Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

In reality, I don't think it's actually that unreasonable that members on this side of the chamber have asked for some more detail with regard to this referendum. All we've asked for is detail. We want detail about the very thing that we're voting on and what it'll look like so that we in this place can make informed decisions on behalf of our constituents, whom this will impact. I've already brushed past the weasel words of calling this thing an Indigenous voice to parliament, when we literally have Indigenous members of parliament from across the political spectrum, in this very chamber and in the lower house, fighting for Indigenous Australians. Implying somehow that Indigenous Australians within our electorates and patron seats don't get a voice, as if we represent all Australians, regardless of ethnicity, except Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, is an absurd and, honestly, a racist way of thinking.

But, as I've said, we want to be reasonable and consider what the government's proposing. The problem is that there's nothing to consider—no real detail once again, no plan, no transparency from those opposite. We keep seeing this. It doesn't matter if it is refusing to have a look at the Mobile Black Spot Program today, the lack of modelling with regard to the safeguard mechanism, the gas cap being rushed through without a proper plan or the changes to super without considering the broader implications. They are just more broken promises.

We have raised, though, three points with the government to address our concerns on the referendum process: restore the pamphlet to outline the 'yes' and 'no' cases, establish official 'yes' and 'no' campaign organisations and appropriately fund those organisations. These measures are really fundamental to having a referendum with informed voters and a process with integrity. The coalition are generally standing here in good faith. We want to reasonably consider the proposal, but we need the government to actually come to the table. We can't support a bill that doesn't have a plan for how to properly regulate donations or foreign interference or that doesn't provide a plan for how the scrutiny of the referendum will be conducted. All of this could be resolved by the establishment of appropriately and equally funded official 'yes' and 'no' campaign organisations. Until we can have these concerns address, we will be opposing the bill.

Surveys repeatedly show that Australians want detail, and the Prime Minister is repeatedly ducking under the table. The government must set out specific details, but I guess the bigger question is: does that detail even exist? As Mr Dutton has said, it's strange that the Prime Minister now says that the Calma-Langton view of having local and regional voices is potentially not part of his plan. We had one senior government minister—indeed, the envoy in this area—saying that there would be a seat at the national cabinet for the Voice. That was then backtracked by Minister Linda Burney and then ruled out by the Prime Minister. So which one is it? How can Australians understand what they're voting for or the government ask us to support it when the government doesn't even know what they're asking Australians to vote for? This is just confusing for everybody.

There are 15 questions that Mr Dutton has asked the Prime Minister to address for Australians and their concerns. Who will be eligible to serve on the proposed body? That is probably something important that we need to know. What are the prerequisites for nominations? As Senator Hanson pointed out, we saw the failed ATSIC model years ago; are we just moving back to the same feeders that are looking for a permanent snout in the trough under the Voice? Will the government clarify the definition of 'Aboriginality' to determine who can serve on the body? How do we know? Does someone have to talk in and say, 'By the way, this is me,' or is some sort of proof required? And how will those numbers be elected, chosen or appointed? Will it be another mates-fest for those opposite to continue to appoint those and push their so-called agenda? How many people will be on the body? I think you might have to be able to answer that one. Pretty fundamentally: how much will it cost taxpayers annually?

Concerningly to Australians, you can't even answer what its functions and powers are. Is it purely advisory or will it have decision-making capabilities? Who will oversee the body and ensure it's accountable? If needed, can the body be dissolved, like we had to do with ATSIC, and reconstituted in extraordinary circumstances? How will the government ensure that the body includes those who still need to get a platform in Australian public life? How will it interact with the Closing the Gap process? We can come onto that and how it will actually impact Closing the Gap, because we know, ultimately, it won't. Will the government rule out using the Voice to negotiate any national treaty? Will the government commit to local and regional voices as recommended in the report and the co-design process led by Tom Calma and Marcia Langton? That is something that we now know they can't answer definitively.

If not, how will it effectively address the real issues that impact people's lives on the ground in the community? Again, these are really reasonable questions. They're not gotcha questions. There's nothing malicious in their intent. They're just questions that the Australian electorate with like answered. It's information which really should be provided at a bare minimum when you're proposing a change that could have lasting and far-reaching consequences for all Australians, not just for Indigenous Australians.

The fact that we actually have to keep asking if there will be a local or a regional voice already shows us that this proposal is nowhere near ready to go. It would be a totally futile—in fact, purely symbolic—and empty exercise to implement any kind of system without ensuring it actually works for all Indigenous Australians at the very least and not just for those who signed up to the Labor Party in their inner city hubs and who are going to push their own agendas forward, ignoring the plight of those in regional and rural communities. We know that they don't care about Alice Springs. If they were paying any attention today, they'd have noticed that one of the bakers out there has had his shop broken into over 40 times. But of course those opposite have absolutely no plan for what to do or any willingness to do anything to help the people of Alice Springs. That's because it doesn't quite fit with their woke virtue-signalling agenda. That's all, quite frankly, that Labor is capable of and it's their lifeblood: virtue-signalling to the high heavens just so they can make it look like they're doing something good without actually having to do any work.

We on this side of the chamber are actually quite happy to do the work if you guys on the other side just really aren't up to it. My colleague Senator Nampijinpa Price has stood in his chamber, day in and day out, time and time again, championing the cause of and being the voice for the people of the Northern Territory—Indigenous and non-Indigenous. But, of course, she's the wrong type of Indigenous woman; she's the wrong type of Indigenous voice. She is a genuine regional voice for the forgotten Australians who are struggling right now in the Top End. These are the people who actually need a voice the most. We know that this Voice is not going to be their voice. So whose voice is it? The inner-city bureaucrats or only the Indigenous groups who vote red? How can the Prime Minister think that this parliament, Senate or the Australian people will simply send this through to the keeper so that he and his government can work the details out on the fly once they've worked out what they're actually trying to do? Either he has total contempt for this chamber and the people of Australia, or perhaps he already has a plan that he doesn't want to come clean on. That's kind of getting a bit of a ring about it in this place, isn't it? In that case, is he really working for the people of Australia or just for the people who check his name at the ballot box?

This bill makes fundamental changes to how referenda are conducted in this country, removing the requirement for a pamphlet to be provided which outlines the cases for and against change. Why would a government that's so confident that this is something that people want—they're so confident that this is just going to sail through—be eager to hide the details? Why would less information be a good thing? How can this be the way forward? The coalition will support a bill that allows for a referendum with informed voters and a process that has integrity. Do you want me to spell it out for you? We need some integrity that's based on precedent. On principle alone we cannot support the precedent being set by the government, regardless of the referendum question it's being used to support. This would be the first time that there has been no pamphlet provided to voters since before Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup. There have only been three referenda in our nation's history without an official pamphlet; the last one was in 1928. There was one in 1919, when there was insufficient time. In 1926 there was no agreement on how to produce the 'yes' argument and in 1928 there was overwhelming agreement between the parties and government. None of the circumstances for those referenda apply here, so we have to ask why the government wants to unwind this longstanding precedent.

We've heard from the AEC, a bipartisan organisation, that when they provide mailed material to voters during elections, up to 40 per cent of recipients will use documentation such as pamphlets as their main source of information for how they cast their vote. The government is just simply playing games and trying to find ways to play the edges of this referendum without explicitly saying so. It's trying to skew the argument one way over the other to appease its base and stakeholders, instead of taking a genuine approach in asking the Australian people about whether they think this has any merit or not.

The act governs how a government must conduct a referendum and it's similar to the Commonwealth Electoral Act's role in governing the processes and procedures in conducting an election. The act also includes how a referendum's donations will be regulated and will operate; how the prepoll scrutiny and counting will operate; and how the newly introduced foreign interference regime will operate. The bill doesn't determine the question being put at the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. So why are we still playing games with this? Why are we messing with the mechanism behind the question, instead of dealing with the actual detail around the question?

I say to those opposite: it's time to ever come clean to the Australian people about your agenda, or meaningfully engage with us and address our concerns. If this is something the Prime Minister truly feels strongly about, and if he believes that the majority of Australians feel the same, then I think he would provide reasonable detail. That is what we are asking for.