Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands upon which we meet and work here in Canberra, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and their elders, past, present and emerging.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Noongar people of the Whadjuk nation, where my home town of Perth is located, and their elders past, present and emerging. The Whadjuk Noongar people have been the traditional owners of the south-west of Western Australia for at least 45,000 years.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the Kimberley region, where I work extensively. The traditional custodians of the Kimberley are made up of more than 100 First Nations communities who speak over 40 Indigenous dialects. Specifically, I'd to acknowledge the traditional owners, past present and emerging, from the following countries and peoples: Nyikina, Mangala, Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkajunga, Gija, Yawuru, Miriwoong and Gadjirrawoong, and pay my respects to their rich cultures, their communities, their leadership, and the many friendships I've made with the leaders from these groups over the years. Thank you for letting me walk your land.

I am pleased to make a contribution on this bill, as it is an extremely important step forward for our country, for reconciliation and for achieving real and meaningful outcomes for our First Nations Australians. The purpose of this bill, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, is to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First People of Australia and establish an advisory body to be known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. It will also give parliament the power to pass legislation related to the Voice.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have lived on the land and waterways of this place that we now call Australia for over 60,000 years. They represent the oldest continuous living cultures in history, yet still our founding legal document, the Constitution, does not recognise them. Instead, until the Mabo judgement in 1992, Australia and Australian law was based on the fiction that this continent was unoccupied prior to European settlement. Not only is the Constitution based on this fiction, but there has also been explicit exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the entire time the Constitution, as it is currently written, has been in place. The constitutional amendment in this bill will put an end to that explicit exclusion. Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our founding legal document and listening to their views on the laws and policies that matter to them will make a significant difference.

Schedule 1 of this bill sets up the text of the proposed alteration to the Constitution, specifically establishing a new section 129 of the Constitution that would be headed, 'Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples'. The proposed new section 129 would have four key features: recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia, giving constitutional authority for the body to be known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, providing for the Voice to be able to make representations to the parliament and executive government on matters related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and, finally, giving power to parliament to legislate on matters relating to the establishment and operation of the Voice.

I ask, what is so bad about that? For decades, there have been calls for an enduring representative body. The long list of reports and inquiries into this issue all stress the importance of a representative body to improve the development and implementation of laws, policies and programs that impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Only this morning the Australian reported that new data has revealed that poorer outcomes were still occurring in poorer communities and in those who are more distant from urban and regional locations. Furthermore, just four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track. This is why we need the Voice. We need structural change to ensure that grassroots Indigenous voices are heard in Canberra, to help direct better outcomes, including Closing the Gap.

I want to take a moment to really home down into what the Voice is. This is not a Labor Voice. The Voice will be an independent and permanent advisory body which would give advice to the Australian parliament and government on matters that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples—pretty simple. Before the Uluru Statement from the Heart was written by 250 delegates from all across Australia, there were extensive Australia-wide consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, called regional dialogues. Twelve regional dialogues occurred between 2016 and 2017, at Darwin, Ross River, Torres Strait, Cairns, Brisbane, Dubbo, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth. The Voice was developed through these dialogues by Indigenous leaders and representatives.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart was formalised in 2017, when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from across the country gathered in Mutitjulu, in the shadow of Uluru, and put their signatures on a historic statement. The Uluru Statement from the Heart, addressed to the Australian people, invited the nation to create a better future via the proposal of key reforms, which included the development of a Voice to parliament.

Reconciliation Australia makes the point that for close to a century Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have called and fought for a seat at the table. Over this time their aims have remained resolute: to represent First Nations peoples in matters that affect their communities and to ensure that their perspectives are heard in the development and implementation of policies and programs, because they know that, when First Nations peoples are in the decision-making seat, outcomes for their communities are better. The Voice to parliament will help to achieve exactly that.

Despite what some on the other side might say, the Voice will not be required to make representations on every law, policy or program. Don't believe the scare tactics that the opposition are trying to spread in this respect. In fact, the Voice will determine when to make representations by managing its own priorities and allocating its resources in accordance with the priorities of First Nations people. In the words of Paul Keating, from his famous speech at Redfern in, 1992:

… there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.

There is everything to gain.

And that must be our mindset when we're thinking about this legislation and the referendum itself. Australian and First Nations peoples have everything to gain by having a seat at the table through a Voice to parliament. Constitutional or other legal mechanisms that ensure representation of Indigenous peoples above or beyond election franchise, like that granted in Australia by the 1967 referendum, are common worldwide. Representative mechanisms akin to the Voice can be found in OECD countries, in developing countries and in free and unfree states. Indeed, many other Commonwealth countries have long since enshrined representation for their Indigenous people.

To those both in this parliament and in the wider community who say that we should just legislate for a representative body and get on with it, I have one simple message: the only way this parliament could achieve that would be to use the race powers contained in the Constitution. What message do you think this would send to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? What would that say about us? It would clearly say, yet again, 'You are to be excluded, not recognised.' Furthermore, representative bodies established by legislation are easily abolished if the government of the day disagrees with them. In fact, since 1998, national Indigenous representative bodies have twice been abolished or defunded in favour of non-representative bodies, both times at the hands of a Liberal government. In 2005, ATSIC was abolished by the Howard government and replaced by the National Indigenous Council, the members of which were hand-picked by the then Prime Minister.

We remember that, in 2014, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples was defunded and then closed down by then Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Like Mr Howard before him, Prime Minister Abbott then installed his own hand-picked advisory body. What did that do for Indigenous advancement? Others that are opposed to the Voice, like my Western Australian colleague Senator Cash, are fond of saying—and I heard this yesterday—that you wouldn't buy a house without a plan. I don't know about Senator Cash's experiences of buying a house, but a lot of us Australians start by purchasing a block of land and then work on the design and eventual build of our new house. That is exactly what we are being asked to do here.

In fact, for the keen lawyers that are members of the Senate, including the former Attorney-General, I remind you that the only institutions that are recognised in our Constitution are the federal Executive Council, the High Court, the Inter-State Commission and, of course, the federal parliament. For example, the Federal Court is not mentioned in the Constitution. When the social security powers were inserted into the Constitution in 1948, the government of the day did not lay out all of the details in the Social Security Act. I could go on. The power to make grants to the states, including the GST top-up payment to Western Australia, is not specified in detail in the Constitution. Colleagues, it is long past time for us to correct our founding legal document, address the historical fiction of terra nullius and rightfully recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Constitution. We can do this this year. We must, and I believe we will.

It is not a secret in this place or out there that I have a long and passionate involvement with the people and communities of the Kimberley. I made my living driving road trains from Perth to Darwin and regularly stopped in the communities of Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Kununurra and others. When I entered the Senate as a representative of WA, I made a commitment that I would give back to the communities who helped me make my living. This commitment started with yearly visits up to the Kimberley. As I developed relationships with elders, Aboriginal corporations and local community service providers, those visits became much more regular, and I now run charity road trips as often as I can to support families and communities in need, with much-needed second-hand furniture, clothing and bedding, which has been generously donated.

I love the work I do with the people and organisations on the ground and the relationships I have built doing this work in the 18 years I have been in this Senate. It has meant a great deal to me personally. But what still troubles me to this day—whether it's from talking to the leaders of Aboriginal corporations, Indigenous cultural health organisations or women's refuges—is that the most constant questions I still receive include the following: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we want?' And I get: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we think?' Another one I always get is: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we need?' The Voice will provide the answer to these most basic and honest questions.

Our bureaucrats in government departments mean well, but they don't see or experience what it's like on the ground in communities every day. As unfortunate as it is, they don't have the time, but this is precisely the problem. I honestly believe that the only way livelihoods and outcomes more generally will be improved for Indigenous people will be if the decision-making is put in their hands and if they get to have a say on the laws and policies that affect them, their families, their communities and their futures. The Voice will deliver just that. We need to keep this front of mind during this debate and right up until the referendum and remember that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is an invitation to the Australian people. We have been invited by First Nations Australians to walk with them together in a movement of the Australian people towards a better future, and I look forward to joining that walk.

In conclusion, I'd just like to pay tribute to a very dear friend of all of ours in here, a proud Yawuru man and senior mudja: Senator Pat Dodson. Pat, we thank you for your guidance and leadership, mate, and your energy and wisdom. You are truly inspirational. You are the father of reconciliation.