James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The next time that we come together as a parliament, this referendum will have been held, and we will have the results and the message from the people of Australia as to their view on this proposal that the Labor government are putting to them. We won't just have the results of the national vote or the results from the states; we'll have the results from every electorate, from every booth, and we will know exactly what our communities' view is—whether our electorates have voted for this or against it. I quite genuinely commend members of the government who are in here right now absolutely doubling down on the fact that this is the most important thing that the government that they are a member of is doing or will do, and that the fortunes of their government and a judgement about their government will be made by the people of this country on 14 October. When we're back here, we can have another discussion about the view of the communities, the view of the electorates of everyone here—what our electorates have said to us about this proposal—and whether or not our electorates support the position that we've taken or the position that other people have taken.

A year ago, when we started talking about moving towards holding this referendum, I was hopeful that something could occur that would see some unity around recognition of Indigenous people in the Constitution. Regrettably, I came to form the view, through all of my observations of the behaviour of those opposite from the Prime Minister down, that the Prime Minister wanted two things: to have the referendum that we're now having and to divide and destroy the opposition in the process. He wanted to put us in a position where he would put something through to us that we could never possibly support. Indeed, he followed through on that. I suspect his judgement at the time was that he was going to win this referendum and split the coalition, and achieve two famous victories in one fell swoop. That is obviously completely out the window now.

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