Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It's a handy booklet that we have established tonight actually means nothing, and despite the fact—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Order! Senator Cash, resume your seat. Senator Whish-Wilson, interjections are disorderly. Likewise, Senator Duniam. Senator Cash, you have the call.

What we've heard so far tonight and what we now hearing into the early hours of this morning, I have to say, will give the people of Australia no comfort whatsoever. This is a committee process. It's important during a committee process to scrutinise the bills that come through this place. This is actually a bill. In fact, I would say it's probably one of the most important bills to ever come before this place, because it proposes a huge change to our nation's rulebook, our Constitution, and what we are hearing to date is that the government wants the Australian people to vote at a referendum to make a change to the Constitution but, as we stand here at 2.15 in the morning, the bad news for the Australian people is—I was going to say the government won't give them the detail they need to make the decision. I think it's actually worse than that. The government doesn't have the detail the Australian people need to make the decision. I now turn to design principle 4:

The Voice will be empowering, community-led—

Honourable senators interjecting—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Cash, please resume your seat. Before you go to this point, there are conversations on my left and my right and at the back of the chamber which is making it difficult to hear. If you wish to have conversations, please leave the chamber. If you wish to follow the debate, please do so in silence.

As I was saying, I now turn to the fourth design principle. Prefacing my questions to the fourth design principle, what I would say is this: when the government released the design principles, as those opposite would know, the Prime Minister expressly said they were endorsed by cabinet. So the design principles have been endorsed by cabinet. The referendum working group, if I recall—and colleagues might recall—stood with the Prime Minister on a stage and, on behalf of Tony McAvoy SC, he hoped the design principles 'will go a long way to eradicating the fears that some people might have about this Voice'. He said of the design principles: 'This is how we set out where the Voice should go.'

These are materials which you put into the public domain to explain the Voice. But tonight, what we've learnt is they have no force, they are potentially unworkable and, in fact, mean nothing because it's all subject to the detail. There's no explanation of how a voice will work at all. It's all up to the parliament, and the Albanese government is asking the Australian people to sign a blank cheque. Let's now turn to design principle 4 and see whether or not we can get a little more detail. The fourth design principle is that the Voice will be empowering, community led, inclusive, respectful and culturally informed. What does 'empowering' mean in the context of a referendum to change the Constitution to establish a single body?