Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

For me, the overriding sense from today is that this country has let Indigenous people down. The reason I spent a large part of my first speech last year dealing with this issue is that I have always felt it was the nation's unfinished business. I mean, how could we have a situation where people could be left so far behind on almost every social indicator. Frankly, after hearing some of the contributions that were made earlier, I'm really not sure what world they're living in. But I promised myself I would make these brief remarks free of politics.

I think today is a good day in the sense that we now have a lot more Indigenous input into what these targets should look like. I very much welcome that. I'm hoping that, next year, we'll see some significant improvements. This year, the improvements on early-childhood education and year 12 attainment are steps in the right direction. But there is a lot more to do. I am a big believer in having an Indigenous voice to parliament. When I travel around New South Wales and talk to Indigenous people, they always make the same point to me—that is, that on the ground, whether they are community leaders or community members, they haven't got sufficient control to run their affairs at the grassroots level in the way they would like to. My sense is that, if a voice could create more control for Indigenous people on the ground, if it was practical, that would be a very, very good step.

More broadly, there is an important job for us to do on recognising Indigenous people in the Constitution. I am very confident that Minister Wyatt, who is the first Indigenous person to hold a cabinet rank and also the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, will shepherd through a good process which will give the community many options for what a voice could look like. That process is being chaired by Marcia Langton and Tom Calma, and it is a good process. Once that voice is nailed down, there will be an opportunity to talk about constitutional recognition. The benefit of doing the voice first is that it is substantive, it is material and it could be the sort of reform that could really change some of those numbers we have seen today, which I think everyone would agree we need to do more work on. I very much look forward to working in a bipartisan fashion as we develop these models for a voice to parliament. The Labor Party, in the committees I have been on, have been very constructive. Despite some of the reporting today, I am optimistic about what this process could achieve.