Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

This debate is about how we respond to an invitation—an invitation that came through the Uluru Statement from the Heart. When we hear from those opposite about what efforts could be made for bipartisanship, can I say the pattern that we've seen this time is not unfamiliar to people who've followed some of these debates over many years. I remember what was said in the fear campaign that was run during the Mabo debate. I remember what was said for years. A lot has been made of the walkout during the apology, but let's not forget the years between the Bringing them home report, when it was argued, again and again, what a disaster it would be if the apology happened. And now, in response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, what we're seeing is the same thing again.

I think those opposite underestimate the generosity of a whole lot of Liberal Party and National Party voters. I really do. If you think about the process of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, none of us knew where it was going to end. It's a political game to try to say, 'This is the government's idea.' None of us knew where the Uluru Statement from the Heart was going to end up. When it was delivered, it was delivered to us all at once, and there was actually a time when the Liberal-National government was considering how it would respond. This goes back a very long time. This is not a process of a few months, as previous speakers have claimed.

When the Uluru Statement from the Heart came forward, one of the things that was extraordinary about it was that, for all the things it could have asked for, the ask was so modest and the language was so generous. In terms of explaining the problem, a lot has been quoted from the end, but let's not forget the problem being described in the middle of that statement:

Proportionately, we are the most incarcerated people on 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.

Faced with all of that, what the statement asks is that recognition occur through a body called a Voice. Why is the government asking for recognition through a Voice? It's because that's exactly what the process requested—a process that was supported by the previous government while it was happening.

You say, 'These are the questions that are being asked.' How could you look at the circumstances that so many communities are facing and think that when adult incarceration is 14 times higher the Voice will come back wanting to talk about the Reserve Bank? Or that when children in out-of-home care are almost 12 times higher that it's going to want to make recommendations about Fair Work Commission appointments? Or that when year 12 attainment is so low—for non-Indigenous it's 90 per cent and for Indigenous it's 68 per cent—that it will want to make recommendations about submarines? Life expectancy for males is 71 if you're Indigenous and 80 if you're non-Indigenous. We all know that gap is there, and we all know that every single person on the Voice will know that it's there. Do we really think they're going to want to advise not on that but on the location of defence bases? Do not pretend that those opposite are doing anything other than what they are doing. I know some people have been caught in a party decision, but this is an attempt to undermine something which is a modest proposal. It is simply saying, 'After all of the history and all of the challenges, we want to be recognised and we want to be listened to.'

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