Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the Closing the Gap report. This is the first report since the establishment of the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Once again, it makes for disappointing and frustrating reading.

I acknowledge that some targets are on track: more babies born at a healthy weight, and more kids enrolled in preschool. This is very welcome news. However, many targets are not on track, and in some areas the gap has widened. These include incarceration rates, children in and out of home care, getting children school-ready and tragically, suicide rates.

One Nation supports the new approach in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap in principle, primarily because there was some focus on empowering Indigenous Australians to take equal responsibility for its outcomes. We have hope that this approach will chip away at the insidious culture of victimhood unjustly imposed on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We concede that it is early days, but you will forgive my cynicism at the ultimate impact of this new approach, considering the uncounted billions of dollars thrown at these issues for many years, with little positive effect.

Regardless, closing the gaps is an urgent priority for this entire nation. It is appalling that any defined demographic of Australians is so obviously disadvantaged. One Nation looks forward to a future when this disadvantage has been overcome, when we are no longer divided or separated by race in any respect, and when every individual Australian's opportunities and prospects are no longer defined by race. We will never close the gaps as long as we continue to indulge in the identity politics of racial division and separatism.

This is why it is critical that all Australian people unite to stand against it, and they can do so by voting no in the coming referendum on the proposed Voice to Parliament. Given the urgency to close the gaps, it is only fair to question why the Albanese government is prioritising such an expensive and divisive proposal, especially considering there is absolutely no compelling evidence the Voice will help to close the gap. It is only fair to question if the Albanese government is ignoring a growing chorus of Australian voices, including prominent Indigenous voices, opposing the voice to parliament. It is only fair to question why the Prime Minister did not, apparently, seek legal advice before proposing his amendment to the Constitution. This draft amendment is of tremendous concern for the future governance of Australia, because it threatens to unleash a wave of repeated constitutional crises. Constitutional legal minds much finer than those of Anthony Albanese or Mark Dreyfus have, for months, been warning the Prime Minister's draft amendment is absolutely ripe for this potential.

As we have seen unfolding this week, this debate is not only causing further division between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians it is dividing Indigenous Australia itself. Noel Pearson has been at the forefront of the yes cause, pedalling the transparent lie that the voice is necessary because Indigenous Australians are not recognised in their country. This week he has bullied and attacked Senator Price for her stance on the voice, accusing her of being used to punch down on other Aboriginals. I was disgusted, but not especially surprised, by this deeply personal and racist attack on a woman who has articulated practical and sensible concerns about the voice. Mr Pearson would do well to consider that Senator Price's election to the Senate shows our Constitution and system of government are no barriers to Indigenous representation. And the Prime Minister will do well to pay close attention to the fracturing of the Australian electorate and the deep divisions being created by this proposal to give greater political franchise to a minority of Australians based solely on race. One Nation proudly stands against enshrining racial exceptionalism in the founding document of Australia. We will be campaigning strongly for the no vote so that Australia can move forward together, united as one people and one nation under one flag.