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

First of all, I don't think that's a fair attack on Senator Chisholm, who was kind enough to relieve me briefly so that I could go to the bathroom. He hasn't been involved in this bill at all, so I actually am grateful to a colleague who's prepared to support a colleague in that way, and I don't think that it's fair to have a crack at him about that.

I'm not sure if you were here in the chamber or listening outside when I addressed this previously, but I've made it very clear that section 129 states that the 'Voice may make representations on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples'. I know that it suits the scare campaign to say that that might involve national security, electoral matters and all sorts of things. I understand that you've got a scare campaign to run because you want to defeat this. I understand. But I have repeatedly said that what that means is that the Voice may make representations on matters specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and matters relevant to the Australian community but which affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples differently to other members of the Australian community. As I say, I know that for the scare campaign to succeed you have to put the fear of God into the Australian community and that it's going to go far, far further than that, because we've seen these scare campaigns before from the coalition on similar matters. But the constitutional wording is clear. I've explained it now three or four times, and I'm going to keep referring you back to my previous answers when I receive similar questions.