Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of the answers given today. I take the point Senator Sterle made about this issue. It's a fair point that we haven't done a very good job of listening to people when we've sought to make policy in this country over the last 250 years. There are a range of views on how this should be done. When you travel into remote parts of the states we represent, you get a range of views about how that could be improved. I think people do want to see new institutions, and that is the best argument for the Voice, that there should be new institutions to help communities make decisions about their own affairs and their own arrangements. That has always been my view. We're now at a point in time when there is going to be a referendum, and we need to give people comfort that this can be done in a way that is going to preserve institutions that have otherwise served the country well because, of course, you wouldn't seek to introduce new institutions if you thought they were all working well. The reasonable view here would be that Australia has been a very good country, but it has let Indigenous people down too often, chiefly because of this terrible problem of paternalism. That is what these initiatives are about.

As someone that wants to recommend a yes vote, I would like to understand exactly what the advice is. I think that's a reasonable proposition. I'm not seeking to make any political points here other than that we want to make sure that this is a safe change for our Constitution. I think it is a reasonable point that there could be cases where the Voice as a new institution or as an institution that's been running for some time would seek legal remedies through the High Court, and that may be reasonable from time to time. The point here is that we wouldn't want to see a situation where things were extraneous to the core function. For me, the question is: are the words that were released last week good enough to ensure that the Voice is effective and has all the power it needs but doesn't bung up the system of government we have and bind up the courts. That's the question.

There may be good reasons why the advice can't be released; I don't know. There appear to be precedents for advice being released in connection with referenda, but if there is a good reason then I'll look forward to understanding that when we hit the committee stage of this process. I understand that there is to be a joint committee of the parliament which will look at this constitutional alteration bill—that's what we're talking about at the moment—and we'll have the opportunity at those hearings to ask the department about the wording. If the advice isn't going to be provided in the usual way, then I'm sure the committee can find a way to get a sense of the department's view but also the view of the various legal minds. There are many former High Court justices and other legal people, with much bigger brains than mine, who are offering their view on this wording. People will have to make a decision about whether they are prepared to support or oppose something based on the legal interpretation of various people. These people will be in the department. There will be retired judges and people who are working in the law today, and we will all have to hear from those various minds. I look forward to doing that and then landing on a position.

I would repeat myself again: I don't think this is a good place to play politics, but I do think it would help if we could have the advice, or at least some sanitised version of the advice, so that we could be more satisfied that the changes that were made last week are going to be satisfactory. I, personally, have an open mind about these changes, but I don't understand the genesis of them.