Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the address of the Governor-General at the opening of this historic formation of the first term of the Albanese government. I hope it might be the first term of several terms of Labor led government under Mr Albanese. I think it's a fact that few could really have imagined the events of the three years that preceded the change of government—the turmoil, the anguish and the uncertainty that was just part of people's lives. In the time since the election, I've met with many Australians who say to me that they're so glad to wake up without the sense of fear and dread of what new disaster might be landing on them at the hands of their Prime Minister. That was what people were living with under Mr Morrison. In addition to the failure of the government to do its job as a government, instead permanently creating panic and devastation, we had the reality of so many external events that impacted us all. We had floods, devastating bushfires, inflation, pandemics, lockdowns and all the hurt that these elements inflicted on our nation, and they've irrevocably changed us. But out of every crisis there is an opportunity to review the way we do things, and this Albanese government is keen to make the very best of the learnings from those challenges that Australians faced.

The long boom ended and our first recession in three years came, in the face of a global downturn. Despite lower unemployment, workers are now doing it tougher than ever. Change, in the unlikeliest of circumstances, begat change, and last year Australians voted for change of many kinds. We had a change of government for only the third time this century. Record First Nations representation was achieved in this parliament, and I include in that my good friend Dr Gordon Reid, who lives in the seat of Robertson, which I was proud to represent in the other chamber between 2010 and 2013. What a wonderful addition he is to the complement of members in the lower house. I couldn't be prouder of my new seatmate, Senator Jana Stewart, and, although she's just left the chamber, the first hijab-wearing senator, Senator Payman. We've also seen the delivery of a female majority in the Senate, and Mr Sam Lim, our first dolphin trainer, elected to the lower house. What a joy it was to hear his first speech and to look up, in this multicultural and multifaith nation, and see the very well-known saffron coloured robes of Buddhist monks in the chamber—the reality of our multifaith nation on display there.

For Labor, we've always understood that representation matters. Our diverse houses now look much more like the wonderful multicultural, multifaith, pluralist democracy that we are and the nation that we seek to serve. It's also important, I believe, that this parliament will seek to enact the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. As I make this contribution, nine months into the government's response to the Governor-General's remarks, that discussion about whether we will indicate in our Constitution the simple fact that First Nations people were here is at its core. We have the opportunity to do the right thing.

I'm usually very proud of Australians for doing the right thing. I have taught many Australian schoolchildren. When we get around to talking about First Nations' spirituality, particularly in religion classes, and the history of First Nations people, they are unbelievably shocked that prior to 1967 Australia's First Nations people were counted as flora and fauna. That is a shocking thing for Australians to know, that this is our history.

But Australians rose to the challenge of acknowledging the fact—it's hard to say this sentence—that Aboriginal people were worthy of counting in the census, that they're people and need to be counted. Australians have hit this historical moment that it's no longer contested that Aboriginal people were here. Terra nullius has been nullified. People know the fact, and it's time that we wrote it into our hard story that's contained in that very small but very powerful document that I'm very proud to call our Constitution.

The debate that's happening about the Voice, right now, is a debate that we're past time having. It's already been five years—five years that the statement sat on the last government's desk, waiting for enactment. At least, that was the public voice, the public statement. They were waiting to get the job done. But they didn't do the job. The reality is they just paid lip-service to a very important and generous offer from the First Nations people of this country.

It matters not just in a symbolic way. I can say to you, colleagues, that I have had the privilege of getting out right across the beautiful state of New South Wales. Last year I visited Wilcannia and spoke to people there. That whole community was ravaged by COVID-19, and failure to address that crisis echoed the persistent failure to get that community off its knees.

The average life span for a man in Wilcannia is 38 years of age. It is unbelievably shocking. Of two young men born into the same town in Australia 38 years ago, one of them, a First Nations man, is likely to die at that age—not the other 38-year-old man who is not First Nations. For women, it's not much better. The average life span for women in Wilcannia is 41 years.

It's no coincidence, these appalling statistics in a community that is overwhelmingly Indigenous. It has become, sadly, part of the documented reality of our time, and it cannot be allowed to continue. It's a result of centuries of dispossession and discrimination and an outright campaign, from the state, to rid our First Nations people of their way of life.

Labor understands that when you're in government you need to lead. You need to lift the sights, the vision, the hopes, the capacity, the economy and the community to build hopes and dreams and help to deliver the best outcomes for Australia. That's why we've been rolling out the roadmap of implementation of the First Nations' generous offer to Australians that came through the Uluru Statement from the Heart and is now part of the public discussion, discussed in shorthand terms as 'the Voice'. I know that Minister Linda Burney has been putting her hand very much to the task of delivering a great outcome there. And I want to acknowledge the wise and remarkable leadership of my colleague in this chamber, Senator Pat Dodson, who, I think, just in the last 24 hours, has revealed the heartbrokenness and the tears of a nation that weeps for the loss of opportunities being taken up to redress the imbalance of life outcomes and opportunity between First Nations people and the rest of us who call this great country our home.

I hope and pray that we will find a way to move forward together in a unifying way—no more division. It's time to lift our sights. This process and its momentous consequences will change our nation for the better. It's one part of righting the historic wrongs by empowering Indigenous Australians and giving them a clear voice in our national debate. It will establish a Makarrata, which is a truth-telling commission, and that will bring together the disparate strands of our history and tell it like it really is, or was—the bad and the good; the truth.

I want to acknowledge the incredible integrity and academic leadership shown by a good friend of mine Professor Lyndall Ryan, formally of Newcastle University, for her profound contribution to our national understanding with her recording and publication of the sites of so many massacres that were part of this country. These are hard words for me to speak, and they are tragic things to recall, but we need to put them on the record and know that that is part of our history, alongside all the great stuff. Three key words: voice, treaty, truth. We will deliver all three with the help of the consultation that we're undertaking with our First Nations brothers and sisters and that incredible generosity and desire for truth telling that I think is fundamental to what's best about Australia and Australians.

Very importantly, the Albanese government will also be the parliament, provide the parliament, that passes an anti-religious discrimination bill, the bill that we will enact in accordance with our promises. Unlike the five years and two different governments under the Liberal National Party, who failed to deliver anything for the protection of freedom of Australians from religious discrimination, Labor will be the party that unites in support of people of all faiths to be free in our multicultural pluralistic democracy to practice their faith, alongside people who have no faith and their freedoms. It will be a bill that celebrates and protects our religious diversity. And it will not be the kind of bill that has exhausted advocates for the right to practise their religion under the former government, which was designed like so much of the legislation of the previous government as a tool to pit one Australian against another. Either/or, choose a team, goodies and baddies, lifters and leaners—we heard all that language of division. Well, that ends with the arrival of an Albanese government, and I'm very proud to be a senator in this Labor government that will lead in a way that unites our nation.

I've spoken of the healing soul of our nation, but we have a great task ahead of us, which is the healing of the world itself. Australians everywhere I go talk to me of the raging bushfires, floods, droughts, minor earthquakes and record temperatures that are happening in Australia and across the world. The evidence is there for all of us to see. Our planet is warming, and further warming will be catastrophic for all life on this planet. I certainly don't want that for my children and my grandchildren, and I don't think I know an Australian who wants that for anyone.

Labor will end the climate wars. Other people may want to continue them, but we've got to lift up and move on. We will get real action on climate change, and we will do it in a responsible way that manages a transition that doesn't deprive people of jobs and that isn't so purist that it can't deal with the reality of the need for a transition through gas. We will absolutely ensure that Australia benefits from a transition to clean renewable energy, and we have in our grasp the opportunity to become a major green superpower, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Our commitment will pass through this parliament—a commitment to reduce net emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels—and we've got on with the job of doing that.

There are opportunities for us to reach out into the regions around us. The former government were too short-sighted, too divided and unable to develop a cogent, forward-thinking climate change plan. And they continue to oppose ours, despite having no agenda of their own. But, despite that, an Albanese led Labor government will do what Australians need. (Time expired)