Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I think it is important to again make the key point. I hear what Senator Scullion says about what he thinks is a declaratory statement in the second part of the amendment. The key issue is this: should the parliament make an effort to comply with and invoke the Racial Discrimination Act when moving measures that are clearly directed at Indigenous people and that will apply different provisions to them than to non-Indigenous people in the same areas? It seems to Labor it is worth the effort.

I know this has been rushed and that the focus has been on other issues. I have seen a number of legal advices around the place, but this is exactly where we were with the Native Title Act. It seems to me that, for want of some effort and engagement with people, parliament can do better than this. It is easy for the government to say: ‘We’ve got the numbers so we don’t have to work too hard at this stuff. A lawyer has said to us, “This is the easy way to do it—just wipe out the Racial Discrimination Act and the bill will go through because you have the numbers, 39 to 37, and it will all be over.”‘ Quite frankly, if the government did not have the numbers it would not be going through like this. We would be making more of an effort.

Labor will not support the Democrats and Greens in wiping out the whole section of this bill, because we are not going to scuttle the bills. Fundamentally, we think they are capable of being seen as special measures under the Racial Discrimination Act. But it does send the wrong message that the parliament is legislating for Indigenous people but cannot do it in a way that preserves the observance of the act, which says that you cannot discriminate against people. It is pretty fundamental. I know that people get tied up in the minutiae of the legal argument, but fundamentally it says that we cannot have the right to be free of racial discrimination in legislation that is designed to be targeted at Indigenous people. It is just the wrong message.

Labor think we can do better. This amendment is our attempt to do better. Quite frankly, with more time and the goodwill of the government I am sure we could do better than this. I do not pretend our solution is perfect, and that is in part because we want to support the legislation and in part because we recognise the government has the numbers and it will go through anyway. But it is an important point of principle that the parliament think about whether or not we should do this in this way. I know that urging the government to reconsider is a waste of time, but I do think people should reflect on this. While we will support the legislation, I think the parliament could do much better than what we are doing here.