Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is an honour to take that question from Senator Stewart, and it is an honour and a privilege to serve in a caucus with our wonderful First Nations caucus members who are represented in the chamber today and were ably spoken for by the wonderful Senator Malarndirri McCarthy on the third reading.

This is a big day. It's a day of great significance. It's a milestone which we will remember, and that is the passage of the Constitution alteration bill. It is worth remembering, as Senator Stewart has in her question, the history of how the Uluru Statement from the Heart came to be before this parliament in its first iteration of the request for a voice to the parliament. In 2017, after more than 10 years of consultation and conversation, hundreds of elders and leaders gathered at Uluru and, together, they wrote the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It says:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country.

Today, we are one step closer to delivering that long, Indigenous-community-led process.

Constitutional recognition through the Voice is about two things: recognition and listening. I want to quote what the Prime Minister said today. He talked about the request, and he said this:

… what shines so brightly at the very core of its gracious request is the desire to bring us all closer together as a people reconciled.

He said this is:

… a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lift our great nation even higher—

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