Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Mr Acting Deputy President Ludlam. You are looking very proper up there. The National Party represents a large section of the Indigenous community. In fact one of our seats, namely the electorate of Parkes, has a larger number of Indigenous people than any other electorate. We are very aware of the fact that we want an engaged relationship with the first occupants of this nation. I have a great desire for the greatest form of inclusion of the Kamilaroi people and to the north of me the Mandandanji people but I do have an immense sense of cynicism about how this has found its way onto the agenda today.

What opportunity do I have to go back and talk to the Kamilaroi or Mandandanji people about this and deal with the issues? Maybe they would like to be involved in this process in some way, shape or form. But it is not about that. This is yet another form of tokenistic approach to Indigenous issues. I am sure that Indigenous people like the Murri people of my area would be far more engaged if the Labor Party were to come forward with a distinct program of regional development, with the securing of water rights so that they can have employment or with programs to economically advance them. Those are the sorts of programs that people want. Those are the sorts of programs that have a real aspect of bringing improvements to people’s lives.

The National Party senators, such as Senator Scullion, Senator Nash, Senator Williams and me, who actually live in communities with Indigenous people, who do not live in the suburbs and just talk about them, would have appreciated more time to have a consultative engagement in this process. But this has been brought in today not to help the plight of Indigenous people—and I acknowledge that there is much that needs to be done especially around empowering Indigenous people—but as a political stunt. By bringing it in as a political stunt you are actually ridiculing the whole process. Why did you do this? Why do we not have a more complete debate about the mechanisms and ways we can take the Indigenous people forward? I would like to see that.

What Labor governments around our nation have done is to use Indigenous people in many instances as a whipping post, locking up their access to the development of their wealth with things like the wild rivers legislation. What consultation did the Indigenous people of the Gulf have on that? What have you left those people except destitution in perpetuity? There is no point in having a welcoming ceremony and a sorry day and then in the next breath doing things like that to them. In my area you have created uncertainty over water rights. The greatest mechanism of social advancement for Indigenous people in my area has been compromised.

I would have liked the opportunity to go back and have a yarn to the elders in my town, including Poddy Waters, about this and ask him in what form and in what fashion he would like recognition of Indigenous people at the start of parliament. I would have liked the opportunity to have that discussion with him. But I do not. The National Party will be supporting this motion, but we will be supporting it in a fashion under duress because we are playing into your little political game, your little argument of division. Once more you are trying to use a foisted motion to garner a view that is not a true reflection of your actions.

This will be called for what it is. It is yet again a stunt because there was no form of wider engagement with the key stakeholders, the Indigenous people. I would like to know what sort of engagement you had with them prior to this. I would like to see the discussions with the key stakeholders on this motion but there were none. You know the game you play. If we vote against it because we call it a disingenuous stunt, you will play the wedge politics and say the coalition does not have the views of Indigenous people at heart. You have been very mischievous in the process that has brought this motion about and you will be called as such.

We would like to say to the Indigenous people of my own area—to the Kamilaroi people, the Mandandanji people and the Murris in general—that we want to have a form of engagement that goes beyond the tokenism to social advancement over the long term, because that is essential unless you want the ‘sorry’ statement and this statement to be the only things that you offer Indigenous Australia. Is that it? A highfaluting tokenism and a form of wedge politics is what the Labor Party intends to offer Indigenous Australia, and it thinks that we are all foolish enough to fall for this eleventh-hour, 59th-minute piece of wedge politics before the parliament rises.