Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

When Indigenous Australians come to Canberra to seek meetings with the government and the nation's leaders, why are the doors closed to them? Aboriginal Australians, just like all Australians, are currently not defined by race. But when Aboriginal parliamentarians brought in delegations of Aboriginal Australians who reject the new bureaucracy, neither the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Prime Minister, any other assistant ministers or even their staff would meet with them. Earlier this year, Senator Nampijinpa Price brought a delegation for all parliamentarians to hear Aboriginal voices from all over Australia—Arnhem Land, Cowra, Ngukurr, Redfern and the ACT—who do not believe the solution is a Canberra based government body. Why did Labor refuse to listen to their voices?

Prime Minister Albanese's Voice is based on a false ideology that Indigenous Australians are inherently disadvantaged by race—that a university educated person of Aboriginal descent on a good public service salary in a leafy Canberra suburb faces the same challenges as an unemployed kid who didn't finish school in a regional or remote community. The Uluru statement speaks of high rates of incarceration within Aboriginal populations. While people are afraid to go to sleep at night in Alice Springs, should they take comfort that the solution lies in Prime Minister Albanese's proposed voice?

The government has also given us a $40 million commitment for on-country learning to encourage school attendance. When will the government tell us what on-country learning looks like and how it will be measured? The Labor 2023-24 budget includes a commitment to establish a national peak body for First Nations family safety. Is this not the creation of another Indigenous voice? In the absence of this new peak body, are stakeholders not really heard by this government? Will the government show us how Prime Minister Albanese's Voice will make a practical difference in the lives of disadvantaged Australians? It's long been held that this should be a bipartisan approach and that not doing that would be damaging to the cause. Why has the Prime Minister adopted a 'my way or the highway' approach to the establishment of the Voice?

National Indigenous Australians Agency documents from the original working group released under freedom of information laws state, 'Any voice to parliament should be designed so that it could support and promote a treaty-making process,' and:

Treaty must include:

…   …   …

The documents released by the National Indigenous Australians Agency say:

… the Dialogues discussed that a Treaty could include a proper say in decision-making, the establishment of a truth commission, reparations, a financial settlement (such as seeking a percentage of GDP), the resolution of land, water and resources issues, recognition of authority and customary law, and guarantees of respect for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Is it the minister's understanding that these are the elements that will form treaty, as per the government's position to adopt the Uluru statement in full? Why has the government funded the independent makarrata commission to the tune of $5.8 billion if this is not a pathway to take a percentage of GDP? Can the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister explain why the Labor government won't legislate the voice? Why does the government want to spend $360 million on a referendum when it could be legislated immediately for free?

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