Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. It is I think one of most important debates we will have perhaps in my time in this parliament, but it is certainly a very important debate that this generation of Australians will have about the future of this country. At the heart of the debate is a need that we as a country have to break entrenched patterns that divide our nation. It's a divide which is damaging, which creates disadvantage and which, on any objective or even subjective measure, is not right. It's a divide between Australians, created by racial difference. But seeking to deal with this division and these outcomes by way of further division is not the answer. A united, unifying and meaningful approach, where the entire nation is taken on the journey for a solution, is the right way to go. I expect that that's exactly what most Australians hoped for in the conduct of this debate.

At this point I'd like to refer to the position taken by the coalition, which is to not support the question in the referendum, while of course allowing Australians to have their say through the passage of this bill, to allow the referendum to take place. But rather than the binary situation we find ourselves in, where it is the approach that is on the table or nothing, we prefer, as has been outlined by a number of my colleagues in this debate—and indeed through the committee process and by the Leader of the Opposition—to have local and regional voices legislated for to enable that grassroots feedback and input to policymaking and decision-making that we talked about earlier, and a truly bipartisan approach to constitutional recognition. That was our hope, and that was what we put on the table as we deliberated on our way forward on this very important and, frankly, very difficult issue for us to deal with as a nation. And we wanted to enact and push forward with that as soon as possible. I should point out that these of course were all part of the recommendations put forward in the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition, a committee process that I participated in, along with Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and Senator Pat Dodson.

There are options not being taken—those that I've already mentioned around local and regional voices. As I said, we have in front of us a binary approach, a question that people will have to answer when the referendum rolls around. What concerns me about this debate that we're engaging in in this place and out in the community—what I am truly worried about—is that those who have a question, those who are concerned, those who aren't convinced that what is being proposed by the government is the way forward face a degree of shame, rather than having a question answered, rather than being provided with information that might satisfy those concerns. They are deemed irrelevant; they are deemed—