Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today with great pleasure to support this very important bill, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012, which recognises the distinctive and unique place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first peoples of our nation. The Labor Party has a long and proud record of supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As we heard yesterday from the Prime Minister, our efforts in closing the gap show our commitment and genuine desire to advance Indigenous Australia and also to recognise historic wrongs and injustices. I commend the Prime Minister for her courage in standing up to state and territory governments who turn their backs on the serious social and economic problems that affect some communities.

The bill before us is another measure Labor is taking to advance Indigenous Australia and promote reconciliation because Labor has always been a party that advances Indigenous Australia and the process of reconciliation and respect. It was Gough Whitlam who championed land rights and upgraded the office of Aboriginal affairs to ministerial level. It was under Labor that Uluru was handed back to its traditional owners. It was under Labor that the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was established. In 1989 it was Labor that passed a resolution on Indigenous prior ownership and dispossession, and it is worth noting that this was opposed by the Liberal Party.

In 1992 it was Labor's Paul Keating who delivered his landmark Redfern speech at the launch of the International Year of Indigenous People. There Mr Keating articulated the goal of all in Labor when he said:

… we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the indigenous people of Australia—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

And last year, on the 20th anniversary of the historic High Court Mabo native title decision, our former Attorney-General Nicola Roxon remarked:

The Mabo decision marked a turning point for reconciliation in Australia.

The Attorney-General echoed all our sentiments—all in Labor—when she said Mabo:

… was a significant step forward in truly recognising the proud history of the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures on our planet.

It was on 13 February 2008 when Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the stolen generations in what was one of the most moving and significant moments this parliament has ever seen. And yesterday Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered her Closing the Gap statement that highlighted the great progress this government is making to ensure more Indigenous children than ever before are getting access to preschool. As the Prime Minister said, 95 per cent of Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities are now enrolled in preschool. It is an extraordinary achievement, and anyone who saw the images last night on television would celebrate that. This is just one measure where we are closing the gap.

Now we have more landmark Labor legislation in the form of a provisional measure, a starting point on the road to formal recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution. As we work towards that goal, this bill will go a long way in raising public awareness and building a national consensus in Australia for constitutional change. Labor has committed $10 million to support this campaign, and the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians, a body established by the Labor government, came up with a package of recommended constitutional amendments that they considered would be successful at a national referendum. But we recognise that a referendum must be held at a time when it has the most chance of success. That is vitally important, and this was something that the expert panel recommended.

I understand that much work is already underway in laying the groundwork for constitutional change, and among these measures are the reconciliation action plans—business plans that craft meaningful relationships and produce sustainable opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Since the program's inception, over 300 Australian corporations, governments, government agencies and community organisations have signed up to reconciliation action plans, and the expert panel has played a leading role in this process of laying the groundwork, as has Reconciliation Australia, which has previously done a lot to raise public awareness and support for constitutional change.

I was involved in developing the reconciliation action plan for the Department of Defence, an enormously comprehensive plan that took about a year in negotiation and consultation with all arms of Defence. It was, I understand, the first reconciliation action plan that was introduced in government agencies. It was an absolute tome, and I commend and congratulate the Department of Defence for the efforts that they put into this in really wanting to achieve reconciliation and understanding across the behemoth that is Defence. There are so many different arms, so the reconciliation action plan has a specific section for Navy, a specific section for Army, a specific section for Air Force and specific sections for the various agencies and arms of Defence, including DSTO and what at that stage was the Defence Support Group. Right across the organisation and right across Australia, every part of it was touched by this reconciliation action plan.

It was not just a case of lovely words and great design; there were substantial KPIs and tight time lines in there on what needed to be achieved by a particular date, such as what Navy needed to do not just in addressing and improving access of Indigenous Australians to Navy but also in terms of improving cultural understanding. That is particularly important in every government agency, and it is particularly true for Defence, even though they have a very strong track record of achievement in this area, particularly with NORFORCE up north; I understand that about 95 per cent of NORFORCE comprises Indigenous Australians. So it was a comprehensive and extraordinary body of work that was developed through extensive consultation over quite a bit of time, and I commend and congratulate Defence, as I said. I understand that there have been a number of iterations since then. Defence also, in a way, led the way for other government agencies with their work. I was involved in the launch of that first reconciliation action plan. There was the smoking ceremony. It was conducted with great dignity and also with great respect and a large degree of involvement of the Indigenous community in the launch of the event. Defence also has Indigenous Defence personnel drawn from all over the country, from civilian and military areas. They advise and assist, and they are the management in Defence on what is appropriate for their communities both in a working environment and in a social and economic environment. So, again, hats off to Defence for that extraordinary work on the reconciliation action plan.

It is just wonderful to see that so many Australian organisations—private, public and community—have signed up for these plans, because the benefit of these plans is the fact that they focus the organisation on the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander community needs. It is not just a case of writing these papers; the key word is 'action', so they outline some objectives on what they want to achieve and then how they are going to achieve, it, and it focuses everyone's attention on the fact that, 'Okay, there is this gap here, and we need to fill it and address it, and this is how we're going to do it.' So everyone is mobilised and there is a broad sense of ownership in that organisation in achieving more equitable outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

When the expert panel delivered its report to the government early last year recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution, there was a clear acknowledgement that in Australia there is not a great deal of support or awareness for the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. In my electorate of Canberra there is a very strong level of support for formal recognition. I have received a number of emails on it and Canberrans are 110 per cent behind this.

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, just from prayers each morning, the ACT is the home of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. They are the original inhabitants and their traditional lands do not just encompass Canberra but much of the area around the ACT region. The Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples have inhabited this area, including the land that this parliament is built on, for about 20,000 years. Along with all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, they warrant formal recognition, and so many Canberrans are supportive of this. Like me, there are many in the electorate who are equally passionate about recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution.

It is the small investments, the on-the-ground projects, that are making the difference. Here in my electorate the government's Find Your Science Hero project was developed by the Questacon ScienceLines Indigenous Outreach Program to complement and work with the ACT Department of Education and Training's Indigenous Student Aspirations program. The Find Your Science Hero project was developed by ScienceLines, in response to lower levels of engagement with the sciences amongst young Indigenous students. We have low levels of engagement by students in science across Australia, particularly so with young Indigenous students. The project challenged the students' notions about what science is and who uses science. With the help of the ScienceLines team, students made a personal connection to science by identifying a 'science hero' from within their own family or community. It is a great idea. The ScienceLines team offered the students who participated in Find Your Science Hero the opportunity to present their projects at a public event held at Questacon during National Reconciliation Week last year. I understand that the presentations were inspirational. Many people attending reported that it was one of the best events held in Canberra during that week. That is just one example of Labor's commitment to respect and recognition.

As I said before, we concur with the expert panel that it is important for a referendum to be held at a time when it has the most chance of success. As we all know, referendums in this country are not often passed; they involve a huge amount of agreement across the entire nation. This issue certainly has the potential to undermine the reconciliation process between Australia's first peoples and the broader community. That is why we are starting with this bill. It signifies our desire to pursue meaningful change to the Constitution that echoes the hopes and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In saying this, it is important to stress that this is not a substitute for constitutional recognition. This bill does not include all of the recommendations of the expert panel as many of the recommendations specifically refer to sections of the Constitution. This bill creates a mechanism where all Australians can become familiar with and aware of the possible wording for a constitutional statement that could be included in a referendum in the future on the constitutional recognition. So in many respects this bill is part of the ongoing conversation that needs to be held in the lead-up to constitutional change. There are many reasons why this bill is so important in the long-awaited recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is critical to this nation that we recognise the first peoples and finally give them the respect and formal acknowledgments that are long overdue. It is equally critical that we educate and inform the Australian people—all of them—about why we are proposing this and what it means. We also need to show how successfully this has been achieved in other countries. This is why we have committed $10 million to establish a public awareness campaign and build on community support.

Formal recognition and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, wherever they are—Cobourg Peninsula, Bamaga, Nullumbuy, Thursday Island, Redfern, Townsville or over in the west—should not be a divisive or controversial issue; it should be a process that unites all Australians in recognising our first peoples' unique history, culture and connection to this land. It is an important step in Australia's history and a process I hope all members of parliament will support and embrace.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012. This bill is a short step in a long journey that we as Australians are taking towards healing hearts and minds. This bill represents not the first or the last stop on our journey but one along the way of recognising the important role that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples play and the place they hold in our nation's history, the current day and into our future.

In recent years our nation has made significant progress towards restoring the relationship between all Australians. Leaders on both sides of the political fence have been instrumental in achieving what we have thus far. Some 20 years ago, in December 1992, the then Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered the significant Redfern speech at the Australian launch of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. Mr Keating said:

This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are what we should be—truly the land of the fair go and the better chance.

…   …   …

Perhaps when we recognise what we have in common we will see the things which must be done—the practical things.

…   …   …

The message should be that there is nothing to fear or lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include Indigenous Australians. There is everything to gain.

These words were an important beginning to a healing process for our country and, having been there at the time, it was quite a moving event. Other leaders have also contributed to the public sphere about this issue, making lasting impressions on Australia's culture through their words of leadership.

In 2008, in his national apology speech, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said to the parliament:

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future. Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.

…   …   …

Because a time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great Commonwealth, for all Australians—those who are Indigenous and those who are not—to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

The Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson MP, then Leader of the Opposition, cited Neville Bonner in his response to the apology. The first Aboriginal Australian who came to this parliament was Neville Bonner. He said in prophetic words to the Liberal Party members who selected him:

In my experience of this world, two qualities are always in greater need—human understanding and compassion.

Dr Nelson said it well. These qualities are abundant in Australia and the reconciliation process has been a manifestation of this as Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have walked together to strengthen our collective society.

This bill that we are discussing today is not the final stop in our journey. Instead, this bill is a single point that allows us to look behind to see what we have achieved, and we have achieved much, and to look ahead to see the distance yet to travel. Yet, from this point forward, there is a greater understanding that there are ways that this parliament and the people of Australia can come together to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I believe the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has picked up on a growing consensus in our nation. Mr Abbott said in his Closing the Gap speech:

There is a new spirit in this land. There is a new spirit which reaches out to embrace the Indigenous people of this country, so different from the spirit that was abroad when the Prime Minister and I were young. It is a tribute to so many people in this place and around our country that this is now the case.

This bill is a small step in a long journey that we as Australians are taking towards healing. It recognises the unique and special place of the first peoples of our nation. It is the product of a growing number of Australians who understand that for our nation to prosper in the future all Australians need to be brought on this journey together.

This bill is the result of the extensive work of an expert panel tasked with engaging the Australian public, both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians. The expert panel was charged with determining possible options for constitutional change. Additionally, the expert panel was tasked with refining proposals for a referendum and building support necessary for successful constitutional change. The expert panel chair, affectionately known as the 'father of reconciliation', Patrick Dodson, set about the expert panel being convened. He said:

We're gathered to take a remarkable step forward. Forward to a nation that acknowledges its history, its heritage in its founding document. Forward to a nation who stands up to be counted as opponents of racism and proponents of recognition.

The panel's engagement process was a thorough, national consultation open to many considerations. Over the past two years I have been a part of this expert panel and we have handed down a series of recommendations that this bill now refers to. The report reflects the gamut of propositions posed by all of the people involved in the consultation process, and it was the view of the panel that, out of the consultation process, we should encapsulate for the prosperity of this nation, and for its history, the range of propositions put forward by both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians. We thought that it should be captured so that the record of the day stands for the future for those who wish to reflect back upon it and take components of it to the next step in the history of this nation being as one.

Specifically, the report recommended the removal of section 25, which contemplates: the possibility of state laws disqualifying people from voting in state elections on the basis of their race; the removal of section 51(xxvi), which can be used by the Commonwealth to enact legislation to discriminate for or against people on the basis of their race; the insertion of new section 51A to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian government's ability to pass law for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; the insertion of new section 116A to ban racial discrimination by the Commonwealth; and the insertion of new section 127A to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages as this country's first tongues while confirming that English is Australia's national language. These suggested constitutional amendments need to be considered and a decision needs to be made by this parliament as to what the proposed changes are likely to gain, and what broad base of support needs to be obtained from the Australian community for it to be successful in a referendum.

As a member of the panel and, now, of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I have been particularly conscious of the difficulty in securing amendments to the Constitution. Only eight of 44 previous proposals to amend our Constitution have been successful, and it has been some 36 years since the last successful constitutional referendum. For an issue as important as this it is important that any proposal has the united support of the parliament and that it is truly bipartisan in nature.

This bill highlights the grave importance of education and awareness in the Australian community. We are conscious that there are still some in our society who are resistant to change. Until there has been a broad-reaching national awareness about the options forward we cannot consider further action. The Constitution must reflect the views of all Australians, and any proposed changes must be given a fair hearing through public education and awareness before a referendum is considered. But I believe our nation will be ready for such a change in our Constitution when the appropriate time comes.

There is significant bipartisan support for constitutional recognition. The Prime Minister herself, in January 2012, said 'the recognition of Indigenous people in the Constitution is another step in that journey' of building trust and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. She said it is 'a step that is critical to our efforts to close the gap'. The Leader of the Opposition has also iterated his support of this issue, and in speaking on what he has observed in the attitudes held by Australians has said:

… we accept that millions of Australians' hopes and dreams are resting on constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. … It is very important that we should appropriately acknowledge the place of Indigenous people at the heart of modern Australia.

I commend much of the efforts that have been made thus far by groups including, but not limited to, You Me Unity. It is clear that although the consensus of the public has changed significantly since the process began, there is still some distance to go. This process will not be complete until the views of all Australians are reflected in our Constitution. This process will not be complete until the people of Australia have been given the fair opportunity to weigh up the options for constitutional change and make their personal assessment on this.

This bill highlights that it is an important process to hold a referendum when there is the most chance of success. It is impossible to predict at this point in our journey exactly when this will be. But most importantly we will need to understand that this is not a process that can be rushed. Awareness and support takes time to build. It is vital to note that this bill is not intended to act as a substitute for constitutional recognition. This bill merely foreshadows the importance of raising public awareness in order to achieve the recommendations of the expert panel. It is clear that the journey is one that, as a nation, has far to go. As the You Me Unity campaign declares:

It’s time for us to recognise the first Australians. Let's write the opening chapter of our national story into our founding document of law

One of the challenges that we will need to contemplate, as members of the Australian parliament, is our own role in influencing awareness within our electorates and within the roles that we play, and also the way in which we engage with the broader community. If a referendum is to be successful, then it requires 150-plus members of this parliament to play their active role in ensuring that the discussions are balanced, that the discussions contemplate where is that we need to take Australia in the future. To walk together as a nation, to build Australia in the way that does not reflect the past but reflects the opportunities that engage us in understanding.

It is not dissimilar to the period in which we had the bicentennial celebrations. When we celebrated that, it was fascinating watching the number of people who sought links back to the convicts on those early ships that came to Australia. When they found them, they were proud to announce that they had convict heritage. Australia had matured considerably to accept that there was a convict past, but it was the recognition of the connectivity of family to the past was equally important to them in the bicentennial year as it is today. I would hope that in the future the connectivity to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of this country will become equally as important to every Australian, and that they will see the relationship that they have established either by marriage or through the work that they have done together, and they will walk together. Let us take this step—another step forward—towards healing the hearts and minds of all Australians. I commend the bill to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating, on 10 December 1992, when launching the Year of the World's Indigenous People, delivered a speech in Redfern Park, which the previous speaker, the member for Hasluck, referred to. Mr Keating said this, in one part of his speech:

More I think than most Australians recognise, the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all.

He said that in Redfern. Tomorrow in Redfern, I will chair the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence. My electorate has been badly flooded and affected by the disasters in Queensland, but I have done almost as much media in relation to that event tomorrow as I have done in relation to the floods which have affected Ipswich and Somerset in my electorate. Tomorrow will have peak bodies, business bodies and Indigenous bodies. The National Farmers Federation will be there, and the Minerals Council will be there. That would not have happened 20 years ago before the Mabo decision. Tomorrow we will discuss and look at amendments to native title legislation.

The Mabo decision, which the High Court of Australia handed down on 3 June 1992, legally recognised Indigenous people as having a special relationship to the land that existed prior to colonisation. But we have lived with the fiction in this country that Australia is a monolingual country. There were 250 Indigenous languages at the time of white colonial settlement. We now have only 18 languages spoken strongly in the sense that they are spoken by significant numbers across all age groups. We should celebrate the languages, the culture and the customs of Australia's first people—the original owners of the land for thousands and thousands of years.

We have seen a groundswell of activity and interest in preservation, maintenance and vitalisation of language in custom and culture. For Indigenous people land and language are one; culture and country are one. I have had the privilege of meeting many Indigenous people and visiting them in their traditional lands in regional and urban communities across the country. Indeed, in my electorate I have one of the largest Indigenous populations in Queensland. In fact, the electorate of Blair is named after Harold Blair, a very famous Indigenous civil rights activist and opera singer. Neville Bonner, the formal Liberal senator, comes from my home town of Ipswich as well—well respected on both sides of politics.

The House of Representatives committee I refer to presented our report in September 2012, Our land our languages, which deliberately said 'our land' and 'our languages' because they belong to all of us, following our inquiry into language learning in Indigenous communities.

There were a significant number of submissions to the inquiry, supporting the formal recognition of Australia's languages in the Constitution. This recognition was recommended by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner in the Social justice report2009. The commissioner recommended that the government commence a process to recognise Indigenous languages in the preamble of Australia's Constitution with a view to recognising Indigenous languages in the body of the Constitution in the future.

In December 2010, the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was tasked to report to the federal government on possible options for constitutional change to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their continuing culture, languages and heritage. The ATSIA committee in its report supported the recommendation of the expert panel that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages be recognised in the Constitution as Australia's first languages. The ATSIA committee held the view that the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians and their unique culture, languages and heritage is an important step forward for the country as a whole—for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia—'to ease the plight', as former Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, said in his famous Redfern speech. Constitutional recognition of Indigenous languages became one of the committee's recommendations coming out of that inquiry—recommendation No. 8.

I want to commend the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Minister, the Prime Minister, the previous Attorney-General and the current Attorney-General for their advocacy in relation to the constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. Indeed, the current Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, and I were both members of the legal and constitutional committee of the House of Representatives in the last parliament—he chaired it. We had a roundtable here in Canberra, and the issues in relation to constitutional recognition of Indigenous people certainly came to the fore during that roundtable and that meeting.

We have only had eight referenda pass out of 44, and only when both sides of politics support it and support it fully. It is the case that there needs to be not just preparation but also a groundswell of support for constitutional recognition to take place; a need for the raising of awareness and building a national consensus for constitutional change. This week the Prime Minister acknowledged that we still have a long way to go in 'closing the gap', although there have been changes and improvements.

In November 2010 I became the chair of the House of Representatives ATSIA committee and took over what was then part-way through, the inquiry into the high level of involvement of Indigenous juvenile and young adults in the criminal justice system and how they interacted around the country. We handed down a report in June 2011 called Doing Time - Time For Doing: Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system.Essentially, we found that Indigenous juvenile incarceration rates had not improved since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, some 20 years prior. Tragically, Indigenous juveniles and young adults are more likely to be incarcerated today than at any time since 1991. That report concluded that contact with the criminal justice systems represented a symptom of the broader social and economic disadvantage faced by many Indigenous people in Australia. We have reached the point in this country of intergenerational family dysfunction in many Indigenous communities. The problems of domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, inadequate housing, poor health and school attendance, and a lack of job skills and employment opportunities are impacting on the next generation of Indigenous Australians.

In our previous report we heard evidence of a lack of school attendance in the Northern Territory and Western Australia in particular. It was disheartening and frightening to think that young people would be so truant from school, their parents so lacking in interest in getting them there, and authorities so unwilling or reluctant to actually take steps to ensure they attend school. Completing school means that a person is more likely to get a job, more likely to get a better education at tertiary level, more likely to be included in the fabric of civil and community life and less likely to engage in miscreant behaviour and criminal activity. We found there was a loss of cultural knowledge in many Indigenous communities which had seen disruption of traditional values and norms of appropriate social behaviour being transferred altruistically and for the good of one generation to the next.

There has never been a more important time to stop this disconnection of Indigenous Australians from their culture and heritage and make sure that non-Indigenous Australians respect that Indigenous culture and heritage and embrace it. One thing I would like to see in this place—and we recommended this in our report—is that the Commonwealth parliament demonstrate its leadership and recognition and valuing of Indigenous languages by incorporating Indigenous languages in the Parliament House building and the operations of parliament. Sadly, that has not been done. I urge the government and both sides of politics to think about that. Why shouldn't we have that language and that culture better represented in the halls of Australia's greatest assembly, where people come from all over the country—community groups, lobby groups, churches and sporting organisations—to represent their communities and to hear, to learn, to laugh and to love? Why shouldn't that be in the halls of Parliament House? It should be.

Unfortunately, we have not made the progress that Paul Keating acknowledged we needed to undertake 20 years ago. We are making steps, and I am pleased that there is a bipartisan approach to the steps we need to undertake. Paul Keating, in his Redfern speech, acknowledged that there was a lot more to done. He acknowledged that it was complex and that they could not separate one Australia from another. I have been to Redfern on many occasions. It is just a few kilometres from the place where the first European settlers landed. And Paul, I am sure, saw the legacy of devastation and demoralisation that European settlement brought to Indigenous Australians. I speak to the Indigenous elders in my community, and many of the women are the ones who are most forthright in relation to this; they are the ones who are most concerned about the next generation.

There is a lot of great work being done in schools, communities and churches in my community by Indigenous people. In fact, Narella Simpson was recognised this week in the Queensland Times for the great work she does with Indigenous young people. She recently gave me a badge, which I was so pleased to get. It is fantastic. It features the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags together. She always comes and gives me a kiss and a cuddle and she is a great mother to a lot of Indigenous young people. She is involved in the Murri Baptist Church, a church which my father, when he was alive, and my uncle helped rebuild and paint. It is on Brisbane Road in Ipswich. It is a great little community and Narella is a great person. It is great to see the Queensland Times recognise a local community champion for what she does in the Ipswich community.

This legislation, I think, is particularly important and I urge both sides of politics to get behind it. The member for Hasluck made a terrific speech today in relation to this issue. I am pleased to see the bipartisan approach. I was pleased to listen to speeches on this issue just yesterday and previously by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. It has not always been the case. I am pleased there is a purposefulness in our community towards this. I think it is time that we recognised Indigenous language and culture and took steps in a legal and Constitutional way to put in place that which future generations will recognise was critical at the time.

Looking back, we now see how important Mabo was. Sure, it was lauded at the time, but in 200 years time young people who read the Mabo decision will say it was one of the greatest turning points in the history of Australia. I conclude on this note: if we as the leaders of our community and those representing the community in this place really want to show leadership in a formal way, there is something practical we can do in this community; we can start using Indigenous language in this particular place, in these halls of power. I recommend that we do so. I support this legislation and commend it to the House. I look forward to being in Redfern tomorrow with the member for Hasluck to hear the views of various Australian groups at the place where Paul Keating made one of the greatest speeches any prime minister has ever made.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012 before us today. It is fitting that we debate this bill in the week of the annual Closing the Gap statement. In some regards it brings a symmetry to the debate. Yesterday's statements by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition focused predominantly on practical outcomes, while this bill is more concerned with symbolism. Both are important. The bill acknowledges the unique and special place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of Australia. This is an important symbolic act but it is meant as a temporary measure with a sunset clause. The purpose is to maintain momentum towards a national consensus for a successful change to recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution. This is an idea that was initially proposed by John Howard in 2007, at the instigation of Noel Pearson, and again proposed by Tony Abbott in the lead-up to the 2010 election. I am pleased to see that the concept also has strong support in the Labor Party.

I have been involved in Indigenous affairs for over a decade, including spending several years working as the deputy director of the Cape York Institute, under Noel Pearson, trying to tackle some of the problems in Far North Queensland. But my focus has always been on the practical—perhaps because Prime Minister Howard was focused on that but also because Noel Pearson, my boss and a person for whom I have tremendous regard, persuasively drew our attention to the restoration of social norms and education for remote Indigenous children. I have been concerned that symbolic acts could potentially diminish the attention on the practical action required and, worse, could actually create a sense of victimhood among Aboriginal people. In some regards, though, I am a convert to the need for symbolic reconciliation to sit alongside practical reconciliation. I am a convert largely because I was working in Cape York Peninsula during the national apology to Indigenous Australians in early 2008. At the time, I was unsure whether this was the right thing to be doing. I remember reading Noel Pearson's essay on this, in where he was equivocating and weighing up the pros and cons of it. But having seen the impact of the national apology on Aboriginal people in the cape, I realised that it actually did have a profound impact on them. It brought tears to people's eyes, people who I knew and was very good friends with; people who up until that point had never mentioned it before and had never said that this was important to them. After the event, they said that this was tremendously powerful for them.

The Indigenous referendum in 1967 had tremendous symbolic importance. It also had practical consequences: the section that stipulated that Indigenous Australians should not be counted in any census was removed and federal parliament was given power to make laws for the people of all so-called 'races', including the Aboriginal race. However, the current wording of the Constitution provides no positive guidance for how the Commonwealth of Australia should solve the problems caused by the fact that the Commonwealth—and the colonies that preceded Federation—was built on land that was previously owned by Indigenous peoples, who were dispossessed and who, in many cases, had been excluded from the national community. These amendments of 1967 changed the constitutional status of Indigenous Australians from a state of negative discrimination into constitutional silence.

I think it is right to formally recognise our history in our Constitution and that the ancient history of this land is an Indigenous history. I also think that Australia probably belongs to the category of nations that are forced to deal with their history in the Constitution, because the effects of past wrongs are culturally and practically too significant to be ignored in the Constitution. I think that this is the reason why there is significant popular and political support for constitutional recognition. We know the history and we feel that something needs to be said in the most important document of our nation.

The obvious counterargument is that it is better not to cling to the past and that recognition will not improve the lives of Indigenous Australians; indeed, it could be counterproductive for a minority to define themselves as victims in need of recognition and compensation, with unbreakable ties to certain geographical locations. However, the second reason why the Constitution must be amended is harder to refute. The Constitution currently includes the concept of race as a ground for differential treatment and this must be changed. The current section 25 contains a provision for disqualifying members of a certain race from voting. This section can be repealed without any replacement provision.

The current section 51(xxvi) must also be removed. It empowers the parliament to make laws for the people of any race. We should not have a power in the Constitution to make special laws for certain races, but there is a complication. Since native title legislation is probably supported by section 51(xxvi), some kind of replacement section that supports native title legislation needs to be inserted into the Constitution. There are other current and future laws relating to Indigenous Australian land and heritage that also require support in the Constitution. I mention this because the act of recognition bill states that a review must, within 12 months, consider proposals for constitutional change, taking into account the work of, among others, the expert panel of constitutional recognition.

Parliament is free to formulate a referendum question any way it wants, but Minister Macklin has indicated that the expert panel's report carries special weight in the eyes of the government. The expert panel has indeed been grappling with the problem that I have identified—that is, the two sections that contemplate different treatment for different races must be removed, but one of these sections—section 51(xxvi)—plays a role in our legal system. The expert panel has suggested a specific solution to this problem: (1) a general provision against so-called racial discrimination that would apply to all laws, at all levels of government, and perhaps to all actions at all levels of government; and (2) provisions that would directly support Indigenous specific legislation. The expert panel suggests that a new provision in section 51(a) that empowers parliament to make laws for the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Such a change would reintroduce the power to make laws for groups of people defined by common descent.

It also proposes a new section 116A, which would allow 'the making of laws or measures for the purpose of overcoming disadvantage, ameliorating the effects of past discrimination or protecting the cultures, languages or heritage of any group'. This seems like a contradiction: removing the power to make laws for certain peoples only to reintroduce it immediately. I believe that the expert panel's view can be summarised as follows: if a power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is created, there will be a need to make sure that this power cannot be used to the detriment of Indigenous Australians or any other person.

I believe that the wording of the expert panel's proposed changes are also influenced by separate currents in Australian political debate, which is not directly concerned with Indigenous affairs. There are some people who advocate an Australian bill of rights. The expert panel had no intention of opening up this debate. The panel stated in its final report that 'it is clear from the outset that any discussion of a bill or statement of rights was well outside the panel's remit'. Accordingly, the expert panel views its proposed new sections only as a necessary part of recognition of Indigenous Australians. The political reality, however, is that the provisions proposed will in effect become a small bill of rights. They are too broad, in my view, and would empower the courts over the parliament.

What constitutes a policy for the advancement of Aboriginal people? Indigenous policy can be strongly contested by very well-meaning people, with one's views being determined largely by which values or rights get prioritised. For example, I strongly support measures to restrict the free flow of alcohol into remote communities because I have seen that it is the poison that flows through these communities. It destroys the lives of the alcoholics and their families, and even unborn children are now being impacted through foetal alcohol syndrome.

I realise that my view in this regard infringes on a general right to individual liberty, and I realise that it is actually a view that is not popular in many remote communities where a majority of people are addicted to alcohol. A friend of mine, however, who is a former senior judge of an Australian court with deep experience in Indigenous affairs, vigorously disagrees with me, arguing that such limitations in remote communities would be discriminatory. For him, this triumphs over all other considerations. We have a clash of values in this regard. I prioritise the value of child protection in reducing violence above all else. He also deeply cares about this but believes that there are other, more fundamental, rights at play that have higher priority.

The question is, who should decide on this clash of values: a judge, or the elected representatives of the people? If a law is put through the parliaments to restrict alcohol, should a judge be able to knock such a law down because he or she determines that it is not for the advancement of Aboriginal people? In my view, they should not have that power, because it is not a legal matter whether alcohol restrictions in remote communities are for the advancement of Aboriginal people; it is one based on the prioritisation of values, and it is up to the parliaments, not the courts, to prioritise those values. And this is the fundamental reason I do not support all of the expert panel's recommendations, despite my deep respect for the panel members, including Ken Wyatt, who is sitting here beside me, and Mark Leibler and Pat Dodson, the co-chairs. The interpretation of what is for the advancement of Aboriginal people should be up to the parliament, not the judges.

So how do we get around this problem of wanting to prohibit race based laws but still needing a head of power to deal with native title and possibly other matters that, by definition, are related to indigeneity? My solution—at least at this stage in my thinking—is that there should be a bill that has a prohibition against any laws based on race but that has an exclusion for laws dealing with land, which by definition are related to indigeneity. And possibly there are one or two other specific exclusions that need to apply where there definitely needs to be a head of power. But otherwise there should be an overall prohibition against laws based on race. This would be challenging for many of our laws. Some of the education funding which goes towards Aboriginal people would need to be reconstructed and put forward under a different head of power and executed on the basis of disadvantage rather than on indigenousness. In some respects, I think that would be a positive measure in itself.

These are very difficult and complex measures, and it is a good thing that we have this bill going through the parliament today, which then gives time for both sides of politics to be able to address them, think about them carefully and come forward with bipartisan agreement on them. That is what is most important. If we do not have bipartisan support for a constitutional change, it will not get up.

In the last minute or so I have remaining, I would like to pay tribute to a friend of mine who passed away yesterday. I do so in the context of this debate, because he was one of Noel Pearson's most trusted advisers for the last 20 years—a person by the name of Lou Griffiths. Many people who are connected with Indigenous policy would know him very well, and he tragically died at a very young age yesterday in his hotel room from a heart attack. Although not Indigenous, Lou made a tremendous contribution over the last couple of decades in the thinking and executing of ideas and supporting the work of Noel Pearson and other Cape York leaders. I think his passing is a deep loss to Australia.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to follow the member for Aston and commend him on the fine words that he said and pass onto him, his family and his friends our sympathy for the loss of their friend but also the loss to the nation of somebody who has been so active in this area—law and policy.

There was something very poetic in an historical sense that yesterday, as the Prime Minister stood in the House delivering the fifth Closing the Gap statement on behalf of the Australian government, parliament and people, our friends across the ditch were celebrating Waitangi Day, a national public holiday. Waitangi Day celebrates the fact that in 1860 the people of Aotearoa commenced their first act of reconciliation by signing a treaty with their first people. Of course, we have no such treaty, and there is no proposition by this government in the current process to sign such a treaty. But we are embarked on a process of reconciliation, and the bill before the House today is an important reminder of that.

Reconciliation, as the member for Aston has said, involves dealing with the very real, palpable and daily issues that are confronted by Aboriginal men and women and their children living in communities throughout Australia, and the disadvantages that they face in just about every area of life, particularly economic disadvantage—and we are doing what we can to close the gap on that disadvantage. It also involves taking the very important, if you like, symbolic step of recognition—recognition of the past; recognition of the proper place of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women; and recognising that in the most important way that we can.

It has been a long March since 1788 and we have gone through many iterations as colonial and federal legislatures in dealing with the issue of reconciliation and recognition—from denial and removal and actions which have been described by some as an attempt to remove and eradicate Aboriginal people of this country to policies which could be described in no other way than perhaps well meaning, but certainly paternalistic, and a long way from what we now understand to be the proper precepts of self-determination.

If there were a turning point in this debate and policy formulation process, I think most people would chart it from the 1967 referendum and the switch in the national consciousness that that referendum represented. It would be remiss for any member representing Throsby or any of the Illawarra suburbs to make reference to the 1967 referendum and not in the same breath make reference to some of the pioneers for Aboriginal advancement that were organising around the Aboriginal Advancement League of the South Coast. Great people such as Freddie Moore, who still is an activist for Aboriginal causes in the Illawarra and the many other aunties, uncles and activists from the Dharawal, the Gundangara and the Allowrie people in the Illawarra who played an important part as part of the national campaign to ensure that the Constitution was changed.

From the 1967 referendum, we saw recognition through the native title acts in the Northern Territory and other statutory forms of recognition throughout the decades. As the Prime Minister quite eloquently put it yesterday, she referred to Gough Whitlam pouring soil and Bob Hawke handing back Uluru to the first people of this country. It strikes me that we have made significant advances in some respects when I know that my children will never use the words 'Ayers Rock'. In fact, they do not know what Ayers Rock is but they do know, however, what Uluru is, so we have made some steps particularly in the area of education when we reflect upon that.

There is a phenomena in politics that is known as the Kennedy moment—something that the baby boomers can reflect upon. It is the fact that everyone of that generation can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing the moment they learnt that President Kennedy had been assassinated. For me, and perhaps for many like me in my generation, we have a Mabo moment. I can remember exactly where I was and exactly what I was doing when the High Court handed down its historic decision in 1982 in relation to the Mabo dispute. In my view, it was the second turning point in this important process of reconciliation. It overthrew the historic lie of terra nullius and said that, from a legal point of view, we could no longer deny the ancient connection and the ancient rights that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had in this country.

So the step that we are embarking upon today has a long history. The statutory recognition by this parliament of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is an important step. There is an important history. The government established a process of consultation with the Australian community, and it was an important consultation process, to work out the best way of ensuring that we could get constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Any student of law knows that there has not been a fantastic strike rate when it comes to constitutional change in this country, and I think it was an act of great maturity on behalf of the expert panel and those advising them to say that, whilst we are firmly committed to constitutional change, we should not do that in a way or at a time unless we can ensure that we are going to get success in that constitutional referendum.

So the expert panel's report recommends that we do proceed with constitutional change but that this statutory recognition is a first step in that process.

It is an important step. It does not stand alone from the other important initiatives that this government has embarked upon, such as ensuring that we can close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. But it is important nonetheless, just as the 1967 referendum, the High Court decision in Mabo and subsequent High Court decisions were certainly legal, and in some respects symbolic. They also kick-started a national debate about how white Australia could come to terms with our past and our relationship—the important relationship—with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters. This is an important piece of legislation. It is great to see that it has support from all members in this place.

I would like to conclude my contribution to the debate by reflecting on the words that are used at citizenship ceremonies, which I regularly attend as part of my function as a member of parliament. I often reflect upon words from the second verse of our national anthem—the lesser sung verse—that say:

For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share,

The important thing is that, when white people got here, those plains were not empty. They were occupied by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have lived and practised a culture in this country for over 30,000 years—some say probably more like 70,000 years. That is a claim that can be made in no other place on earth. There is no other place on earth where people can say that they live in a land that has been occupied by people who have continuously practised a culture for over 30,000 years. That is something that all Australians should embrace and be proud of, and as we learn from each other and embark upon the process of reconciliation, I firmly believe that we will become a better place, a greater place, and a place that we, as a united and reconciled Australia, can be very, very proud of. I commend the legislation to the House.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am so pleased that this bill is coming before parliament in my time in this place, because I have spent most of my working life trying to redress some of the terrible discriminatory legislation and the day-to-day difficulties of Indigenous people. My interest comes in part from the fact that I grew up on my family's farm, which had been in the family for five generations and was surrounded by the evidence of the peoples who had owned—not occupied, but owned—that country before my farm family. That evidence was in the shape of what we called at the time 'blackfellas' ovens'—we now call them kitchen middens—and scar trees and lots of stone tools.

We have come a very long way in my lifetime in delivering justice for Indigenous Australians. In my time in parliament we have had the native title acts, and we have seen various attempts to address the horrific differences in health, educational outcomes and the length of time people spend in prisons, and now I am pleased to see that we are at last addressing the issue of constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians—Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

This bill is an interim step. It aims to help prepare the public to vote yes when it comes to this referendum. The Australian people are notoriously bad at supporting referenda, no matter how worthy the cause. We have a tendency to say, 'When in doubt, say no,' or, 'When we don't think it's broken, say no.' So it is important that we do have a time of awareness and information building so we can achieve bipartisan national consensus for the constitutional change.

I do think it is very important that there is a sunset clause built into this bill so it cannot be limping on forever. We have to very determinedly set forth to build that consensus across the nation with proper engagement and consultation and then make sure that we bring this whole business to a head with a referendum which is properly couched in the terms that are going to be most likely to succeed.

In this pathway towards constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, in December 2010 the government appointed an expert panel. Their specific charter or task was to consult, and particularly with Indigenous Australians, to see how we could build the national consensus towards constitutional change and to look in particular at what might be supported in a referendum.

The expert panel recommended a number of amendments and changes in the constitution, and I am very pleased to say the coalition supports those proposals in their various forms. We support them quite broadly; I support them categorically as an individual. Although, as I made clear in my opening remarks, I have a problem with the fact that we talk about 'occupation' rather than 'ownership'. The expert panel, for example, suggested that we insert a new section 51A in the Constitution:

Recognising that the continent and its islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, …

I would have put 'ownership'. The next point is:

Acknowledging the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with their traditional lands and waters,

Respecting the continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and

Acknowledging the need to secure the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,

These are very significant and important additions. It goes on to say:

… the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

You would think: hasn't that already been in the Constitution a very long time? Well, no, the power of the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to all Indigenous peoples has only been with us for the last 50 or so years.

With respect to the business about discrimination against Aboriginal peoples and the removal of any reference in the Constitution, obviously we have to make sure our Constitution does not allow any racial discrimination or laws to be made that are to the detriment of any race, but I, like others, support the notion that in our Constitution there should be capacity for us to make laws which are to the advantage of any race, particularly for Indigenous peoples given there is so much to make up in terms of their life chances compared to other Australians.

The recognition of languages should be another important reference in the Constitution. The expert panel recommended there be a new section 127A inserted along the lines of:

(1) The national language of the Commonwealth of Australia is English.

(2) The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are the original Australian languages, a part of our national heritage.

I am a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander House of Representatives Standing Committee and I support this recommendation. We have just completed an inquiry into Indigenous languages in Australia and we found the overwhelming desire of Indigenous Australians is to retain or to resurrect, certainly to transmit, their traditional languages—and also the culture contact languages in some contexts, the Kriol languages which are now widely spoken.

This business of language learning is so important in Australia. We have neglected for so long to acknowledge in our school systems that our Indigenous children often come to school speaking a different language to English and then they are not given support with English taught as a second language.

If I can direct people back to that inquiry's recommendations. This government has not as yet adopted our recommendations. They should. I hope an incoming coalition government would look at those recommendations which acknowledge the importance of Indigenous language retention or resurrection. Certainly it is important to teach Aboriginal children who come to school or preschool with other languages using the English as a second language method. That is one of the critical ways we could assist Aboriginal children to make up the educational deficit that they now often experience.

I want to remind us though, as I often do when I am speaking on Indigenous affairs in parliament, about where we have come from in Australia in relation to our previous responses to Indigenous Australians: their citizenship rights, their rights in terms of being paid as workers, their rights to be educated and to have decent health services provided. It is such a short time in our Australian history since citizenship rights were being debated as a possibility for Aboriginal Australians.

New South Wales parliamentary papers in 1938 said:

It has been said from time to time that Aboriginals should be given full citizenship rights. Briefly as far as can be seen at present, the majority of Aborigines, as defined by the Act,—

that is, the protection act of New South Wales—

have all citizenship rights except the following:

(a) They cannot exercise franchise at Federal elections.

(b) They are prohibited from obtaining liquor.

(c) If Aboriginal blood predominates they cannot receive maternity allowance or old-age or invalid pension from the Commonwealth Government. …

(d) Residents on stations have been debarred from receiving relief work provided by the Government of this State.

(e) Family endowments payments are in general, made to Aboriginals by means of orders for goods instead of in cash.

(f) Certain restrictions may be imposed on Aboriginals in accordance with the provision of the Act.

Despite the restrictions mentioned, including some which I would have called some fundamental human rights, it was concluded that Aboriginals in New South Wales did actually have all citizenship rights. The recommendation of the Public Service Board was therefore that the New South Wales Parliament should not rush into this business of citizenship for Aboriginal people because, they concluded:

Generally speaking the restrictions imposed by the present law of this State—

in relation to citizenship—

are in the interests of the Aborigines, and at the present time the Public Service Board's inquiries indicate that in general the opinion is that they should not be lifted, even though there are numerous Aborigines who might with justification be placed on an equal footing with the general community.

The general opinion of those most competent to speak appears to be however that their education has not yet reached the stage where the restrictions can be lifted as a general policy, without harmful effects on the majority.

That was the citizenship rights debate in 1938 in New South Wales.

The citizenship debate in Western Australia in 1944 went along similar lines except they decided to have a certificate of citizenship granted to an Aborigine in 1944. They therefore declared:

… any adult person who is a native within the meaning of the Native Administration Act, 1905-1941, may make application for a Certificate of Citizenship to a resident or stipendiary magistrate or Government Resident in the magisterial district in which he resides.

This was subject to the condition on the applicant that, amongst other things:

… for the two years prior to the date of the application he has dissolved tribal and native association except with respect to lineal descendants or native relations of the first degree, and—

(a) that he has served in the Naval, Military or Air Force … and has … an honourable discharge; or

(b) that he is otherwise a fit and proper person to obtain a certificate of Citizenship.

However, there were some other conditions that meant that the magistrate could, unfortunately, bar the granting of this citizenship. For example, if the applicant has contracted 'leprosy, syphilis, granuloma or yaws', they could not become citizens. They must of course be 'industrious in habit and of good behaviour and reputation' and so on.

These debates are recent in Australia's history. They are cruel when you read them now. You wonder how our parliaments of various states could have had democratically elected representatives of the people making such laws and such pronouncements about fellow human beings. Requiring someone to have 'dissolved all tribal and native associations' if they are seeking citizenship of Australia, a country that they had owned, is quite extraordinary. But that was the way it was.

We have come a long way. We have not yet achieved constitutional recognition, accepted by a referendum in this country, but I am saying that it is more than time. We need to stand up amongst the league of other nations in the world who do right by their indigenous peoples; in this case it is our fellow Australians. I very strongly support this bill. I know that it is going to have bipartisan support in this parliament and I hope that, within the next two years, we will see the Australian public give their overwhelming support to this referendum with the same resounding 'yes' as they did for the 1967 referendum, which brought Aboriginal Australians under the same roof in relation to citizenship rights in this country.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I address the bill, I want to make a few remarks about Lou Griffiths. It is only with the announcement by the member for Aston that I found out that Mr Griffiths passed away yesterday from a heart attack. Mr Griffiths is someone with whom I have had an association for many years. When I was shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs, from 1996 to 2000, I had lot to do with Noel Pearson and Mr Griffiths was a very close friend of Mr Pearson. Mr Pearson was documenting Mr Griffiths' life on film. I knew Lou before that and I have had contact with him. He is a great loss. He has been a passionate advocate of Indigenous rights and causes. He took the view that it was important to document the history of what was happening in relation to Indigenous issues at the time, to enlighten people as to the justness of that cause. I offer my condolences to his family and friends. He is a great loss to the community.

It is interesting in light of this debate as well. The struggle that continues to be had for recognition and for basic rights takes its toll on a lot of people in the Indigenous community, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. I think that it is a very good thing that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012 before the House has the appropriate bipartisan support of the parliament. I think it is worthwhile getting a bit of history here. I am not one who says, 'This should have been an early referendum.' The reason that I say that is that, in my opinion, it would be lost overwhelmingly. Part of that was the way that Indigenous affairs was dealt with from 1996 to 2007. The reality is that it was in the frame in the broader community as a result of native title amongst other things. I commend the current Leader of the Opposition for his approach and those honourable members opposite. I think he has played an important part in this. This is not an area that should be the centre of partisan debate. It is hard enough as it is.

In 1999 the parliament passed two bills to put to the people: one was a republic bill, another was the preamble. The preamble was supported by both sides of parliament. The Labor Party and I voted for it in the parliament, but it was not an appropriately bipartisan preamble. It was one that was imposed by the government at the time. It was not done with proper consultation with the opposition or, more importantly, with the Indigenous community. I remember speaking out on a number of occasions during the referendum, saying to people, 'If you want to protest, vote against the preamble and not the republic.' What is interesting is that whilst there was the to-and-fro on the republic, the republic actually got 46 per cent of the popular vote; the preamble only got 39 per cent of the popular vote, and that was when both sides were supposedly barracking for it. I cheered when it lost, because I thought that it was not a preamble that was worthy of the public's support on the basis of how it was brought into being.

This is a different situation. The act of recognition that we are passing is an appropriate interim measure to hold us to a time when we can bring the public to a position of support for not just changes, but substantive changes, to the constitution. And the Constitution does need substantive change, particularly in relation to section 51(xxvi). In the Kartinyeri case, or the Hindmarsh Island bridge case, six justices of the High Court gave judgements. His Honour Justice Cowen was disqualified in that case, because he had given a legal opinion to the Senate Legal Committee. I, with my starry, blinkered eye, had felt that the High Court would pick up the sentiment of the 1996 referendum and what it was about in terms of removing the words 'other than the Aboriginal race' in any state. The reality is that two judges of the High Court said that with that constitutional change the provision in relation to Aboriginal people was to be interpreted as the legislation was first enacted in 1901. So, not just beneficial laws for Aboriginal people but detrimental laws could be passed by government for the Aboriginal people. Two judges of the High Court did not offer an opinion. His Honour Justice Kirby said: no, you could only use the clause for the benefit of Aboriginal people. Her Honour Justice Gaudron said: look, in this day and age it should not be used to the detriment.

So what we had was a referendum with 91 per cent support that, as it turned out, could be used by governments to discriminate against Aboriginal people. Now, the Constitutional Commission of 1988, before the Kartinyeri case, recommended a change in that provision. There is as a result of the expert panel a new section 51A that is being considered to replace 51(xxvi). The last clause in that section 51A reads:

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I am indebted to the Law Council of Australia for its excellent discussion paper, because I think that has a lot of the arguments in it. It points out that the current Chief Justice of the High Court, Chief Justice French, in 2003 provided a detailed overview of the post-1967 High Court jurisprudence in relation to section 51(xxvi), culminating in Kartinyeri v The Commonwealth. He was of the view that a current High Court would probably take the interpretation I mentioned earlier: that you can legislate to the detriment of Aboriginal people as a result of that constitutional change. He too was, I think, agitating for constitutional change.

That is not going to be easy to achieve. I used to be a criminal defence lawyer, so I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I have to say, I am worried—and I think the point is made—that even in the proposed new clause, given the way it is constructed, there is a possibility that detrimental laws could be made against Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people are in the same class, under this clause, as people of any race—in other words, migrants as well. It is a clause that is open to any race within Australia at the moment. And I think we need to get it right. I think we need to tweak it. I do not believe governments of the day should be able to legislate specifically in relation to the detriment. When it comes to advances for Aboriginal people, I will tell you this: it was not the Constitution that gave them advancement in the court cases of the last few decades; it was actually the enactment of the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 that protected Aboriginal people against discriminatory action by the states.

That Commonwealth act is the reason native title survived to allow the successful Mabo cases, and to, in effect, overcome the discriminatory laws of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era. An act of parliament can be quite powerful in protecting the Aboriginal race and other people in this country. That needs to be understood. That is why the act that we are passing is an important act. It is a little bit more than symbolism. It is an act of the parliament, a Commonwealth act, that will prevail over state and territory laws, although at the moment the provisions we are particularly wanting to pass are symbolic provisions. The problem with an act of parliament is that it can be overwritten by a later act, which is what the debate was all about when the Wik judgement was delivered along with the native title amendment acts. As shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs at the time, I was in the middle of that fight. The truth is that those native title amendment acts overrode the Racial Discrimination Act.

So, it is all right to pass this bill that we are talking about today, but we should also state beyond any doubt that we should not be interfering with the Racial Discrimination Act. That was one of the objections I had to the intervention in the Northern Territory, which was discriminatory, because I do not support discriminatory laws. I support positive discrimination, because true equality requires differential treatment. That is how you bring people up to an equal level—the disadvantaged and the dispossessed. It is not discrimination in terms of international law. Positive discrimination is not discrimination. It is engaging in equality matters. The bill before the House at the moment in relation to recognition, which is why everybody people supports it, at clause 3(1) says:

The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, recognises that the continent and the islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This is indisputable. It further states in clause 3(2):

The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, acknowledges the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with their traditional lands and waters.

This also is indisputable. It does not matter what non-Indigenous people think about their association with their traditional lands, Aboriginal people have that association and it is what they think that counts. But it is important that non-Indigenous people acknowledge that association, so that is an important clause. Clause 3(3) states:

The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, acknowledges and respects the continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Again, this is a non-contentious clause. It seems to me that the respect has to be two ways. Non-Indigenous Australians need to start substantially respecting Indigenous Australians. That is what true reconciliation is about. It is not a one-way street, it is a two-way street. We cannot have a situation where, every time there is a clash, Aboriginal people and their rights have to give way. The world did not fall in for Australia when the Mabo decision was delivered by the High Court, when the Native Title Act was first enacted, when Wik was enacted. There was a lot of ignorance and prejudice out there, and that is why we have to take our time to repair some of that damage of false perceptions that was inflicted on the community.

What is appealing for me now is that conservative governments around the country are having Indigenous land use agreements by consent with Indigenous Australians when it comes to pastoral leases. The pastoralists are no longer seeing themselves under threat through misinformation. Indeed, the miners who have an international perspective, like Rio Tinto, have to deal with Indigenous people in other countries and they understand how to deal with them in Australia.

So, it is an excellent thing that this act before the parliament has cross-party support. It should. If we have got our differences of opinion, we should not be slugging it out in a public way, because this is non-threatening. This actually enriches us as a nation. We need to respect our first Australians. They are not a threat to us, they are an asset. It is hard enough as it is for them. The Parliament of Australia, through in its Native Title Act was only recognising what the High Court had found under the common law.

I think we have moved on. As I said earlier, I applaud the attitude of the current Leader of the Opposition because I think people like Noel Pearson and others, who we have sat with and talk to, have influenced him, and that is a good thing. I am not saying that on both sides of the House we are always going to be in a love-in and hugging one another in unanimous agreement—that is not the case—but this is one area in which I think we should work out our differences. I know that there has been some tweaking of this so that all sides could agree. It is not about the government blindsiding the opposition. They are the alternative government and we should be at one on this, but we should stick to these basic principles. It diminishes all of us if we do not. As I said, there are some pitfalls. The Constitution is unacceptable as it is at the moment—it is discriminatory. Any decent, two-bob lawyer will tell you it is. So we as a parliament should be uniting to try and in future make it non-discriminatory and acceptable to everyone. That is why it will take time. You cannot have a referendum tomorrow because it will not pass, and that would be a tragedy.

I commend the bill to the House and congratulate everyone, including Ken Wyatt, on their work to date.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We speak a lot in this House about Indigenous gaps. Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition speak eloquently about the gaps in life expectancy, educational attainment and employment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It is important to focus on those gaps, but it is also important to have a sense of optimism and pride in Australia's Indigenous heritage. As the member for Throsby noted earlier in this debate, it is great and exciting to know that we have in this country a people whose association with the land goes back tens of thousands of years. Maintaining that sense of excitement and living alongside people with the longest continuing link to their land is a great thing. This bill in some sense recognises our pride in Australia's Indigenous heritage. That Indigenous heritage involves maintaining a multiplicity of languages. As the member for Blair noted, there has been a decline in Indigenous language knowledge over recent years, and that is important to redress because language is culture—it maintains your links with generations gone by.

There is a terrific book called Stories of the Ngunnawal which talks about some of the Indigenous elders and significant members of the Indigenous community here in the ACT. One of those stories is about Carl Brown, who was born in 1952. He said that he knows a few words in traditional language. Instead of asking, 'Who's the person?' there is a word for it: 'boothm'. He said that if a person is silly they call them 'murinj', they call tucker 'dungaan' and they call a dog 'mirigung'. He said his parents spoke traditional language as he does but they knew more words—he said they would have had to. He notes that Indigenous language knowledge has declined since the previous generation. You can sense in his story a little sadness at the loss of language. We need to maintain those languages, just as we need to attain this important symbolic recognition in the Constitution.

Next Wednesday will mark the fifth anniversary of Australia's apology to Indigenous Australians—the moment when a Labor government stood up and said, long overdue, that we were sorry for the wrongs of past governments; we were sorry to the children who were ripped from families, to the communities that were broken, and to the generations that suffered and whose pain remained unacknowledged by many governments for too many years. The apology was driven by an understanding that words alone could not undo the works of the past and words alone would not absolve us from future actions in closing the gap. It was a symbol. Stolen generations elder Auntie Lorraine Peeters said it was a 'symbol of the hope we place in the new relationship you wish to forge with our people'.

This bill will be another important step towards strengthening this relationship, recognising that Indigenous peoples hold the unique place of being Australia's first peoples, and establishing an act of recognition that will be a step on the longer path to constitutional recognition. Once this bill become law it will promote community engagement with the issue and assist in building a national consensus.

When we come to a referendum, there are few more tragic things one could imagine than for a referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians to be defeated. The track record of referenda is not good—eight out of 44—so we need community consensus. The Gillard government agrees with the expert panel's recommendation that we need to hold a referendum at a time when its chance of success would be highest. We know, too, from history that with those defeated referenda sometimes the questions do not come back for the best part of a generation afterwards. At the time of the referendum on four-year terms there was talk that if it were defeated it might be returned in some other form. That was 1988 and we have not had anything since. There was talk at the time of the republican referendum that if that model were defeated another could easily be put to the Australian people a few years later. That was 1999 and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since. Reconciliation Australia has reported that, while the idea of a referendum has strong awareness within Indigenous communities, fewer than one-third of non-Indigenous Australians are aware of the discussions. So it does suggest that we need to continue ripening the fruit of constitutional recognition before we reach to the tree and try to pick it.

This bill is a reflection of the Labor approach to Indigenous policy. In talking about the Labor tradition I want to recognise, as previous speakers such as the members for Aston and Hasluck have, that there have been important steps taken by the coalition. Many of the great steps have been bipartisan. But as a Labor member I do take particular pride in some of the steps that have been taken with compassion, with justice and with respect by leaders of my own party. Gough Whitlam championed Indigenous issues in his 1972 campaign. He spoke of:

… one group of Australians who have been denied their basic rights to the pursuit of happiness, to liberty and indeed to life itself for 180 years—since the very time when Europeans in the New World first proclaimed those rights as inalienable for all mankind.

That was the approach that Prime Minister Whitlam took when he upgraded the Office of Aboriginal Affairs to the ministerial level, after he was elected. It was the approach he took when pushing for the Racial Discrimination Act, in 1975. It was the approach he took when he supported the findings of the royal commission into Indigenous land rights, and it was the approach that became law with the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It was the approach also taken by another Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, when, 20 years later, he said in Redfern Park:

… we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the Indigenous people of Australia—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

That again articulated the Labor approach of compassion, justice, progress and respect. It is with that approach that we have to continue working hard and seeing results in strengthening communities.

My predecessors in the seat of Fraser probably never would have attended an event at which a traditional elder engaged in a welcome to country ceremony. Now welcome to country ceremonies are a normal part of formal events in the ACT, and the parliament begins every day with an acknowledgment that it sits on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. I also have the honour to represent the Wreck Bay community in Jervis Bay, and there the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council has an elected executive.

We are investing in Indigenous education with over 200 additional teachers employed in remote community schools and supporting a school nutrition program that provides meals every day to around 5,000 children in remote Territory schools. We are improving funding for primary health care services in remote communities and also supporting Indigenous health centres such as Winnunga Nimmityjah here in Canberra. Recognising that rates of ear infections and oral health problems are higher in Indigenous communities, we are putting in place the Remote Area Health Corps and a mobile outreach program for Indigenous communities. Recognising issues of community safety, we have funded the continuing employment of 60 additional Northern Territory police officers working in 18 remote communities.

One way of thinking of much of what is happening in the Northern Territory is that at its heart it is about ensuring that children are able to attend school. That means you need to have housing right, you need to have health right, you need to have safe communities and you need to have communities with a commitment to learning.

After school, we are also recognising that it is important to provide additional employment opportunities. Our government has created 50 additional Aboriginal ranger positions. We have offered up to 100 local traineeships for people in remote communities and provided a job guarantee to young people completing year 12 in Territory growth towns.

I see much of this when I visit the Wreck Bay community, and people there speak about their pride of the work that is being done in the Booderee National Park. Taking care of country is something that Indigenous peoples have done for tens of thousands of years, and supporting the work of Indigenous people working in national parks is absolutely vital.

It is also important that we ensure that Australia's Public Service looks like the community it serves, so I want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the Community and Public Sector Union on making sure the government stays on track for our target to increase Indigenous employment in the Australian Public Service to a target of 2.7 per cent by 2015. This was an issue that was brought to my attention when the local Community and Public Sector Union moved a motion at the last ACT Labor Party branch meeting which noted that the State oftheservice report 2010-11 had found a decrease in Indigenous employees from 3,383 to 3,236—a four per cent drop and the first fall in the number of Indigenous public servants since 2010.

I believe that maintaining Indigenous employment in the Public Service is important not only as a way of making sure that Indigenous Australians have jobs but it is also important as a way of ensuring that the decisions that come out of the public sector are right for all Australians. So I have been working over recent months with ministers and speaking with them directly about the strategies that they are employing in order to boost Indigenous representation in the Public Service through programs that range from mentoring to providing apprenticeships, training programs, links with universities and making sure that Indigenous Australians are attracted to and retained by the public sector. That is a high priority for me and something that I fear may be threatened were those opposite to come into power. They speak very eloquently on the importance of Indigenous Australians playing a role in public life, but a policy that would see 20,000 public servants lose their jobs is almost surely a policy that would also see fewer Indigenous Australians employed in the Public Service.

A constitutional statement of recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—particularly noting their culture, their history and their connection to the land—a removal of references to race in reflection of Australia's rejection of discrimination and belief in equality and an acknowledgement that we need to make further efforts in closing the gaps in Indigenous disadvantage are an important part of what we are working towards. Reconciliation Australia and the You Me Unity reference group have been spearheading this push, and I am confident that—with more time and more work—compassion, justice, progress and respect will prevail and we will be able to hold a successful referendum.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, it is always a pleasure to speak when you are in the chair, because I know you will be nothing but impartial.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Flattery will get you everywhere, mate!

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012, and I thank the preceding speakers. I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners and thank them for their continuing stewardship both here and throughout this nation. It is particularly important to speak today on this bill as we make significant progress in reconciling the link between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians with the fifth annual Closing the Gap statement made this week by the Prime Minister.

My very first day in office here in Canberra as a parliamentarian started at nine o'clock with a welcome to country—the first ever welcome to country, despite the 80 years of Canberra being the capital. There had never been a welcome to country until Prime Minister Rudd organised that welcome to country, which was a very moving event and also a very wet event, I seem to recall—there was water leaking through the roof, which made for an interesting morning. Then we moved from there to the apology to the stolen generations, which was surely an apology that was heard around the world and heard in every home, black or white, in Australia. It was a significant day and a further step towards the reconciliation that is occurring, that will occur and that must occur for this nation to be a truly great nation.

This legislation before us, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill, is also significant, and I am glad to see it supported on both sides of the chamber. I will just quote some of the things that it will do:

Recognising that the continent and its islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

Acknowledging the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with their traditional lands and waters;

Respecting the continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

Acknowledging the need to secure the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Every Closing the Gap report that I have heard since 2008 has indicated that it will require many years of complex steps towards annual reckoning until we repair the gulf that is currently separating both the health and the lifestyles of Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians—a gulf that sees way too many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders die young and live without their dreams and aspirations being realised and without the dignity that our first peoples deserve.

In my home town of St George I grew up with a significant Indigenous population. I went out there for a week before Christmas to stay with a mate who is an Indigenous bloke, Peter Brown. As you do when you catch up with mates, we talked about what people are doing. My first speech listed my Indigenous friends who had died. When I went back out there at Christmas, we just added to that list of people. I am very young—47—and, sadly, there were so many people my age that should be running around working and contributing to society but had passed away, often in sad circumstances.

The Gillard Labor government's plan is to not only improve the lives of Indigenous Australians as the Closing the Gap report acknowledged but to achieve this in a shared ambition of partnership and respect, which is surely the only way forward. Signs and symbols are important. Anyone of faith or anyone who knows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture knows this. This Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill, whilst not a solution to all the issues that have plagued and pervaded Indigenous communities over the last 225 years, is a positive step towards this nation achieving true reconciliation. Signs and symbols are very important. As a passionate republican, I would like to see Australia achieve a situation where we have an Australian as our head of state. It will not fundamentally change what Australians do in their day-to-day business but, as a passionate republican and as a member of the party that is committed to Australia being a republic, I know that signs and symbols are very important. Obviously, they are not everything, but they are very important when combined with the real achievements associated with Closing the Gap.

There is much work ahead of us to ensure that we meet these targets by providing Indigenous Australians with health care, education and job opportunities, better access to pre-schools than ever before and the opportunity to receive the community services they deserve. The Closing the Gap report identified this nation's commitment to reducing Indigenous Australians' disadvantages and lists the associated practical and real building blocks for action—and sadly, as we saw in the report this week, measures the regress of those key targets.

As a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, chaired by the member for Blair, Shayne Neumann, it has been my privilege to be involved with some of the inquiries, which in many ways have been heartbreaking. One was 'Doing time, Time for doing', which was about Indigenous views on the criminal justice system. It really broke my heart going to prisons and hearing horrible data on the incarceration rates. And then there was 'Our land, our languages: language learning in Indigenous communities', which was a bit more uplifting in terms of the positive opportunities and some of the positive, practical reconciliation steps that are taking place at the moment.

The Australian Society for Indigenous Languages recognises that significantly improved circumstances for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can only be achieved by improving their literacy and standard English proficiency, by improving school retention rates and learning in all subjects, by a reduction in antisocial behaviour and by progressing towards the Millennium Development Goals. I would like to commend the work of Dr Chris Sarra, who was a year behind me at Kelvin Grove Teachers' College. He has now gone on to do so much work in Indigenous education.

I have confidence that the bill will also assist in improving incarceration rates in some small way for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, perhaps by improving the spirit and connection and hopefully in some small way reducing antisocial behaviour and increasing education and, therefore, job opportunities. Sadly, the incarceration rates, which have been in the media recently, show that there were 7,979 prisoners who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as at 30 June 2012. This represented just over one quarter, or 27 per cent, of the total prison population, an increase of four per cent between 2011 and 2012. So some of those key indicators that we cover in Closing the Gap are not heading in the right direction. These figures are a clear indication that we need to make changes to help our Indigenous communities. As I said, we definitely do not need whitefellas in Canberra saying 'Thou shalt do this'. It must be in partnership, there must be consultation and there must be local Indigenous leaders guiding and leading. Hopefully the changes put forward in this Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012 are part of the process.

In my electorate of Moreton there is a significant Indigenous population, particularly in the suburb of Acacia Ridge. I know that suburb well. My grandfather moved there in the 1940s. He lived in a tent there before he built his house. It is a place I used to go to for school holidays and I have seen in that part of my electorate a fantastic attitude by Indigenous groups towards helping their communities.

The Aboriginal and Islander Independent Community School, which most people just call the Murri school, in Acacia Ridge is a private school. When I was a union organiser, I used to go there to do enterprise bargaining, and I am now proud to be their federal representative. It is a community run private school established in 1986. The school aims to promote the development of Indigenous students as independent and skilled people who are culturally, morally and socially responsible and, in particular, employable and capable of self-fulfilment and contributing to society. It is definitely an education success story. The Murri school has seen a significant move towards eliminating barriers that impede Indigenous students in some schools in terms of their access to and participation in mainstream primary and secondary education. These achievements are something we can aspire to achieve throughout Australia, and that is why the Gillard government has invested so heavily in education and employment. I am so proud of its GFC responses, which have been about investing in education.

Another school in my electorate, Southside Education, is a model school for educating young women, particularly those who have had babies while at school. The school educates a significant number of Indigenous girls who have started their families early or come from troubled homes. It is an amazing school. They have got a creche just around the corner so people can go and breastfeed during the breaks. They have got a multidisciplinary team of teachers, counsellors, youth workers and family workers. Some of their students are homeless as well, so it can be quite a challenge.

I see that the member for Newcastle, who was also a teacher, is in the chamber. One of the bugbears is also home work. It is a bit hard to worry about homework when you are worried about your student and their child having a place to stay that night. It is a wonderful school and I particularly commend the work of the employees there. Each year I am fortunate to have a student from Southside Education do work experience in my office. I am always astounded by their outstanding and positive attitude to life despite some of the horrific stories they talk about in terms of where they go to at night when they leave my office. But they still turn up with a professional attitude and it has been great for me to have some work experience students from Southside Education.

Two other schools I would particularly like to mention are Watson Road State School and Acacia Ridge State School. And there are many other schools in Moreton that have significant Indigenous populations. They are fantastic entities for education and make a great contribution.

I am proud to speak today in terms of the Gillard government's actions but I also acknowledge the Howard government's efforts in terms of reducing the flow of alcohol into some Aboriginal communities. As the husband of someone who has worked in child protection for 23 years, too often I have heard the horrible stories associated with big drinking days in Indigenous communities—in Queensland only, obviously. I have heard horrific stories from my partner about what can happen on big drinking days in Indigenous communities. We would all acknowledge that the cycle must be broken and we must close the gap by reaching education targets and improving access to health. We can identify that improving knowledge and employment, while still maintaining Indigenous languages, has positive implications for capacity-building in Indigenous communities—particularly through community involvement and employment resource management, particularly in the mining industry but also in the arts, tourism, broadcasting and interpreting.

In Queensland we have many Indigenous communities that will benefit in some way from the introduction of this bill. The Gillard Labor government is dedicated to providing equal opportunity and closing the gap. Sadly, the Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, has not shown our Indigenous community the respect required. I think he was particularly heavy-handed, perhaps with the lord mayor, Graham Quirk, in closing down the embassy in Musgrave Park in South Brisbane, an area that even under Joh Bjelke-Petersen was recognised as a significant part of the Indigenous culture. Yet one of the first things that Premier Newman did was to send in the police to dismantle that camp.

There are the little things such as scrapping the Premier's Literary Award, which had a component for Murri writers and which was a slap in the face for the Indigenous community. Now, sadly, the Liberal-National Party government is contemplating changes to the grog rules, which will result in kids suffering and will result in families suffering. The member for Ryan is shaking her head. The reality is that the Northern Territory data show that in the Northern Territory there were 10,000 extra criminal activities—

Mrs Prentice interjecting—

Yes, well, self-determination is great comfort to a kid that has not had a parent who is sober, to a kid that has been abused because no-one in the community is sober and child abuse is rampant. That is a great comfort to that child! Shame on the Liberal-National Party government in Queensland for contemplating these changes to the grog rules. These cuts will be felt in every Indigenous community and it is a shameful thing for Premier Newman to have done. I commend the bill to the House.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012, which will assist in achieving the ultimate goal of constitutional recognition for Australia's first people. As the member for Newcastle, it is worth noting that in 1993 it was Newcastle City Council that first signed a statement of commitment recognising prior Aboriginal occupancy of our land—the first agreement of its kind in the nation. The first female lord mayor of Newcastle, and of course of Australia, Joy Cummings, in 1977 was the first lord mayor in Australia to raise the Aboriginal flag over any city. So I think we have been on that path to reconciliation for a long time.

The bill before the House recognises the unique place that Indigenous Australians hold within our nation. For too long in our history since colonisation our nation's first people have been subject to gross injustices that have had an adverse intergenerational impact. As the world's oldest living culture, this has been greatly disrespectful to the original inhabitants and traditional custodians of this land. In his Redfern address Prime Minister Paul Keating said, 'It begins with an act of recognition.'

Certainly reconciliation has come a long way since 1991 and today we seek to pave the way towards a more absolute act of recognition, with Indigenous Australians being rightly recognised within our Constitution as our nation's first people. Currently, of course, our Constitution does not acknowledge Indigenous Australians as the First Australians—another one of the many injustices that we must correct as a nation. This bill is an interim measure towards constitutional recognition as we as parliamentarians, along with community leaders and Australian society as a whole, continue the task of raising awareness and the task of building a consensus for this momentous change.

Historically, Australia has succeeded in constitutional reform relating to the recognition of Indigenous Australians. In 1967, the constitutional referendum received overwhelming support, with over 90 per cent of voters indicating that they believed that Indigenous Australians ought to be recognised as citizens. We would like a 90 per cent result for a referendum in the future. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the time delivered the historic apology to the stolen generations. He stated then that the symbolism of reconciliation must be accompanied by an even greater substance. 'It is not sentiment that makes history; it's our actions that make history,' he said. That is why I am pleased that we are progressing our quest to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as well as gain constitutional recognition for them.

In 2010, the Labor government established the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians. Its role was to conduct wide-ranging consultations around the nation and to engage with local communities, reporting on potential options for change to the Constitution that would likely succeed if a referendum were to be held. In January 2012, a year ago, the expert panel recommended constitutional amendments capable of succeeding at a referendum. Further to that, it noted that careful consideration around timing would be required if a successful referendum were to be held. Thus, circumstances would need to be ideal for success. I note some objection recently by Aboriginal people to being British subjects, which would be implied by the Constitution. I have to say that, as a supporter of Australia becoming a republic, I quite understand that objection, so for me it would be wonderful to see these two things happen at the one time.

Besides issues such as this one, there are currently low levels of community awareness about constitutional reform and therefore low levels of support for this move. It is important that the government of the day get it right when it comes to this reform. Our government agrees with the expert panel that a referendum must be held at a time when it has the most chance of success. In agreeing to work with the opposition, the government established a joint select committee to achieve this objective. The committee reported in January 2013 and, much like the expert panel, heard from a range of people and agreed that a deferral of a referendum would be ideal in succeeding. In one submission, the Redfern Legal Centre wrote that its consultation with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians indicated a lack of awareness about this issue and it therefore welcomed the bill's approach of setting up a timetable for constitutional change rather than attempting to introduce constitutional change at this stage.

The bill's sunset clause provides recognition that this legislation is just an interim measure, appropriate to ensure that this symbolic parliamentary decision would not cloud eventual constitutional recognition. The sunset clause does not undermine the value of this legislation. Much to the contrary, each and every action and step we take is a step towards greater recognition and understanding of Indigenous Australians and their right to be recognised as Australia's first people in our Constitution.

In his Senate occasional lecture on 5 August 2011, Aboriginal leader Professor Mick Dodson noted that we must 'achieve the symbolic recognition in our Constitution that many of us desire' and that we must:

… make substantive change that is required … to reset the relationship, positively, between the first Australians and the rest of the country.

I agree with Mick, and one of the best conversations I have had in my time as a member of parliament was when sitting next to Mick Dodson on a plane from Broome to Perth—a conversation we continued with dinner at the house of Sharryn Jackson, the former member for Hasluck. Those are the conversations all Australians should have, and those are the conversations that build wonderful relationships and wonderful understanding. It is all those relationships that matter. They start on a one-to-one basis. So let us hope that everyone here takes up that challenge.

This week, Prime Minister Julia Gillard handed down the fifth annual Closing the gap report to parliament, marking a significant step as our government meets and delivers on the first of the target deadlines: access to early childhood education for all four-year-olds in remote communities. This monumental step will give each and every Indigenous child a better start in life. As the Prime Minister stated, preschool only takes us to the schoolyard gate, but as an educator I know that early intervention is always key to future success. So it is one achievement I think we should be very proud of.

The Prime Minister noted that significant progress has been made to halve the gap in Indigenous mortality rates for children under five within the decade from 2008. Having visited remote communities as part of the ATSI committee of parliament, the member for Murray, Sharman Stone, and I have both become concerned that there is just not enough prenatal support for young women having babies. Unfortunately, their first intervention is often when they arrive at a strange hospital in a strange town, in many instances not having English, to have their babies without that prenatal midwifery help that we would take for granted in our communities. It would be wonderful to see Indigenous women being trained as midwives, and we have recommended that the ATSI committee look particularly at those issues in the next term of government.

Steady progress is being made in education. In 2006, 47 per cent of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds had a year 12 or equivalent qualification. In 2011, this had risen to 54 per cent, but this is still substantially behind the 86 per cent reached for non-Indigenous Australians. So we are halfway, but we have a lot of work to do. Educational success has been mixed. Seventy-eight per cent of Indigenous year 3 students reached or exceeded the 2012 benchmark in writing, but the figure declined in reading after improving in the years to 2011. I must say that under the National Plan for School Improvement—of course, I give a Gonski—we would love to see measures specifically designed to support Indigenous students and additional resourcing as well.

During a recent visit to the Northern Territory I was very concerned at the mandatory teaching in English for the first four hours of each day. Yes, we know English is an important language for ongoing success in our society, but for any child a first language is the way to learn and if the first language is not English then it is a wonderful foundation for any other language learning. I am concerned that sometimes our educators in states and territories are perhaps not employing the best methods.

We have made, and we will continue to make, great strides but much is still to be achieved. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported in December 2012, that more than 17,000 dental and 9,000 ear checks have been carried out, along with around 3,000 ear, nose and throat checks as part of the Child Health Check Initiative Closing the Gap program since 2007. I am blessed with a friend—a very eminent person in this field of audiology—who upon retirement decided to go out and be part of the Northern Territory intervention. She described to me the first time she looked into a young child's ear and she had no idea what she was looking at. There was no tympani: the structure had completely eroded away. We were discussing this she said, 'Yes, we are making a difference, but there is so much to be done'. So, to people like her who volunteer to apply their wonderful expertise, I say thank you.

Reconciliation Australia research released this week shows that only half of those surveyed felt proud of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services cultures—a very different result to the 95 per cent who said they were and who came from an organisation with a reconciliation action plan. Reconciliation Australia says that such plans have an enormous impact on reducing mistrust and ignorance, and on building real personal relationships between first peoples and other Australians. It was wonderful to see the RA Program here today this week from Reconciliation Australia and it is very exciting to know that they will be funded for another four years.

Another initiative that is making a real difference to improving those conversations has been NITV. Indigenous broadcasting reached a momentous landmark in 2012 with the launch of Australia's first ever free-to-air national Indigenous television station, broadcasting live from Uluru in December. I know Minister Jenny Macklin speaks highly about that amazing day. It is a federal government initiative to begin that broadcasting opportunity, and I congratulate the minister for her tireless efforts towards the betterment of Indigenous Australians. It was wonderful when recently I switched on to NITV and watched the Freedom Ride on the Freedom Bus again. I remember it, but many young Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people will not recall the struggle and they will not know the progress that had to be made and that has been made in this country. That is something that I think is really contributing.

There are other wonderful things that mainstream Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are enjoying, things like the success of The Sapphires and Samson and Delilah, and to see these on the national and international stage winning awards and exceeding their own expectations has been wonderful. It is incredibly important that Indigenous stories are being told and are also being listened to.

Approximately 3,500 Indigenous people live in my electorate of Newcastle. It is higher than the New South Wales and Australian averages and we host a number of Indigenous cultural, language, education and arts centres, all of which enhance and add to the rich dynamic of Newcastle. Over the 12 years that I have been the member for Newcastle, I have seen wonderful progress and development. I have seen pride built, but one of the most important things has been the east coast language centre, and this federal government's funding for Indigenous language. It has been almost like a revivalist movement, and it is wonderful to see the great pride that it gives young people to hear someone—another Indigenous person—speaking to them in their native language. That has been amazing.

Overall, there have been some wonderful programs running. I think over $1 million in funding was just recently made available for NAIDOC Week, which has become a real celebration for us in our city. Youth arts programs at The Loft have also been highly successful, and in September Newcastle's newly refurbished NovaSkill Indigenous and industry skills centre was opened, benefiting from over $700,000 from the federal Labor government. The centre is already benefiting local Indigenous students across a range of trade and business areas: building and construction, hospitality, aged care, retail, IT and services. And Newcastle university is a standout in that it has trained almost 75 per cent of the Indigenous doctors in this nation, having started a long time ago in 1986.

The late Dr Ross Ingram was the first Indigenous person from New South Wales to be accepted into our medical school; today we are seeing Indigenous medical specialists. Professor Ian Anderson has noted that Indigenous Australians enrolled in first-year medical studies have reached national parity with non-Indigenous counterparts; that is a great tribute to the contribution made by the University of Newcastle.

Finally, in 2012 the federal government provided $10 million to Reconciliation Australia to promote public awareness and community support for constitutional reform. And now the Prime Minister has announced a further $14.4 million for that work.

Credit goes to Reconciliation Australia and to all those around the nation who have pushed for this reform, from organisations such as You Me Unity, along with the minister and the tens of thousands of individual advocates around the nation. As the minister has stated, we cannot underestimate the challenge of achieving consensus with a referendum across the country, but this change will come when the timing is right.

In supporting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill 2012, I pay my respects to all Indigenous people of this land and to their elders past and present. I also register my strong support for constitutional recognition of Australia's first people.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia remains the only Commonwealth country without a treaty with its Indigenous inhabitants. We have never properly acknowledged that Indigenous Australians never ceded sovereignty. We have never properly acknowledged that what we call 'settlement' was accompanied by violence, at times and in places extremely brutal. Until we acknowledge this, and until we acknowledge it in the form of a treaty, these wounds at the heart of our country are going to continue to fester.

I was proud, like many others, to celebrate Australia Day. For me, the values that I celebrated on Australia Day are what I think to be the very important, uniquely Australian values of multiculturalism and egalitarianism. But, Australia Day, which of course happened very recently, is a difficult day for Australia's first peoples. I went to a number of events where we were warmly and generously welcomed to country by people to whom we owe a debt. The first event of my day on Australia Day was to join with a number of Indigenous Australians and a number of non-Indigenous Australians in Fitzroy to mark the serious parts of our history that are often overlooked. I long for the day when everyone in this country can celebrate Australia Day; when it is a day where we mark not only those values of multiculturalism and egalitarianism that bind us all together but when it also becomes a day where our first Australians can celebrate because we are celebrating a treaty.

But at least we are taking a step towards recognising Indigenous Australians in the Constitution, and at least we are able to debate this legislation this week. It is appropriate that we are debating it this week because part of 'closing the gap' on Aboriginal health is taking steps to improve social and emotional wellbeing, and an act of recognition is an important part of that work.

The committee that looked into this bill heard significant evidence about the importance of recognition of wellbeing. The comments of the Human Rights Commission are particularly relevant today. The human rights commissioner focussed on how a lack of recognition impacts on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly young people. The Australian Greens agree that at each step toward what we hope will be full constitutional recognition, it is crucial that the process improves emotional and social wellbeing amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Also, it is crucial that it takes care to avoid creating significant uncertainty within the process, which could trigger distress or disengagement by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

My colleague Senator Rachel Siewert has made additional comments for that inquiry, and will address our concerns in greater detail when this bill reaches the Senate. The Australian Greens will support the passage of this bill as an important step along the path to constitutional recognition. However, I do want to note that we are disappointed that there has by now not been further progress towards substantive constitutional recognition.

Ultimately, the Australian Greens believe that recognition needs to occur in the Constitution, along with concrete action to address the racism that remains in the text of the Constitution. The Australian Greens have a long history of supporting Aboriginal rights and promoting recognition and reconciliation. We want to see further reforms and the end of policies that have a disproportionally negative impact on people, such as income management. For this reason we will continue to work towards constitutional recognition, but we will not settle for symbolism over substance. It is also clear to us that there is still significant work to be undertaken to reach agreement, not just on the most popular model of recognition but to ensure that the final model is the most appropriate model—and one that has the support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

There is still insufficient clarity about what the next steps towards recognition are. Reconciliation Australia, which has been empowered to promote constitutional recognition through the Recognise program, demonstrated to the committee examining this bill how difficult it is to advocate for a successful referendum when the model of that referendum is still unclear, and the enduring problem this presents to their work to build public awareness.

Although the bill provides the trigger for a review that will investigate the way towards constitutional recognition after one year, it is clear that there will also need to be significant multi-party commitment and leadership in order to build the understanding and excitement of the Australian people to get behind an important history-making campaign to say 'yes' to recognition and 'no' to racism. For the Australian Greens this bill is a good step forward, but constitutional recognition will remain firmly on the agenda as the ultimate goal.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For some time now there has been some debate and discussion in many quarters within the community about the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the most critical document to our nation, the Australian Constitution. These conversations have been ongoing. They have been across many places. They have in some cases generated agreement and in other cases not. Having said that, people do recognise that a Constitution that aims to bind all people within one country should be representative of all people within this one country. From my perspective, for us to have a situation where some are included in recognition and others are not does not ensure that our Constitution is as strong as it can be, but, importantly, it is an oversight, as I would describe it, in a way that marginalises and does not prove to be as fully inclusive as we all hope it would be. In this country we hope that we do ensure in all the organs of our nation, in both a practical and a symbolic sense, that people do feel that they have a part to play and that they are truly included. For us, ensuring that the Constitution does that is critical.

This bill is a touchstone, but it is only one. It needs to in one way, shape or form move us closer to agreement, but we are not there yet. Through the course of the contributions here today, and elsewhere, others have expressed their disappointment that we have not moved that quickly. I certainly share that view. But, again, for the purpose of our end objective, which is to have people feel that they are being included, we need to ensure that we are all in agreement along the way. So, for us, this is only a touchstone in terms of recognition of Australia's Indigenous peoples in the Constitution, but it is still recognises at this point the special place of Indigenous people as the first Australians.

We arrive here as a result of the unanimous recommendations of the government appointed the expert panel on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians. The work of this expert panel, across the course of 2011, ultimately reached its peak when it handed over its report in January last year. It represented a great deal of work in talking to the community about what they expected, and gaining their views and ensuring that they could be best represented in the final report of that expert panel. Ultimately, it will be the voice of the Australian people who give constitutional recognition to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Debate interrupted.