Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to say that these lands and the sovereign rights of these lands were never ceded. Until Australia has a treaty with its first people, we're in a holding pattern, in a permanent suspension of our rights to exercise our own decision-making and our own determination. I won't sit here being lectured to by others in this chamber about agency and rights, when they've done the most damage, in the referendum last year, to exactly that—the rights and the exercising of the rights of First Nations people in this place.

Woppa, which is the cultural name for Great Keppel Island, is sacred to the traditional owners of that place, the Woppaburra people. I want to put on record the statement from Mr Fred Saunders, who's the chairperson of the Woppaburra Saltwater Aboriginal Corporation:

We are protective of our sacred areas and will maintain our cultural responsibilities, but the Woppaburra people are not about restriction, anti-development and locking up lands.

So Senator Roberts, in bringing this motion to this chamber today, in a very one-sided version, is frankly just dog whistling, and that's what it needs to be called out for.

Let's start with the mini history lesson. First Nations can prove, have proven and already do prove their ongoing connection to this country. Terra nullius was disproved under Mabo, not just once but twice in this country. I've said it before and I will keep saying it: this landmark decision could have and should have really changed land rights for First Nations people in this country, but it has taken so much of them away. This decision should have seen First Nations people enjoying their country, enjoying their rights and doing exactly what the Woppaburra people want to do. The traditional owners of this land want to access this land to help clean it up, to rehabilitate the contaminated areas and to do groundwater testing and fire and pest management activities after that resort was abandoned in 2007. I also note, for anyone who thinks that we get rights just by snapping our fingers like this, that it took the Woppaburra people 17 years to actually have their native title determined. Imagine being in a holding pattern for 17 years.

Nowhere on this great continent have we stopped people from visiting, camping, fishing or even buying a place on our country. Even after we told them about cultural protocols when coming to sacred places and about the importance of our artefacts and protecting our waterways and our sea country, we're still here, in this place, fighting for our legal protections under Western law, not under cultural law—the law of the land.

This urgency motion seeks to undermine the resilience, healing and connections that Woppaburra people, and many other First Nations people across this country, have. It seeks to bury the actual facts, the true and factual story: that those people, the Woppaburra people, waited 17 years for the deed to their homelands and to return there. I invite everyone in this place to go and look it up and to sit and watch the video. The people are crying for their country. They are not there to exploit it.

To the folks out there watching today: this is exactly why we need truth-telling and truth-listening in this country. We want to ensure that everyone understands the true history of Australia—the first chapter, where First Peoples can talk of their experiences, their relationship with the land and the water, our culture, our practices, our celebrations, our ceremonies, and the songlines of our ancestors and the way they link intrinsically to our kinship connections that have helped us to be here, survive and maintain this beautiful country for thousands of generations.

The Greens will be absolutely opposing. I stand here proudly as a First Nations spokesperson, on behalf of the Australian Greens, to stand against this trumped-up, misinformed, paranoid, cooked-up notion that has been brought to this chamber today. It is wrong. It is wrong to continue to talk about First Nations people in this way. It is wrong to refer to legislation that we didn't craft—that we didn't put out in front of us. We've never been in government. We are not self-governing in this country. And yet people come to this chamber and blame First Nations people for the outcomes that have been fed to us. It's disgusting.