Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Our Constitution makes very clear it is the citizens of Australia, one and all, who are sovereign in this country. Our Constitution has a set of arrangements and institutions that it empowers to reflect that sovereignty by making sure we have a Senate, fashioned on the American system; we have a House of Representatives, fashioned on the House of Commons; and we have a High Court that isn't elected and can take the politics out of making decisions around matters of justice. On a whole range of areas, our Constitution sets up the Australian people, all of us together, as sovereign.

This is what I've been very concerned about in this debate that we've conducted over recent days. The government has won an election on a commitment to hold a referendum on this question. The Australian people voted for that. We respect that mandate. But the approach you have taken to changing our Constitution—our founding document—and the relationship we have to each other and to the powerful institutions in our country is abhorrent. If you really trusted the people, if you really believed they were sovereign, you would have taken them into your confidence, you would have given them the detail, you would have trusted them with your great idea and you would get the result because it was the right thing for Australia. If you were true democrats, that's exactly the approach you would have taken, following the Calma-Langton report, whose first chapter is on local and regional voices—seeing how things go, making sure we roll this out, checking whether it's working for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The whole framework is there, but you threw that in the bin and put them under a bus so that Albo could have a referendum before the next election. This was political from the start. This has got nothing to do with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

I was a member of the first joint committee way back in the day. This has been a long journey for our country, for our political class and for all of us. The culminating report was the Calma-Langton report—'Okay, guys and gals, how do we actually do this? How do we unify our country?' You threw it in the bin, and you've chosen your own path to instigate a voice, not following the framework that they outlined. You've chosen to be incredibly non-transparent, and tonight is another example of you failing to take responsibility for being ministers of the Crown in this place. Part of that is showing up and actually answering the questions. It's tough. Some of us on this side have had the great privilege and responsibility of doing that. It is not about 'leaving it to the parliament'. If you were a government that knew what it was doing, if you were a government that thought you'd have this voice up and running by the next election, post-referendum, you would have had a little conversation. The Attorney-General's Department would have a framework. You'd have a time line. You'd have it all sorted. You can't answer basic questions tonight. You refused to have a constitutional convention—an open and transparent arena where all Australians can participate—and you've chosen this way to conduct this great change. You either don't have the answers, which means you will not have the Voice in place, or you are deliberately refusing to tell us.

Your lack of detail is disrespectful in the extreme. I try very hard, particularly on this topic, to be incredibly respectful. It is an emotional topic and a topic that people have very divergent views on. If you can't conduct the debate in a respectful way, we won't come out of this as a healed country. I've had to sit and listen tonight to mockery of individuals, perspectives and worldviews just because you don't agree with them. It's actually not the right way to conduct the behaviour. Scare campaigns, invalids—these are exactly the tactics people use to silence, subjugate and deride.

I want to say thank you to Senators Nampijinpa Price, Cash and Liddle for bringing to this their technical expertise and also their lived experience. I don't have that lived experience. Most of us in this chamber don't. Most Australians don't. It's important to have that conversation—that truth—in this place. People don't have to listen to it. People can mock it. But what that does is put it on the Hansard, and future generations will be able to say there wasn't a constitutional convention; there weren't the typical structures that we've put in place as a democracy to ensure that the sovereignty of the Australian people is respected when we have these difficult constitutional conversations, which we have had over our history. Those mechanisms weren't put in place, to deliberately silence opposing views. Because you have stood up and put that on the record, future generations will know that there was a differing opinion and that it was articulately, eloquently, honestly and respectfully delivered. I want to say thank you to all of you.

I hope, as a nation, we proceed towards the referendum with a respectful heart. I am committed to reconciliation. I am committed to recognition. I am a very respectful 'no' to enshrining a voice in our Constitution. I don't like to change the constitution. One of my first actions in this place was to cross the floor on the local government recognition, because it is a serious thing. I hear the mockery even now, as I'm expressing my opinion—not from Labor Party senators, obviously, but from others in the chamber. Again, this is the problem as we go forward to a referendum. The polls would suggest this is much closer than anyone would like it to be. No matter where the Australian people land on the substantive issue, we've all got a lot of work to do, irrespective of whether you're on a 'yes' campaign or the 'no' campaign, to heal our country and make sure we are stronger, more sustainable and more prosperous in the future.