Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022, and I will make the point at the outset that this is a very important piece of legislation. This country, quite reasonably, has very strong regard for its Constitution, its founding document. It took a considerable period of time for that document to be negotiated amongst the states when they came together to form the Commonwealth. There have been about 44 attempts to modify it since Federation, and only eight of those have been successful. Australians, quite rightly, have very, very strong regard for our founding document and the form of governance that it provides to us.

I think, in my conversations when talking to people out in the broader community, that document provides us with the best form of democracy and the best form of governance in the world, despite its failings. We are very fortunate to live in a country that has the constitutional foundation that we have and the structure and systems of governance that we have. We may complain about them at times, but if you look around the world, where else would you want to live and under what form of governance would you like to live? I think here is, if not the best, one of the best. So it's in that context that the debate on this piece of legislation is extremely important.

The provisions for referendums have been established in legislation going back over a hundred years. Each time there is a referendum there is a machinery bill that sets out the parameters for that referendum process. Quite frankly, this bill should not be controversial. This bill should not be controversial. It should be within our capacity, within our remit, to sit down and agree the terms under which this bill is managed. The opposition doesn't come to this debate to be political about the issue of the referendum; that's a point of discussion for another debate, quite frankly. What we should be able to do is effectively have a situation and a circumstance where, absent the issue of referendum, absent the question, the provisions largely remain the same.

It's worth noting that provisions have evolved over time, and for good reason. The issues that the opposition is very reasonably raising in this debate come about because of the evolution of things over time. We very much appreciate the fact that the government has been prepared at this point to, for example, agree to a 'yes' and 'no' pamphlet. That's a very important document. It provides information—clean information—which is important for the Australian community, as a part of this debate, to provide the arguments for the 'yes' and the 'no' case to Australians, not just English-speaking Australians but those speaking a whole range of different languages. That good information will be provided, prepared by participants in this place, as to the 'yes' and 'no' cases. We appreciate the fact that the government has come onboard with that.

But if you look at the broader circumstances, where we sit in the world of information right now, the government's refusal to accept an official 'yes' and 'no' case that provides some process of oversight to those 'yes' and 'no' cases—the capacity to track donations through those cases, the capacity for the 'yes' and 'no' cases to assist people with false information, in this world of information overload—is greatly concerning. The opposition doesn't raise this to be obstructionist; we raise this genuinely, because we want a good process. We want the opportunity for people to have their say. We want the opportunity for Australians to listen and hear those messages, to understand which are the effective, appropriate and official messages. I really don't understand why the government isn't prepared to agree to very reasonable requests that we will make in our amendments to this legislation.

I think the unwillingness of the government to agree to those reasonable requests gets this whole referendum process off to a very bad start. I said earlier in my presentation that only eight of 44 referendums have been successful. The only times they have been hugely successful—which is what we want with an issue such as this, if we go down the path—has been when both major parties of politics were onboard. The fact that, this early in the process, the government is not prepared to go along with sensible, reasonable amendments that the opposition is proposing for the purpose of good process raises real alarm bells with me, because in my view that will effectively reflect right down through the referendum process. It's almost as though the government is trying to sabotage this process from the outside.

I understand that the issue of the Voice is something the government took to the election, and they take their victory at the election as a mandate to progress with that. I have no problem with that. I recall standing in the Great Hall at the beginning of this parliament, when we were undertaking those initial ceremonies for the opening of this parliament, thinking that we really do have to reconcile our place in this country with our First Australians. When I have conversations with people around this country they acknowledge the history of First Australians in this country before European settlement. They don't have a problem with that being recognised in our foundational document—the document that decides how we're governed—but they want to have a say, appropriately, in how that's put together.

So, in my view and from my conversations, the only way that that has a chance is if the process that puts the referendum in place, the processes around deciding the question of the referendum, involve an appropriate level of bipartisanship that will lead to that view across the parliament as to the question that's going to be asked, and the perspective on it. The Prime Minister appointed a special panel to advise on the Voice, without any reference to the opposition. When we asked questions about it at estimates the response was, 'They're all good people. Who would you replace?', which is not the answer.

It might very well be that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition could sit down, have a conversation and agree on the same people, but the Prime Minister didn't do that. The Prime Minister went to Garma with a proposed question for the referendum, without any reference to the Leader of the Opposition. I acknowledge that he wants to maintain momentum in this debate—I get that—but a consultation with the Leader of the Opposition would have brought a completely different perspective with respect to how the Prime Minister was trying to bring the country together on this question on which, we all need to acknowledge, there is a range of different views.

I'm concerned that those processes, including the one that we're debating today, undermine the possibility of success in the referendum. Some people might say, 'Fine, that's good. That's our view. That supports our case,' as it may be, but the opposition is being extremely genuine in this place. We put our views in the additional comments to the Senate report on this legislation. We have been very genuine in our discussions with the government in relation to this legislation and the amendments that we want. We have been very upfront with the reasons we want them.

I don't want Google or Facebook or Twitter or any of those other big tech platforms determining or editing what goes on those platforms in relation to this referendum, and I don't think they want to be the arbiters of what is true and not true on those platforms either, but without the recommendations that we've made to the government, we don't have the capacity to do that. Quite frankly, that's a sovereign question. On what basis should we subcontract, should we forgo, should we give away the capacity to determine what's true and what's not true in relation to this debate to those global tech platforms? We've seen examples of foreign interference in other elections—for example, in Canada recently. In the Canadian circumstance it wasn't necessarily about picking a winner or a loser or deciding which side of politics would govern; it was about creating division. That was the rationale for the foreign interference. We don't want to see that in this debate. What we're looking for, what the Prime Minister has said he wants to see and what we would like to see is a process that brings this country together, not divide us.

Why would we not have in place processes that would allow us to be the arbiters of what's not true and what is true? Why would we not do that? I genuinely do not understand why the government is resisting well-thought-out, considered, sensible proposals that are based on the realities of today. We talk about foreign interference. We've passed foreign interference laws. We talk about the way the big tech companies operate. We've talked about funding and about foreign interference through funding of campaigns. Why would we not put in place provisions that would allow us to monitor that? That's what we're asking for. I don't think it's outrageous. I don't think it's anything other than a request to put in place good process.

There are different views with respect to the Voice. Those arguments can legitimately be had once we get to that point in time. But I can't believe—I really cannot believe—that we are having a disagreement over the mechanics of the process. The Australian people will, in a heartbeat, see through any attempt or perceived attempt to manipulate the process on this referendum. They will see through it in a heartbeat. Their BS detectors are pretty good. They know.

I have to say that the support for the Voice that we've seen over recent times is being affected by the way the government is managing this process, and the BS detectors are going off big time. All the government needs to do to mitigate that is to sit down, talk to the opposition and take up our considered, reasonable proposals to ensure that there is a good, proper and effective process in place that ensures there is integrity in the referendum system and the process that we put in place. Australians value, and will protect, our Constitution appropriately. We know how conservative they are.

When we're at this stage of the process and we're having arguments about the integrity of the process, I think the government runs a great risk, sadly, of undermining the whole process, because we should not be having this argument right now. We should be agreeing on the appropriate process for our referendum to be run with integrity and controlled by Australia and Australians, without interference from outside, so that when we go to vote, at whatever point in time the Prime Minister decides the question will be put, people know that the process is being conducted with integrity but also, importantly, with support from across the parliament. I think all of those things make a difference, and I urge the government to consider our recommendations. (Time expired)