Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With your indulgence, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to hang a T-shirt over the front here, which I am sure other members participating in this debate may also like to do. It is the education campaign that is a part of trying to get constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is the You Me Unity campaign and people can go to the website to engage.

The Australian Constitution is more than 100 years old and has provided a durable framework for the governments of the nation. On the town green in my hometown, Port Macquarie, sits a bronze statue of Edmund Barton, who was the state member for the area at the time of the formation of the Commonwealth, and Australia's first Prime Minister. So I live in a community that recognises the place of the Australian Constitution and its importance to the development of Australia as a whole. However, I do think it is reflective of the time and the interests of the men who drafted it but, since the 1967 referendum, it still makes no reference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people whatsoever. It was drafted at a time when the legal status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was in question, so much so that some references suggest that the legal status of an Aboriginal person was no more than that of flora or fauna.

I would hope that we in Australia today can do better. We in Australia today have an opportunity to make some small changes to our Constitution and to do some unfinished business. This is not about three per cent of Australia's population making a claim on our crown document. This is about 100 per cent of Australia finding a path where we recognise our stories of the past, for good and for bad, and finding a way to form a partnership for the future. Our lead document should refer to our unique and oldest culture in the world. It should celebrate some of the extraordinary parts of that culture, whether that is Aboriginal languages, culture and heritage or whether that is, by inference, Dreaming, connection to land or connection to place. These are all part of the Australian story, not just the Aboriginal and Torres Islander story. So, again, I look for celebration through this process of You Me Unity trying to get a referendum question put to the Australian people and for a majority vote in support of the question put.

I was humbled to participate in the expert panel. The work was outstanding. The panel was co-chaired by Mark Leibler and Pat Dodson, both excellent men doing excellent work, and I thank them for the work they did. I thank all panel members for their considerations and reflections and for looking at the bigger picture when at times it would have been very easy to get lost in some of the personality clashes in a room of 22 people or in some of the conflicts over detail in what is a complex issue to try to resolve. Between May and October last year over 200 consultations were held throughout Australia in 80 locations. The panel received about 2,500 submissions. The consultation was extensive.

I take this opportunity to reaffirm to the House that this is not some elitist push; it is not some left-wing latte-drinking waste of time and money; it is a groundswell in Australia that wants this issue dealt with. Ordinary people want this issue dealt with. Communities in regional areas with quite large Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations want this issue dealt with. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people themselves want this issue dealt with. I hope we respect that and I hope we as public policy makers do what we can to put a referendum to the people and do what we can to get a majority yes vote. It matters.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having the first Australians recognised as part of the Constitution is coalition policy going back many years. The coalition has a proud history of support for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A move to have something meaningful and worthwhile included in the Constitution preamble was seen as a good starting point. Making constitutional change is a difficult process. To date, 44 referenda have been held, of which only eight have been carried. To ensure that a referendum including Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders passes and, for that matter, one recognising local government would require taking the people along with the spirit of why change is considered necessary. This would not have been easy in the past, nor will it be a smooth passage if and when constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is put to all Australian voters in the future.

The preamble of the Constitution is not subject to interpretation by the courts, and that is an important factor when this issue is being debated and decided. That is why there was a move to push for suitable recognition within the preamble wording. In 1999, however, the coalition's referendum proposing a preamble inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders was defeated. Further proposals for constitutional recognition were taken by the coalition to the 2007 election. However, Labor under Kevin Rudd won office.

A 300-page report was released on 19 January 2012 by an expert panel of 19 people. If adopted, it would seek to place recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia's history by appropriate words being included in the Constitution and to remove all provisions of the Constitution which are plainly of a racially discriminatory character. The suggestion is to include, as proposed section 51A, words effectively recognising that Australia was first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; acknowledging their continuing relationship with traditional lands and waters; respecting their continuing cultures, languages and heritage; and acknowledging the need to secure their advancement. These are admirable sentiments—words which go to the heart of what most fair-minded Australians would agree to and uphold. Proposed section 116A, prohibiting racial discrimination, and proposed section 127A, recognising their language, are also on the surface reasonable and timely.

As an aside, but important in the context when talking about Aboriginal language, I must praise the extraordinary work of authors and compilers of A New Dictionary of Wiradjuri, Stan Grant and John Rudder, both from my region. They have been diligently working together since 1997 to see Wiradjuri language learned and spoken again.

Stan also works with youth who are getting their lives together at Tirkandi Inaburra, near Coleambally, a community-run development and educational centre offering Aboriginal boys aged 12 to 15 a residential program aimed at reducing future contact with the criminal justice system by strengthening cultural identity, self-esteem and resilience. The centre is having a positive impact on the lives of those who have been mentored there.

Indeed, the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, Nigel Scullion, who visited Tirkandi Inaburra on 2 December last year, believes the concept ought to be replicated right across Australia. On the matter before us of constitutional recognition, Senator Scullion is on the record as saying:

… special clauses about discrimination will lead to a much wider debate about multiculturalism and I think the debate will really ambush the process.

He is right, of course.

As to the recent announcement of the expert panel's report, the Leader of the Opposition said, 'My aim is to achieve unity.' The slogan on the T-shirt just displayed by the member for Lyne reads: 'YouMeUnity.' We all want unity. Importantly, all Australians want to see respectful and adequate recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

As I said in my inaugural speech:

Nationally we need to do more for Aboriginal health to increase the life expectancy and standard of living of our first nation people.

Help needs to go where it is most needed. Words are one thing—spoken, as in saying sorry, or in a document such as the Constitution—but genuine, urgently needed actions, such as better health, more affordable housing and greater job prospects for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in rural and remote areas, are of critical importance if we as a nation are to truly achieve unity and harmony. The money is there to achieve such goals; it just needs to be apportioned to where it is most needed.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the honourable member for Lyne for putting this motion before the parliament so we can speak to it. I am very familiar with the content of the motion because it is the recommendations from the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians. I served on that panel with the honourable member for Lyne, the honourable member for Hasluck and Senator the Hon. Rachel Siewert, from Western Australia. I would like to read some of the things I said about it in a statement I made at home, in my local community. I was asked, 'What does all this mean and where do we go to now?' I would also like to talk briefly about the grassroots campaign that is starting with Reconciliation Australia.

In December 2010 I received a telephone call from Minister Jenny Macklin asking me on behalf of the Prime Minister whether I would serve on the expert panel. I said yes, feeling excited to be given an historic opportunity to be part of a process that could be of both symbolic and practical significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and all Australians and that could also contribute to reconciliation and healing. As a long-term member of the Australian Labor Party, the apology and constitutional recognition are two of the policy positions that we have debated, discussed, come to and promoted for a long time, so I felt quite privileged and quite pleased. Constitutional recognition had the support of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Independents, the Greens and everyone else in the parliament at the time, so we started from a good base, particularly with the two major parties supporting it. That was a really good basis to go into the expert panel with. Of course the debate was always going to be, and always will be, around what form that takes, which is as it should be.

There were 22 members across a spectrum on that panel. I said earlier today in another debate in this place that it was challenging. It was wonderful and it was challenging to be part of a group of such strong minded people, all with views, who have all made a great contribution to Australian life. Some of them are known and some are not so known. The co-chairs, Mark Leiber and Patrick Dodson, did a wonderful job keeping us focused on recommendations which were meaningful and which would gel with Australians but never losing sight of what we had to do, which was give meaningful recognition in the Constitution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The four principles that we adopted were that whatever we came up with had to be legally and technically sound; had to be of benefit to and in accord with the wishes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; had to be capable of being supported by an overwhelming majority of Australians from across the political and social spectrums; and had to contribute to a more unified and reconciled nation.

It was no easy task to sit around and come up with something that was meaningful. There were 200 public consultations across 84 communities. Two were held in Grafton and Lismore. The honourable member for Lyne and I conducted the one in Lismore. Like anything, we started off at the time saying we wanted Rolls-Royce, which is normal, whatever it may be. But people would say, 'Look, we do want this recognition and we don't want this to fail. We want this to get through. So we want you in the parliament and you the parties to do something that actually gets through. We want this. This is the time to do it.' That was agreed by everybody in all of the consultations that we had. To achieve this, there was absolute agreement all across Australia to remove section 25. Most people do not know it, but when they do get to know it of course they say that this is something that just has to go.

I would like to commend, You Me Unity—yes, I have the t-shirts, yes I have the badges, yes I have all of those things for the great— (Time expired)

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of the federal parliamentary National Party, I want to put on record that the Nationals hold the strong belief that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be held in high respect by the community for the special and unique contribution that they have made to the nation, not only in its ancient history but in its current identity and its future prosperity.

The Nationals believe that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, like all Australian citizens, are entitled to self-determination to pursue economic prosperity and social cohesion free from constraints and without prejudice. In that vein, we believe that the Australian Constitution should make reference to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and we encourage the government, the parliament and all political parties, for that matter, to foster public discussion on changing the preamble to reflect the importance of the place that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people actually hold in this nation.

But at the same time we recognise there is a need for a shift in policy direction; a shift from the old government-knows-best approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being able to take responsibility for themselves and their families. When I talk to people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent in the Mackay region and right throughout the Dawson electorate, they say to me that this is what they mean by self-determination. So while I strongly support the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in our Constitution and strongly support the repeal of any sections based on race or race powers—section 25, section 51 and subsection 25—I do not support their replacement with another clause that will simply perpetuate discrimination.

What they should be replaced with is a clause banning the federal government from actually making laws based on race. There have been many success stories in improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people when they were able to gain access to the same services as many others in our society. We see our nation's first people establishing long-term employment and conducting happy family lives without the need for anything further from government when we can get them into the mainstream. I believe we have to ensure that mainstream government services are delivered in an culturally appropriate manner according to the clientele, of course. But we should begin that move to providing services in a mainstream delivery fashion rather than by the multiple specifically Indigenous assistance programs which are out there.

This will not be the outcome if we have a clause placed in the Constitution which allows governments to continue with discrimination, whether it is positive or otherwise, toward Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Keeping these separate systems in place is really just creating a silo for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues instead of addressing the needs of them with all other Australians, and ensuring that when government policy is directed at improving the lives of all Australians that that includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This view is partially shared—not fully I have to say—by Noel Pearson, who does say that if that section of the Constitution is to be removed and an antiracial discrimination clause is not included, then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will go backwards. Another respected Aboriginal Australian, Warren Mundine, goes further in his opposition to proposals to make laws for the advancement of Aboriginal people. He fears that that would lead to protection for predatory traditional customs such as child brides. He calls it a Pandora's box.

Before this got to this parliament, people were talking about it in the Samuel Griffith Society which I was associated with in the past. Lawyer and former Dean of the Melbourne Law School, Colin Howard, put that these sections of the Constitution should be pulled. He said that it is high time that laws based on race be recognised for the irrational nonsense that they are. In saying that while there is a lot of good, he pointed out that race as a basis for making rational law is self-contradictory, because there is only one race and that is the human race. I agree with Dr Howard that we need to erase racism and discrimination from our Constitution even if it is reverse racism. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.