Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and pay my respects to them as the traditional owners of the Canberra region and the land on which Parliament House sits. I also want to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people, who are the traditional owners of the land where my electorate office is based in Melbourne.

When I was thinking about what to say today, I was reminded of something the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, said about the Voice this week: 'If you're spending billions of dollars a year and you're failing, why keep doing that? Let's try something different. Let's listen to Aboriginal people talk about their future, because I reckon we'll get much better outcomes.' I think this way of looking at the referendum puts the whole question within a frame of common sense, and clearly articulates why we have to do something differently.

Over many years, we have spent untold billions of dollars trying to improve the lives of Indigenous people, but we haven't got any better results. In my view, to keep doing the same thing over and over again while hoping for different outcomes is not only foolish, it's dishonest. The Voice offers us a different path. It offers an opportunity to change tack, to let First Nations people into decision-making processes about them and draw new solutions for old problems that so far we have been unable to solve.

When I was sitting in the chamber on Wednesday, something Senator Canavan said resonated with me. When talking about something different—in this case consulting locals when energy infrastructure is being built on agricultural land—Senator Canavan said, 'The best decisions are always made when they're made on the basis of advice from people on the ground, at the grassroots, in local communities.' Senator Canavan then went on to say of regional communities:

They're trying to get their voice heard. That's all they want. They just want a voice.

Senator Canavan and I don't always agree; however, on this point I think he's hit the nail on the head. Policies are better when they are born from the 'advice of people on the ground'. Policies are better when they come from the grassroots. There is power in having a voice. Having heard him say this, it was puzzling to me why Senator Canavan, along with his National colleagues and so many of his Liberal ones, opposes the Voice to Parliament. The fact is all the Voice is seeking to do is provide advice to government from the grassroots of the First Nations community on policies that matter to them. That's exactly the same principle stepped out by the Nationals in this place on Wednesday. Given that, I suppose I'm wondering why, in the opinion of some, it's acceptable for farmers to be consulted on matters that affect them but not Indigenous Australians.

After all, that is what the Uluru Statement from the Heart requested, when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates gathered at Uluru to endorse the Uluru statement and deliver an invitation to our nation to walk along a path of reconciliation to a better future for all. In 1967, Indigenous Australians were counted. Now, in 2023, they seek to be heard.

I come to this debate from a legal background. I practiced law for many years and studied law at university. At no point in my career did I think that I would be in the Senate, let alone in the Senate debating a bill for an act to alter the Constitution. Nevertheless, in the whole process of this referendum debate, I have applied that legal background, and it is by looking through that prism that I can see this proposal to change the Constitution is sound and will stand the test of time.

But we don't just have to take it from me. I also sat on the committee that inquired in this legislation. I want to take the opportunity to thank Senator Green for chairing that committee process so fairly. What I learned in the committee is that the proposed wording is legally sound and operates as a good reflection of what the alteration seeks to achieve—that is, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Constitution and enshrining a body to make representations to government on matters which concern them.

Nevertheless, a fair bit of misinformation has been put forward around the referendum, including the claim that the proposal will encourage vast amounts of litigation in the High Court. In the committee, we heard evidence time and time again from constitutional law experts, former judges and chief justices of the High Court as well as leading and respected barristers practising in the High Court. All of them confirmed that the claim that an avalanche of litigation is waiting around the corner should the referendum succeed is highly unlikely and overblown. I trust this evidence. Really, it seems to me the claim about endless High Court legal action being taken as a result of the Voice existing is not much more than a scare campaign designed to frighten and confuse people.

I also want to address the claim that there is not enough information about what the Voice will look like. This was a matter we heard a bit about in committee process too. Above all, it is important to remember that the Australian Constitution is a minimalist document. It's a document that is deliberately designed to set out broad powers belonging to the Commonwealth with the intention that the parliament will proceed to legislation detail in line with these powers. For example, in 1901 the Constitution gave the Commonwealth government exclusive powers to make laws relating to Australia's defence. This power is broadly laid out in section 51 of the Constitution. This power does not provide for how many military personnel there should be in the Australian Defence Force. It does not prescribe how many ships there should be in the Royal Australian Navy or where our barracks should be located. It also makes no mention of the Royal Australian Airforce, because, of course, defending Australia from the air in 1901 would have proved difficult given that aeroplanes didn't yet exist. And therein lies the point: the Constitution is designed to be a lasting blueprint for government, while the parliament is designed to debate and to make laws as required to exercise those powers.

This set-up has worked well for Australia for 122 years. So, when it comes to the Voice, it only makes sense that a plain and simple power should be inserted into the Constitution, and the Constitution will therefore fulfil its function as a minimalist document. That will allow this parliament, including every senator here to do our job of filling in the shape of the Voice. That is the process we have always followed and it is the process we should follow again. I actually think it is an inherently democratic process that gives the parliament, as the nation's sovereign decision-making body, an important and central role in deciding what the Voice should look like, and I look forward to that debate.

But it must be said that all these legal arguments for the Voice pale in comparison with the argument that enshrining the Voice is just the right thing to do. For too long politicians and bureaucrats have made laws and policies for Aboriginal people, not with them. The fact is that it hasn't worked, and it can't go on. The fact is that for generations Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been put down, locked out, abused, vilified, dispossessed and, frankly, murdered. The result of this systemic mistreatment has been political disenfranchisement—or, perhaps put better, the loss of a voice—and this voicelessness has created the reality we confront today. By a long way and by every measure, First Nations people in Australia die younger, are sicker, suicide more frequently, are more incarcerated and have more trouble finding somewhere secure to live than non-Indigenous Australians. There is no dignity in this reality for any of us.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have asked for their voice back so that we can all move forward together, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians taking a rightful and dignified place in our shared future. I support this bill. I say, bring on the referendum to make the Voice the ninth change to the Constitution since Federation.