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

On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I present the committee's progress report on the inquiry into Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This progress report clarifies the joint select committee's views on the words proposed by the expert panel's 2012 report to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. Among the recommendations is that section 25 of the Constitution be repealed and that the expert panel's proposed section 127A is not inserted into the Constitution.

Following the consultations of the committee, we have found that both of these recommendations have broad community support. The task at hand is to decide how the actual recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples takes form in the Constitution and how to ensure that the wording remains technically and legally sound.

To this end, the committee recommends the repeal or amendment of section 51(xxvi) to remove the reference to race and recommends that the parliament consider three structural options for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are set out in the report. It is the committee's strong view that any proposal must preserve both existing Commonwealth laws relying on section 51(xxvi) and the Commonwealth's power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

National active leadership must now be shown on this issue. I congratulate and thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the constructive bipartisan dialogue they have been having on this very important issue. It is time to take this step further and I urge all members and senators to learn more about the proposals contained in this progress report and become part of the process. The committee is still conducting hearings across the nation, and the more Australians encouraged to become part of the process the more successful the referenda will be.

It is important that all members and senators are empowered to become part of discussions as well, and I urge all political parties to start the discussions on constitutional recognition. Contained within this progress report is the recommendation that each house of parliament set aside a full day of sittings to debate concurrently recommendations of the joint select committee as set out in the report with a view to achieving near unanimous parliamentary support for and to build momentum towards a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution.

Constitutional recognition is not something to be scared of. We have a real opportunity here to enact lasting historical and well overdue change to our Constitution. We cannot lose this momentum or goodwill. I repeat again: national active leadership is needed now on this issue, and I urge everyone to become part of the process that is occurring with the joint select committee. Further recommendations made in the progress report are that a referendum should take place at or shortly after the next federal election in 2016 and that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 be extended to align with the proposed timing of a referendum.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has made a submission to the committee at a public hearing or in writing and the secretariat staff for their hard work in putting together a very extensive consultation schedule and preparing this report. I also want to take this opportunity before the end of the year to thank the other committee members: Deputy Chair Senator Nova Peris; the Hon. Christian Porter MP; Senator Bridget McKenzie; Senator James McGrath; Mr Shayne Neumann MP; Mr Stephen Jones MP; and Senator Rachel Siewert. They have been outstanding in the way they have conducted themselves in the business of the committee. All of the committee members have approached the task ahead of them with diligence, goodwill and a deep, meaningful respect. All have acted as parliamentarians rather than politicians, which is refreshing and essential to the success of the referendum. I commend the progress report to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Constitution is incomplete. It is unfinished business. There is a void—a hole, if you like—at its heart. George Williams, Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales says:

A silence lies at the heart of the Australian constitution. The document reflects Australia's history of white settlement, but fails to mention the much longer occupation of the continent by Aboriginal peoples. It is as if their history does not matter, and is not part of the nation's story.

It is a shame, a tragedy and a disgrace, and it needs to be corrected.

Bill Shorten has talked about the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need a place of honour in the Constitution. The opposition leader is correct. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it 'a great piece of unfinished national business'. The committee, in its interim report—tabled on 15 July 2014—said that a successful referendum must:

The committee has travelled the countryside, and in the next couple of weeks will literally have been from the Torres Strait to Tasmania. We have had dozens of submissions in relation to this report that we are tabling here today.

We have also had the benefit of the final report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act of Recognition Review Panel, led by former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, Ms Tanya Hosch and Mr Richard Eccles. They make the point in their report that the support for recognition awareness has actually fallen from 42 per cent to 34 per cent. In that regard, I commend the member for Hasluck in his leadership and his chairmanship of this report. He is absolutely accurate: we need political leadership from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to take this forward.

With only eight out of 44 referenda actually being put to the people successfully, we need bipartisanship, popular ownership, popular education, a sound and sensible proposal and a modern referendum process—a point Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles make so clearly. The moral force of the 1967 referendum cannot be forgotten. There needs to be both symbolic change and meaningful change—or real and substantive change—and Labor remains ready, willing and available to assist the government in a bipartisan way, as we did throughout the deliberations of this committee. There must be tangible change.

As Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles say in their report:

To vote to change the Constitution, Australians need to accept that there is a gap or problem presented by the current words and that the proposed change will fix it. At its core, the public needs to see that the change is worth the effort of a referendum.

…   …   …

Over 22% of currently enrolled voters were not of voting age at the last referendum in 1999. More than 62% of voters—

including myself—

have never voted in a successful referendum.

The possibility of racial discrimination is of critical importance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They have referred consistently in their submissions to this inquiry of the dispossession of their land, the loss of their language and the destruction of their culture since colonial settlement.

Witnesses to the inquiry referred repeatedly to the long experience of suffering racial discrimination and their desire for constitutional protection against future discrimination. They perceive real and substantive constitutional change deserving of support from all Australians as a prohibition of racial discrimination. Co-chair of the expert panel, Mr Mark Leibler AC submitted that:

At every single consultation that we held, there was a reference to substantive recognition—'We want substantive recognition.' What did that mean? It turned out that substantive recognition means something to preclude racial discrimination.

Mr Leibler submitted to our inquiry:

If we do not give effect to something that is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, we are wasting our time to begin with.

As Mr Les Malezer, the co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, reminded me recently, 'Nothing about us without us.' Noel Pearson, says on page 65 of his quarterly essay, A rightful place:

If conservatives assert that a racial non-discrimination clause is not the answer then what is a better solution?

We have a number of options in this report.

Witnesses, in their submissions both oral and written, overwhelmingly supported a prohibition against racial discrimination and real and substantive change; getting rid of the odious and repugnant section 25; not proceeding with the expert panel's proposal on section 127A; and real change deserving of Australia's full support.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for statements on this report has expired. Does the honourable member for Hasluck wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?

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

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39 the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.