded from our democracy when we became a federated nation in 1901; for the kids of the summer of 1961 who were banned from the Moree swimming pool because of the colour of their skin; for the brave men and women of the Wave Hill walk-out; for Nicky Winmar, staring down racist hecklers; and for every Aboriginal person who has felt like a refugee in their own country. I have no doubt that, if we step up on the referendum, it won't affect our democracy. A 'yes' vote will not undermine our democracy, but it will affect our national psyche. Recall how you felt in 2017 after the same-sex marriage plebiscite. Whatever your view, there was relief that the nation had arrived at a proposition and the realisation that we didn't miss the opportunity. We can be instrumental in delivering a profound response to historical exclusion. It is our time to step up and demonstrate to our nation and the children of the future generations the country we want to see in the mirror. The Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle said, 'No lie can live forever.' We have our chance to correct the record.

In final summary, historic racial unfairness should be excised from Australian life and our Constitution because it is morally wrong. When we vote 'yes', we say to our children—and, indeed, the rest of the world—that Australians are at terms with our past; that we are a modern, inclusive and open-minded nation. We send a message that we acknowledge that our country has a proud Aboriginal history. We say that we want the next generation of our Aboriginal kids to grow up with a better deal than their parents and their grandparents had. It will allow us to create the next chapter of the nation.

I say to Australians who are quietly thinking about voting 'no': do not believe that a 'yes' vote gives our First Nations people extra rights. It just recognises that, after generations of economic and psychological trauma, our First Australians don't start at the same place that the rest of us start from. Please don't accept the argument that every Australian should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when in fact one group of Australians, by virtue of historical intervention, don't have that pair of boots. That is why we vote 'yes' at the referendum.

See this speech in context