Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

What I'm committed to, post the referendum, is respecting what Indigenous people have said, and what they have said is that they are undertaking a week, which is reasonable, for them to deal with what for many people—regardless of the way people voted in this referendum, I think it would be acknowledged that, for many people, such as for the women, the Anangu leadership, who I sat with in the red dirt of Uluru last week, it will be a difficult time, and I think that should be respected.

One of the things about this issue is that I have sought to grant agency to Indigenous Australians, to accept the invitation that they offered, that they worked through, that they had hundreds of meetings—involving thousands of people—about.

Now, the Voice, with constitutional recognition, was important. Makarrata is simply a Yolngu word for 'coming together after struggle'. I think it's a good thing that people come together, and I made it very clear on Saturday night that that is my position. I think that that is a reasonable thing to say and, in terms of where we go from here, I note that there has been a change of position again from the opposition when it comes to constitutional recognition. The Leader of the Opposition said during this process, in September:

We went to the last election and a number of elections before that with that as our policy, and that will be our policy going into the next as well. I think it's right and respectful to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.

Just think about that. They went to a number of elections with this as a promise. If only they'd been elected in 2016 and 2019, they might have fulfilled it!

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