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

I rise to make my contribution on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. I think I drew the short straw in speaking after Senator Nampijinpa Price. I'll see what I can do.

I was watching one of my favourite movies a couple of weeks ago. It's called Bridge of Spies, and it is about a lawyer, James B Donovan, who's defending a Russian spy at the height of the Cold War. He's in a conversation with someone from the CIA—James B Donovan being Irish American and the CIA guy being of German heritage, actually. Think about that in the late fifties or early sixties, at the height of the Cold War. The movie is about the prisoner swap of Rudolf Abel, who was a Russian spy caught by the Americans, and Gary Powers, who was shot down over the USSR in a spy plane. There's a question asked in the scene: 'What makes us Americans?; James B Donovan says: 'It's the rulebook. It's the Constitution.' In this process, you could ask exactly the same question about where we are. What is it that makes us Australians, a nation built of peoples from all over the world and built on the foundation of an Indigenous culture that has been here for 60,000 years? The rulebook, our Constitution, is what brings us all together to make us Australians. In my view, the current rulebook has an inadequacy: it doesn't recognise Indigenous Australians. It should.

But the problem that I have with the process that we're going through now—and Senator Nampijinpa Price has put it very eloquently, and so have many of my colleagues—is that we haven't had a process that's been inclusive. We've had one that has been divisive. If we want our rulebook, what makes us Australians—when everything comes back to it, that's the thing that makes us Australians and that's the thing that tells our story and describes us—we need to make sure we're all on the one page. We can't be split down the middle. We can't be split fifty-fifty. The thing is that at the moment we've got a bloody good rulebook, and I think Australians recognise that. When we're going to change it, we ought to do that carefully. We ought to consider it properly. I get the process of giving Indigenous Australians a say in telling us what they might want. But this is about bringing us all together, and that's what this process hasn't done.

I wrote an opinion piece back in January that didn't see the light of day through the various news outlets. I wrote back then, and the same exists now, that the Prime Minister made no attempt to work with anyone around the proposed Constitutional wording. He presented it at Garma. He didn't tell the opposition leader that he was going to do it; he just did it. He has criticised anybody, particularly the opposition, for saying we didn't suggest any changes. And, of course, the whole process has descended into a very, very ugly set-up of name-calling. That's not the way to bring the country together. That is not going to bring our country together.

When our Constitution was written, Indigenous Australians weren't part of the discussion. We need to correct that, but we need a process to do that that brings us all together in a genuine way. This process hasn't done that. In fact it has descended into name-calling. I'm glad that Senator Nampijinpa Price and Senator Liddle are still in the chamber, given what they've been subjected to. Even though I have a slightly different view of the world to them, they're my mates. The conversation hasn't been held with respect. The name-calling that has come from those who are supposedly Indigenous Australian leaders has been absolutely disgraceful. There've been attacks on both of my colleagues here from the likes of Noel Pearson, the Prime Minister, Marcia Langton, too many others and those on the other side.

Is this what the Voice looks like? That's what it's starting to sound like to me. It's not a genuine process. If we're going to do something as important as changing our rulebook, our storybook, it has to be done properly. There was no Constitutional convention—just a parliamentary inquiry process where it was stitched up before it was started. It was a zombie process. The outcome was pretty much predicted because the Prime Minister set the numbers up to get the outcome that he wanted. It's not a genuine process. Getting the witnesses you want, asking the questions you want and getting the chance to ask the questions you want—none of that was provided through the parliamentary process. How is that genuine? How is that bringing the country together?

Then, of course, when you have genuine people like our good friend Mr Julian Leeser, from the other chamber, he gets set upon by the Prime Minister. It's an absolute disgrace. Even during the debate today the suggestion that those who don't support the bill as it stands don't want better outcomes for Indigenous Australians is absolutely and outright offensive. I've heard that just this afternoon. Are you suggesting that Senator Nampijinpa Price and Senator Liddle don't want better outcomes for Indigenous Australians? Seriously! Give me a break. They're the ones who are out there raising those issues. Senator Liddle found a family living on a concrete slab under a tarpaulin and they'd been there two years waiting for housing. They're the ones out there doing the real things and raising the real issues while those opposite stop us and try to stop us from talking about these issues.

Unfortunately for them, reports that have come out of ORIC in estimates recently and, even more concerningly, a number of ANAO reports that have been published in the last two or three weeks, revealed the things that we were concerned about, and that we wanted this place to look into and to start to deal with. We've been told we couldn't do it: 'Don't do it. Don't touch that now. We don't want to impact on the Voice.' These are the real issues affecting Indigenous Australians that need to be dealt with, and they should have been underway already, but those opposite voted against it. They wouldn't let us deal with some of the real issues, so don't come into this place and suggest that those who are not supporting the legislation don't want better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. Because I don't know anyone in this place who has that view, or that there is any scale of things in that nature.

The reason that a number of us put a motion into this place to do that work was because we were concerned. We wanted to make sure that if there was something wrong, we could make recommendations to the government to fix it. It wasn't partisan; it was about trying to fix some of the real and genuine problems that my colleagues are finding in their communities right now and wanting to express right now. It is an absolute disgrace and it is offensive that anyone would come into this place and suggest that if you don't support the legislation you don't support better outcomes for Indigenous Australians because it is simply not true.

I said before that I have a slightly different perspective of the world to, I think, most of my colleagues in the chamber, to be honest, on this side because I am supportive of a process, and I would have liked to have played a genuine part in that. But the way that the government has run this, this winner-take-all approach from the Prime Minister, where everything is set up for him to get the outcome that he wants, not an outcome that will bring Australians together, has prevented that. It has prevented that.

I give notice that I will be moving the same amendments that my colleague Mr Leeser moved in the House of Representatives because I think the question is flawed. It hasn't been through a proper process. The government wasn't interested in the opinions of the coalition members during the parliamentary inquiry. They weren't interested in the opinions of those who gave evidence expressing concerns about the question, so they can't tell us that it was a genuine process and that they really wanted to bring Australians together as part of what they are looking to do in support of Indigenous Australians. It was never a genuine process; it was always a zombie process from the start. I say that reluctantly, respecting this place and effectively reflecting on a committee of the parliament. It never really had any other intent but to provide an outcome that supported what the Prime Minister wanted.

I want to make a point that I think the question is flawed and that is why I will be moving Mr Leeser's amendments. I know they won't be successful, because my own party is not supportive. I understand why. But unlike Mr Leeser, at the end of the process, I won't be supporting the question because I believe it is flawed. I want to make the point that the way that the Prime Minister has run this process has not brought us together. From a completely different perspective to the one that Senator Nampijinpa Price expressed just a moment ago, the Prime Minister has divided us, because the process of considering even the question wasn't inclusive, so I won't support the question at the second reading or the third reading, because I want it to be on the record and I want the Prime Minister to take the responsibility, as he should, for this flawed process. He will try to do what he always does and blame everybody else. That is what he will do. In fact, in my view, that is what he set this process up to do. He wants to point to us across the chamber and say, 'It's your fault it didn't get up.' If he had done as I indicated in the op-ed that I wrote back in January, when there was still plenty of time for him to have a process that was inclusive, the discussion we are having now could be very different, and the outcome could be very different.

As so many have said in this debate, in the circumstances where both sides of politics are not supporting a question on an Australian referendum, it has little chance. The Prime Minister, by the way that he has run this process, bears the responsibility for the division, for not allowing us to come together. It is his responsibility, and I reject any assertion to the contrary that it might be anyone else's fault. He is the leader of this country, and he should have been the one to put together a process that brought us together to support the improvement of circumstances for Indigenous Australians.