Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this momentous bill, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. I first acknowledge and pay my respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples on whose land we're meeting today. I also acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people whose land I work and live on back home.

It's time. That's the view of Aunty Geraldine Atkinson. Aunty Geraldine has been working in Aboriginal affairs for the last 50 years. A proud Bangerang and Wiradjuri woman, she is co-chair of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria. She says:

As First Peoples, we know that for too long we have had policies made for us and to us but not by us—by politicians who don't really understand, or worse, don't respect our culture.

She's right; it's time. It's time for Australians to come together and support a momentous change but also a very simple one.

In 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was delivered with three important asks: voice, treaty and truth. The statement was informed and led by more than 1,000 First Nations delegates from each state and territory. Delegates at the regional dialogue in Naarm, or Melbourne, asserted with pride their survival in the face of struggle. They agreed on the importance of real recognition, not just tokenism. These dialogues led to the statement that will change history. With these powerful words, the Uluru statement reads:

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

This bill is really about accepting that generous invitation to walk forward together.

We took to the 2022 election a commitment that we would implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. Now, a year into government, we are committed to holding a referendum later this year to recognise First People in the Constitution through a voice to parliament. This bill is the first step of our commitment. This is really not about politicians or partisanship; this really is about the Australian people.

For 60,000 years, First Nations people have looked after and continue to look after and protect country. We live alongside the oldest continuous living culture in human history, and that is worth all of us recognising in the founding document of our nation. It's long overdue. For too long Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continued to face disadvantage because of colonisation, because of top-down government policies and because of intergenerational trauma. The gap in health, education, criminal justice and life expectancy is just not closing fast enough. The Uluru Statement from the Heart states:

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

It's time for a different approach. It's time for an approach that gets to the structural nature of the problem. It's time for an approach that is about self-determination and real change. We know that outcomes are better when First Nations communities lead the decision-making about their own communities and lives. We know outcomes are better where there is genuine partnership, genuine listening and genuine respect. Marcus Stewart is a proud Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung nation and fellow co-chair of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria. In his words:

A change in our lives requires a change in the existing systems that have continually failed us. With a voice, it is not hard to imagine a world in which things such as health, housing and incarceration receive tangible, real and lasting action.

Tangible real and lasting action is something we can all not just hope for but work towards together.

Marcus says that the Australian people are hungry for change. I agree. As a non-Indigenous Australian, I am hungry for the future that we can build too. Recognition of First Peoples through a voice will be good for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, for all Australians, for people who want to live in a country that is united, for people who grew up in a time in this country where our origins were barely spoken of and barely acknowledged, for people who want to live in a country that can be proud of the 60,000 years of culture and heritage offered by our First Peoples and for people who know that we can do better together if we accept the invitation of Uluru to walk together for a better future.

To quote the great senator Pat Dodson:

It would be a momentously unifying moment for all of us.

We will no longer remain diminished as a nation.

A successful referendum will signal a new and unifying era for this great country.

Senator Dodson also said: 'We are capable of doing better.' I know we are, and I commend this bill to the Senate.