Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear that too many Indigenous Australians still are experiencing unacceptable disadvantage. That is clear. That breaks my heart. It breaks our collective hearts. It is unacceptable. Now is our defining moment to work together to bring about real change and to close the gap. The question before us is not about whether our First Nations people should be heard. Of course they should be heard. The question before us is not whether we should recognise Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution of Australia. Of course, we should. That is a fact. The question before us is whether altering the Constitution is the right mechanism to bring about lasting improvement on the ground to those heartbreaking statistics that we hear and to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples so that they live a better life in a better community.

As Australians make their deliberations, I urge them to look inside their hearts and to ask themselves this question: Am I 100 per cent sure that making this decision on this referendum is the right decision? And am I certain that that will change outcomes on the ground for Indigenous kids in the next generation? Changing the Constitution is an appropriate mechanism and that will bring about, as I said, improved outcomes for our First Nations people. I do so from a very heartfelt position.

I think back to my time in NORFORCE. NORFORCE is an Army unit which is responsible for surveillance and reconnaissance in remote northern Australia. It is where we involve our Indigenous communities, our Indigenous soldiers. We sign them up, and they protect our coastlines. We are trained to live in the bush there, mostly by the aunties. I remember looking into their eyes, as they taught me schools that kept me alive. I can't explain to this place the amount of love and respect that I have for those aunties. I still today remember them.

I still today remember some of those diggers that I took on who had no future at all. I had one bloke who came to me with a torn pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a toothbrush. He had no future at all. He was in trouble with the law and they gave him to me to sort him out. Well, that soldier, after some training and some leadership, led a team from the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment into Afghanistan and won a medal for gallantry for leading a team. He now has the respect of his community, and young kids from the community are also signing up for NORFORCE.

So you see what I mean about the infectious nature of lifting self-esteem, of raising the confidence level, of showing that leadership. But it needs to happen on the ground. It needs to happen where the herd is. That leadership needs to come from those leaders on the ground, and that is where we need to focus, not on some elitist committee in Canberra. On the ground where the herd is.

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