Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

After a process—which really began under the Howard government—of seeking to recognise our Indigenous Australians in the Constitution, it was actually the Abbott Liberal government which made the very wise call of saying to this nation that the way in which we should recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution is by asking Indigenous Australians how they want that to occur. Now, that is something we agreed with. As a result of that, we saw hundreds of meetings of Indigenous Australians around this country, involving thousands of people, which led to the meeting at Uluru in 2017, which gave rise to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Now, at that point, that had been a process which had been bipartisan—bipartisan in the sense that, if you look at those people who held the portfolio for the Liberal Party, they were working on that. Ken Wyatt—no longer a member of the Liberal Party. Julian Leeser, the person appointed by the Leader of the Opposition—

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