Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the debate on this important legislation that we have before us, the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022. I want to state at the outset that I won't be supporting this bill, and I will lay out the reasons why throughout my contribution. I also want to make it very clear to those that might be following this debate here today that this bill is about setting up the mechanism to be able to have a referendum; it's not actually a substantive debate on the referendum itself, and it's certainly not a decision on the final outcome. It will be up to every Australian to decide what their position will be. I'll touch on those two latter points throughout my contribution today, and you will be able to indicate from what I say where I'm at with it, but I just want to really focus on the mechanism bill that is before us and address the concerns that I've got with the bill.

This bill seeks to change the way in which the referendum on an Indigenous voice is carried out. Be in no doubt that the changes made here will impact future referendums, and that's why it's critical that we get this bill right here today. We're debating the way in which Australians can have a say on how our Constitution is changed; it is the most important framework governing this country, so it is absolutely critical that we get it right. As the Institute of Public Affairs said in their submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters:

Constitutional changes represent a fundamental alteration of the institutional and governmental arrangements of the country. The drafters of the Australian Constitution allowed elected politicians to propose constitutional amendments but reserved to the Australian people the right to approve of those proposals, by way of a referendum.

The Opposition have raised three points with the government to address the concerns that we have with the referendum process. The first is to restore the pamphlet to outline the 'yes' and 'no' case, and I understand there will be an amendment from the government to address that, and that's good; that's welcomed. I look forward to seeing it and understanding exactly how it's going to work. The second one is to establish a 'yes' and 'no' campaign organisation. We understand that that's not what's happening here, so that's a major concern and I'll outline my concerns for that. The third is that those organisations be appropriately funded. These are the three things that the opposition are looking for. As I said, I welcome the government's announcement that they'll restore that pamphlet, and I look forward to seeing that amendment and understanding it better.

Originally, the Prime Minister wanted to conduct this referendum without distributing the views of both cases to the Australian people. It's a real shame. The requirement for a pamphlet was actually introduced in 1912, so it has a very long tradition and it's critical. In fact only three referendums have been held—in 1919, 1926 and 1928—where the 'yes' and 'no' pamphlets were not distributed. The AEC gave some evidence to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that a pamphlet to all Australian households will cost approximately $10 million. Further to this, the AEC said that around 40 per cent of Australians rely on receiving a pamphlet provided by the AEC. So, despite what my fellow Western Australian in the other place the member for Perth said in the other place, it's not sufficient for people to receive this information only by TV, email and social media—as if we've moved beyond the need to get this information. I think it's absolutely critical that people are provided with that.

One of the reasons it's critical is that you can't always trust what you read online. If Australians receive something from the very credible source that is the Australian Electoral Commission, it gives them confidence that what they're reading is actually legitimate and that it's not influenced by any particular agenda or any particular actor that might seek to interfere. Having that AEC letterhead or the inscription on the envelope adds particular confidence to the reader—the receiver of that notification—to be able to know that what they're seeing is in fact from an authorised source and can be trusted. The pamphlet and the information contained within it will present both cases in a clear and, hopefully, concise way—they won't be too lengthy. The pamphlet will present the information in a way that people can understand so that they can make a proper and informed choice. It is critical that that information is provided. You can't just rely on TV advertising, you can't just rely on emails being sent out and you can't just rely on social media to be able to deal with it. We all see things that are sent out via social media, and they're not always accurate. Sometimes they've been taken over by others—they call it spoofing—and so, obviously, we want to make sure that that's avoided.

It should be noted that a previous House of Representatives standing committee inquiry into constitutional reform and referendums recommended in December 2021 that the electoral commissioner be allowed to distribute a pamphlet through the mail and using any additional methods that the commissioner considers appropriate. That was recommendation 6. As the IPA correctly noted in its submission:

Abolishing the requirement to publish and distribute a booklet to electors on the spurious grounds cited by the federal government overturns an important and indispensable Australian political tradition, critical to freedom and democracy, which has ensured arguments in respect to both sides of the debate can be heard.

Then, last month, we saw the Prime Minister have his 'Saul on the road to Damascus' moment, where he performed a spectacular backflip—no doubt one of many that we'll see this government do over the next 2½ years that are left of their term. As the Leader of the Opposition rightly pointed out:

It was frankly quite arrogant of the prime minister to believe that he didn't need to provide details to the Australian people.

We welcome the Prime Minister's change of heart and willingness to help inform Australians about what they'll be voting on, but we can't rely on a Labor government to do anything right.

We know that Labor have not had a lot of success when it comes to referendums. Not since 1946 have they held a successful referendum, and it was the only time that they succeeded in changing the Constitution—this was to give the Commonwealth power over a range of social services, such as age pensions, unemployment benefits and the like. This bill, sadly, also does not provide for official 'yes/no' campaign organisations. This bill does not outline any official funding for those campaigns. So far, what we're seeing is that this government's handling of this debate is woeful—it's woeful!

I have had a lot of experience working across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Indigenous affairs across the country; I have worked alongside Indigenous people to help them achieve great outcomes, particularly in the area of employment. I'm very proud of that work, through my partnering with many different people and organisations. It saw tens of thousands of long-term unemployed people—people who Centrelink had classified as having intractable barriers to employment—take up work. They were provided with training to get them into jobs, sustainable jobs, and, importantly, to retain those jobs. So I have great networks across the country in connection with many Indigenous people, and I can tell you that they want real outcomes in their communities. They don't want a talkfest. They don't want people speaking on their behalf. They want to have a very real outcome in their communities.

I will give you a good example of this. Just this week I got on the phone—I haven't had a chance to get up there, mainly because the roads have been blocked and there have been other issues; you don't want to be a tourist, as such—and I spoke to people on the ground in Fitzroy Crossing. Those who followed it would know that there were enormous floods—record level floods—that went through there over January. They wiped out the bridge and wiped out significant infrastructure across that community. I called and asked how things were going; I plan to go up there in April, when I get the first chance to get up there. I spoke to someone on the ground who said, 'Some bureaucrat somewhere, in West Perth or in Canberra, made the decision that we have to put a barge across the river as a temporary measure to deal with the fact that the bridge is washed out.' They said, 'If they just spoke to the local people, they understand that the water levels go up really high when it floods and drops really quickly.' They said that the idea of a barge was never going to work because once the water levels drop, obviously, you can't take the barge across the river, and yet it still might be impassable to trucks. So they spent all this time and all this money building the entrances on both sides of the river to get it right for this barge to go across, and the barge worked for three days. Right now the barge doesn't work; they're going to have to dredge it underneath so that the barge can cross the river, whereas if they'd spent the time—'If they'd listened to us; we know our river, we know our community'—actually understanding that then they would have done the preparatory work on the crossing that's always there. They said that when the water level drops: 'Even if that just meant there were a couple of extra weeks where we had to rely on other sources to get across the river, we'd have a more permanent solution. And once the water level dropped quick enough, we would be in a position to be able to move ahead.' This is just an example of where you have to be listening to the voices of those on the ground, not just some elite, high-level thing,

The hopes of Indigenous people across the country are held high in relation to the outcome of this whole thing, and so it's incredibly important that the government gets it right. It starts with this bill. Sadly, what we're seeing is that they're not getting it right; their handling of this debate is really, really terrible. I don't want to see a situation where we've raised the hopes of people across this country and those hopes being dashed because of the poor handling by this government of this particular debate. What we know is that this government, or Labor, has a poor history when it comes to referendums. As I said, it was the mid-1940s of last century since they last had a successful referendum, and so it's critical that we get it right.

This bill makes no mention of the plan to regulate donations. We've seen that foreign interference can really play an active role in elections. It's important that elections and referendums are held without any taint of interference, because that would completely undermine the whole process and it would be an absolute shame. As we know, even political parties have been targeted, so it would make sense that practical measures to help mitigate the risk are included. Those grounds alone I think are a good reason to have some formal structure around the referendum, with at least nominated official 'yes' and 'no' campaigns.

I have big concerns about this referendum. I have big concerns about the proposal that's been put forward. Nothing so far that the government has put forward have assuaged my concerns. I am a constitutional conservative. If the Constitution's ever changed, it has to be done after very careful consideration. Nothing that the government has said so far and nothing in their handling of it has assuaged my concerns. I think in appropriately setting it up to ensure that there is a proper process, to ensure that there is scrutiny and to ensure that there is integrity around this referendum they should allow the establishment of both a 'yes' and a 'no' organisation—two organisations that are seen by the Australian people as being trusted sources on the situation and the issues that are before us. You don't have to agree with both, of course. You won't. You are going to choose. You are going to pick a side. But it is important that there be those organisations. Unfortunately, this bill doesn't enable the establishment of that and it certainly doesn't allow for the funding of that. I think that's a real shame. It's not going to do anything.

The problem I am seeing in this debate is that it seems that the Labor Party thinks that everyone thinks like them. They are thinking that people will just go along with it on the vibe of what is going on. Sadly, that's not the case. Even the electoral results showed only 30-odd per cent of people actually voted for the Labor Party, so they can't think that everyone thinks like them because only a third of people supported them at the election. So get it right, Labor.