Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. In an interview with Neil Mitchell three weeks ago, the Prime Minister confessed he had not read the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. The Prime Minister said, 'Why would I?' Has the Prime Minister now read the Statement from the Heart in full, and does the Prime Minister accept his failure to read the statement in full has contributed to his failure to convince Australians to vote yes in the referendum?

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is far too much noise on my left, and ministers are continually interjecting during questions. It will not continue.

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

I have read the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. It's on the wall in my office, and here it is. Here it is. And the nonsense opposite—we just saw an example where the Leader of the Opposition stood at this dispatch box and attempted to verbal the minister for Indigenous affairs by putting words in her mouth that she did not say. It's called Hansard. The Leader of the Opposition seems to be unaware of it.

On page 1 of the Herald and the Age today they reported that the 'no' campaign had a deliberate strategy of promoting fear—fear—over fact: 'No callers urged to use fear over fact'. And that is what we are seeing. The 'no' campaigners out there are saying this: 'When reason and emotion collide, emotion always wins.' That's one of the quotes. They are very consciously over there—with the Advance campaign made up of former Liberal party people and others from some very strange groups. But there are people who have backgrounds in the Liberal Party. Chris Kenny, a former chief of staff, indeed, to a Liberal Prime Minister, has made a very clear statement. He says this about the nonsense about the Uluru Statement:

The claim is false. The documents they refer to are background papers and meeting summaries from consultations leading up to Uluru. They have been public all along (including during five years of Coalition government) and no one has signed up to them … The "longer" statement claim is a confection aimed at sustaining a scare campaign but, incredibly, some persist with it.

That is what Chris Kenny has had to say about this nonsense. But there they are, telling their campaigners to promote fear rather than hope, to promote division rather than unity, to hope the entrenching of values rather the better future, to promote ignoring rather than listening, to promote exclusion rather than recognition.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a gracious statement of around 440 words, but the constitutional recognition referendum question is very clear as well. Recognition, then there shall be a Voice, then it may make representations on matters affecting Indigenous people, and the third is the primacy of the parliament.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for New England will cease interjecting.