Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite can't have it both ways in terms of decrying a lack of detail—asking, 'Where is the detail?'—without admitting that you don't actually know or have any regard for how this place actually works.

How can something be modest and have a big impact in this place? Well, that is exactly how we work. Can I draw the attention of those opposite to, for example, the modest prospect of having a parliamentary committee inquiry. One of those resulted in the Bringing them home report, which told the legacy of the stolen generations and the impact on First Nations people across our nation. That was a modest proposal, of having a parliamentary committee listen to those stories and bring evidence forward to the parliament. There's no need to see the Voice as any more radical a prospect than an enhancement of how our parliament brings that evidence forward. There was another modest prospect that had a big impact: a committee inquiry about people having their babies taken and its report on past adoption practices.

So when we see a modest administrative and parliamentary proposal for taking evidence and talking to Indigenous communities to bring forth evidence, views and opinions into this place so that they can be deliberated on and discussed, and so that people can have a forthright expression of views and a diversity of views—including through a voice to parliament—that does have a big impact. When those opposite say, 'It can't have a big impact and be modest at the same time,' do they not understand how this place works to start with? Do they not understand that we are here to create an institution that interfaces with our Constitution and this parliament and that all the existing protocols and approaches—which they will get a chance to participate in legislating for—have form and function, and that we can choose how and when we will extend those institutional arrangements to a Voice to parliament by legislating in this place? It's not rocket science. Parliament does it all the time. We did it with the Auditor-General Act, where we have a parliamentary officer who has the power to take documents and gather evidence from government departments, and then bring their views back to the parliament. They report to the parliament and obliges the parliament to list those documents and discuss them, and obliges the government to make a governmental response.

I have no idea yet—because we haven't deliberated on it—about exactly what kinds of arrangements might take place. But that is like you trying to say that those who put the words into the Constitution that the Commonwealth shall have the power to legislate for corporations—which is but one line—should have known what corporations law looks like today! There are thousands of pages of corporations law and but one line in our Constitution! When you ask for detail and you ask: 'Is it modest? Is it big?' I see only one intention coming from you lot—through you, Mr Deputy President. You have either one intention: to prove that you've got no idea how this place works or how our democracy works—how things come about and are turned into law, and how we create form and function in this place—or you have one motivation, which is to obfuscate and completely deny First Nations people a rightful place in our Constitution and a voice to the Australian parliament and the government.