Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am talking about the Constitution, which, as I understand it, is the subject of Senator Brown’s motion. I am talking about the powers given to this parliament and the territories under the Constitution. I am simply describing how a Liberal government led the charge to change the Constitution to treat Indigenous Australians like every other Australian—and I am very proud of that. I am just making an observation on how attitudes changed between the late 1800s and the mid-1960s, when that was changed. Back in the earlier part of our nationhood, the Labor Party and the unions were totally opposed to bringing coloured labour into Australia. I think the unions in those days did that for what they thought were the right reasons, but it was a fairly disgraceful episode in our history. Again, I am delighted that a Liberal government did away with the White Australia policy, which had been supported by the unions for so long—and by the party the unions supported.

Senator Brown is correct in that I have digressed just a little, and I will return to my comments on the Constitution. The Constitution was put together by people who had the best interests of Australia at heart. It was an exercise that went very carefully into every single element of every single section or clause of the Constitution. One of the sections dealt with at that time was section 122, which gave power to the Commonwealth to make laws over the territories. Again, Senator Brown, with his bill, wants to change that arrangement. He has explained why he wants to do so, as I say, in the shortest speech I have ever heard him make. However, that particular provision resulted from the work of some of the best legal minds in the country at that time—and I think those legal minds would have stood the test of time. Were our founding forefathers here today, they would still be recognised as some of the finest legal minds in the world. Those great lawyers and great statesmen of their time, including Sir Henry Parkes and Sir Samuel Griffith—a great Queenslander; I think I can say proudly that he comes from my state—would have gone through this very carefully. They would have looked at section 122 and would have decided that the Commonwealth should have law-making power over the territories.