Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

In the lead-up to introducing this bill, the government established the referendum working group, which is made up of senior First Nations leaders from across Australia. We also set up the constitutional expert group to provide advice on the draft words. As I've just mentioned, the expert group includes some of Australia's foremost legal and constitutional law experts, including First Nations legal experts like Professor Asmi Wood and Professor Megan Davis, a former High Court judge and a number of other leading constitutional law experts. The constitutional expert group examined the draft words in detail and provided advice to the working group about their legal implications. The working group discussed the draft words over the course of nine meetings between September 2022 and March 2023 before releasing its advice to the government on 23 March this year. One of the questions the working group asked the constitutional expert group was on this issue of sovereignty. And the expert group's views were very clear and unanimous: the draft provision would not affect the sovereignty of any group or body.