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

To add to that, I was actually encouraged by the remarks of the National Party leader, Mr Littleproud, when he disowned the comments that had been made by the opposition leader, Mr Dutton, when Mr Dutton claimed that this proposal would 're-racialise' either the constitution or Australia. I think it was pleasing to see that Mr Littleproud did not support Mr Dutton's attempt to introduce that kind of racially based language into this debate. I certainly would hope that Senators Cash and Nampijinpa Price would, equally, disown Mr Dutton's remarks seeking to introduce those sorts of racially based comments into this debate. I want to commend Senator Bragg for making this point about the fact that this is not a debate about race. Just this week he said:

There is a lot of misinformation out there. As I said, we have race based policy at the state level, which is predominant, and we have race based laws at the national level. We have a country that has had race at its heart for 250 years. To argue that this is the introduction of race today is fundamentally untrue.

Of course, though, it isn't really about race when the no advocates make this case. These laws and policies exist, not because of race but because they recognise the unique relationship that the first people of Australia have with this land, and always will have. That is about the first people; it isn't about race.

So I think we could all do well to listen to those sorts of contributions. Even though Senator Bragg and I would never vote the same way when it comes to an election, I think he's actually right on this.