Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1967, Australians considered a question at a referendum that proposed alterations to the Constitution to remove discrimination against Aboriginals and to include them in the national census. Brought by Australia's 17th Prime Minister, the Liberal Party leader, Harold Holt, the successful referendum was a culmination of a bipartisan campaign to bring Australians together. The question was overwhelmingly supported, with 90.77 per cent of 4.5 million Australians voting yes.

Now, contrast that with the process employed in the 2023 Voice referendum led by Anthony Albanese, which is dividing Australians before a ballot has been cast. In response to legitimate questions regarding details of how the Voice would be structured and give effect to the proposed constitutional amendment, the Prime Minister ridicules the questions and tells people to do their own research. He has called opponents 'Chicken Littles'. He tells people that voting yes is the right thing to do, insinuating that voting against the Voice will make you wrong. This is not the way to approach such major, permanent and groundbreaking reform—reform that has been characterised as modest and generous but is neither. This constitutional amendment would be a radical and permanent change to our founding document and our governing principles.

I want to quote Ian Levy, in a letter to the editor in the Australian. He said:

Constitutions are rigid, slow-evolving frameworks, much like our bones, and governments are elected to keep the body politic in shape. The insertion of a permanent voice into the Constitution is adding another vertebra to our nation's backbone and can only be done with total disclosure if there is the slightest risk of paralysis. Like surgeons, governments must endeavour to do no harm.

In modifying our Constitution, the precautionary principle requires complete public disclosure of all legislation and costings. A last-minute or post-referendum disclosure after months of emotive persuasion would be an act of gamesmanship, not statesmanship.

Prime Minister Albanese has not provided Australians with the detail of what legislation for the Voice would look like. Instead, he's asking everyone to trust him, with the 'nothing to see here' attitude of someone who has already broken many of the promises he made only a year ago. The Prime Minister cannot or will not tell us what the Voice mechanism will cost, how many bureaucrats will be employed, what powers the legislation will provide, how the members will be identified and appointed and what areas the Voice will have application to. The failure to provide all the details—in fact, any of the details—shows a lack of trust in the Australian people, and, if the government don't trust us with the detail on how the Voice looks and works, how can we trust them to bring forward legislation that will be the consequential part of this constitutional change?

On 30 May, the Cairns Post reported the results of a reader survey. It said:

One common concern expressed by Indigenous people who said they would vote no or were undecided was the Voice would not sufficiently represent the diversity of Indigenous communities and therefore ignore the differences between them.

This is an important point because Indigenous communities are not all the same and have unique issues and views; however, the Prime Minister has provided no clarity or guidance on how the vast number of Indigenous cultures would be represented by the Voice. The ABC recently reported what a Doomadgee resident said:

But out here, in our communities, no one is talking about it. It wouldn't be in the top five issues on the minds of our people.

The Post also interviewed two people from Wujal Wujal who had never heard of the Voice.

It is hard to comprehend how this government came to believe that its Voice model will represent all the Indigenous cultures across Australia, especially when it hasn't consulted with people in these diverse and remote areas. Remember, what I've described as just a snapshot of one region of Australia. How many more people in remote areas around the country aren't aware of the Voice? How many more communities question whether someone from another community will accurately represent them? Another Doomadgee resident told ABC Radio, 'I don't know why we're going back to the Voice when we've already got a voice. If we've got already got people talking to us and they don't like us, they're not going to talk to us. It's happening now. It's happening in our community now. If you don't like you, you get nothing. All our leaders do that.' If you're an Indigenous person from one of these remote communities whose views are inconvenient to those who hold the power, you risk being sidelined and marginalised. This Doomadgee resident's comments underline the fact that new power structures will only entrench these divisions.

I attended the annual Eddie Mabo oration in Townsville—the first time it had been held outside Brisbane in its 31 years. The guest speaker was one of the authors of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and I was keen to hear a well-articulated argument in support of the 'yes' campaign. The speaker is a constitutional lawyer, an Indigenous woman with a strong and powerful story of her own. For the 400-odd people in the room, the speaker was a wonderful demonstration of success in her life through hard work, opportunity and mentorship. There is an awful assumption in the Voice amendment that being Indigenous is to be forever disadvantaged and that the lives of all Indigenous Australians are somehow less—less successful, less inspiring and less hopeful. There is no recognition of all the Indigenous Australians who have led fulfilling lives, raised families and pursued careers, and become leaders in their families, their communities and their industries: sporting identities, business leaders, members of parliament and even senators. The Prime Minister conflates disadvantage with indigeneity, rather than disadvantage born of geography and poverty.

To return to the 'yes' speaker, it was really disappointing that the speaker couldn't articulate anything more in her argument than 'there is disadvantage, and we need to do something about it', because not all Indigenous people are disadvantaged. Disadvantage is not a race issue. It is largely down to geography, poverty and education. Where you live has more bearing on your fortunes than who you are—your access to good health care, to education, to roads to get you to bigger communities, data and voice connectivity, reliable electricity, air fields upgraded and mental health services. These are all matters that the coalition and the Nationals in particular work hard on, trying to prioritise additional spending at each budget, the very expenditure that Labor should be pushing if they genuinely want to reduce disadvantage in rural, regional and remote Australia. Instead, they have paused spending on infrastructure in the very remote regions that need it.

Some Australians may have considered voting for the constitutional change to enshrine the Voice because they are told it is the generous thing to do and they are thinking, 'Why not? We have to do something.' But the better question is why? Why should we adopt a radical change to our Constitution? Australia's story is an Indigenous one followed by waves of migration, first by the British and then other Europeans. South-East Asian migrants followed, and those from the Middle East and Africa have all arrived. They were all lured by the dream of living in a free democracy, working as one towards a better future. They came here because of our opportunities for all, regardless of race. We have something unique in Australia—a rich tapestry of multiculturalism.

Those waves of new Australians have given us so much besides different foods and architecture and style. Most importantly, they have given us a culture that is humble, prepared to lend a hand to our neighbours and which has a strong sense of a fair go. Some would tell you that Australia does not have a culture, and perhaps we don't, not in the way of a country with low migration and clearly unique language, food and buildings. But to say Australia does not have its own culture is never to have celebrated Anzac Day, experienced chicken salt, swam at our pristine beaches or hung clothes on a Hills hoist, to have felt a sigh of homecoming on landing in Australia, heard rain on a tin roof or cheered your team on with a crowd. As has been said, 'I can travel all over the world, but no matter how far or how wide I roam, I still call Australia home.'

Australia aspires to a fair go for all by not having different levels of citizenship, and that is something worth celebrating. Having an equal say is an important premise in our democracy, one which will be replaced should a new body be established that grants additional rights to some citizens over others based on race. Making this change to the Constitution would enshrine the new Voice body forever, whether it's doing a good job or not.

The beauty of our Constitution is its simplicity. It describes broadly the House of Representatives, the Senate and the powers of the parliament. The introduction of another body will, by its nature, provide additional uncertainty and an increase in bureaucracy and cost. It will not fix geography and poverty.

The legislation that would need to be passed by the parliament to put flesh on the bones of the skeleton Voice, as established in the Constitution and as yet undescribed by the Prime Minister, could not legislate away the powers of enshrined Voice which would be determined by the decisions of the High Court. This proposed constitutional change will make the High Court of Australia the determinator of the influence and importance of this proposed body, not the elected representatives of Australia and, subsequently, Australians.

Opinions from some of our brightest legal minds on the Voice's powers are already divided, a sign of future years of expensive legal battles. Since 1972, there have been three iterations of a voice, which all ended up being disbanded for various reasons. The most recent was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, ATSIC, which was abolished in 2005, not only because it was ineffective in helping Indigenous Australians but in large part because of allegations of corruption and mismanagement amongst the leadership.

We currently have numerous Indigenous bodies providing advice to the federal government. These include the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council, the Torres Strait Regional Authority, the Northern Australia Indigenous Reference Group and the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, all of which have specific areas of focus. There is also the Coalition of Peaks, Empowered Communities and thousands of Aboriginal corporations and service providers all able to give advice, to give voice, via their elected MPs and senators. Anyone who claims that Indigenous Australians are not consulted on policies that affect them is being disingenuous at best. For good or bad, a nonconstitutional body can be abolished, reshaped or replaced. This ability to reform when things aren't working as they should is an important part of democracy and good governance.

The coalition has made clear its opposition to the Voice. It will simply add another layer of bureaucracy that will inhibit the practical, local measures that need to be taken to improve Indigenous people's lives, especially those living a long way from the capitals and in regions with limited work opportunities. It will instead soak up attention and funding that could be spent on the ground. Furthermore, elected coalition MPs and senators take seriously our duty to represent all constituents regardless of race. Governments shouldn't decide how to allocate resources and attention based on race instead of need.

The issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, particularly in remote areas, are numerous and complex. It's difficult to see how a new body made up of 24 persons appointed rather than elected, from different parts of the country and with different priorities will be able to present a consensus opinion to the government in a timely manner. Australians have already, in this, the 47th Parliament, sent 11 Indigenous Australians to parliament. These men and women have been appointed not by bureaucracy but by their communities. They sit in two chambers alongside representatives of our newest arrivals and descendants of those who settled here earlier. This is something that Australia can be proud of.

Changing the Constitution is a big deal. It would have permanent outcomes. Change to the Constitution in an ill-considered way is not generous; it is unwise, and it risks the stable and successful nation that Australia is today. I cannot support this change to our Constitution.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, am rising to speak to the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, a bill supposedly centred on recognising the First Peoples of this country, the oldest continuing culture in the world. This week the Labor government opposed my motion to take action towards treaty. They have refused to define sovereignty, they have refused to acknowledge First Nations sovereignty and they have continued to ignore my repeated requests to meet with the blak sovereign movement in this country. I had publicly stated that I would abstain from voting on this legislation and that I was open to discussing the bill with the government. They have not listened to blak voices—even the blak voices in the parliament who actually have some power.

My position on the Constitution amendment bill is now as clear as the air before colonisation. This bill is for a referendum that Labor and the Greens are using to absolve colonial Australia of its responsibility. They have presented it as a great solution to the stain on the nation that is the poverty and incarceration of First Nations people. The Voice, they have promised, will give First Nations a say, and, with that, all will be well with the Aborigines; the Aboriginal problem will be fixed. But the truth is: it is just constitutional recognition, with a powerless advisory body as window dressing.

The government is claiming the referendum will bring all of us together, but that is not what is happening on the ground right now. This referendum has already given space to and elevated some of the most vile racism this country has ever seen—and that's saying something. Many have expressed concern and support for First Nations people on the receiving end of this heightened racism. We don't want your sympathy; we want the racism to end. Standing up to racism means respecting First Nations people, and in order to respect us you must recognise our sovereignty.

This bill fails to recognise the sovereignty of our people. It is an intended failure because, if the government actually recognised that we are sovereign, it would also admit that it is not, that our lands were invaded, that our people were unlawfully conquered, massacred and oppressed and that this government and all governments preceding it were illegal according to their own laws.

The government claims that this bill and the referendum resulting from it will not impact our sovereignty. It is easy for them to say our sovereignty won't be impacted because they only see it as a spiritual notion. It is far from just a spiritual notion. I have put forward amendment to this bill which would, once and for all, recognise our sovereignty—our actual sovereignty—which is an unceded right held in collective possession by the members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations which confers usage, access and custodianship of the lands, waters, minerals and natural resources of what is now known as Australia, and the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to exercise an unimpeded and collective self-determinant governance over there political, economic and social affairs. That is what we are talking about when we talk of sovereignty. That is what sovereignty is. It provides a foundation to negotiate a treaty.

The bill before us is trying to establish a Voice to parliament under the pretence that it is self-determination. Today I am bringing you a sovereign perspective on the Voice truly borne out of self-determination. I am not just standing here as Lidia Thorpe but as a representative of the Blak sovereign movement. I am guided by actual Blak sovereigns, voices such as those of Aunty Jenny Munro, founder of the Redfern embassy; Uncle Michael Mansell, author and lawyer; Uncle Michael Anderson, founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy; Aunty Dr Mary Graham, professor of history and politics; Uncle Adrian Burragubba, musician and former political candidate; Ned Hargraves, Warlpiri elder; Les Malezer, Australian human rights medal recipient and UN committee member; Robbie Thorpe, my uncle and editor, presenter and activist; Gary Foley, professor of history and founder of tent embassy; Professor Chelsea Watego, professor of Indigenous health; Lynda-June Coe, PhD candidate and New South Wales upper house candidate; Aunty Gwenda Stanley, educator, dancer and cultural ambassador—and so many more elders I could spend the whole time on this speech telling you about. Your accolades are in our history and our culture.

These are the people that you don't listen to or won't listen to. Here is a small sample of what these voices have had to say on the referendum. Michael Mansell says, "By merrily advising parliament that the Voice endorses the right of others to decide, the advisory voice is at complete odds with sovereignty." Gwenda Stanley says: "Our sovereignty has never been ceded. We have never given consent to this process. This movement has repeatedly asked to meet with the Minister for Indigenous Australians and the Attorney-General to discuss genuine concerns with the proposed referendum, yet our calls remain unanswered."

This government doesn't want to hear First Nations people's voices who don't support their agenda. That is why I am here today—to make sure that a sovereign perspective on this proposed Voice to parliament is known. The government promotes the Voice as a mechanism for self-determination that will finally give First Nations people a say in this country. What is self-determining about a referendum where a majority of 97 per cent of the population who are non-First Nations get to decide about what is best for us three per cent? It is the opposite of self-determination.

You quote polls stating that most First Nations people support the Voice. Most polls are asking if First Nations people should have a say in policies. They do not ask about constitutional recognition. When you are starving, taking a crumb does not mean you support the system that starves you. The Uluru Statement from the Heart was by no means a consensus statement. In fact, for speaking up about our concerns and raising treaty and sovereignty, some of us received tribal death threats and had to sleep out in the desert that night for fear of our lives, and I was one of those. A disabled elder was arrested and taken away in a divvy wagon from one dialogue in Blacktown in Sydney. Look that up. That is not a unifying moment. That is not a moment of peace, and it does not pave the way for it.

Megan Davis boasted about the dialogues at the National Press Club, saying 'we also banned significant leaders from the movement because of their cynicism about the government'. Despite this, recent documents released through a freedom of information request clearly show that what our people were primarily calling for during the regional dialogues was treaty. There were many at the regional dialogues who insisted that any body must be stronger than just an advisory body to parliament. Many ideas were floated about how we could actually get a real say and some power, such as designated seats in parliament. Yet nobody talks about that. Instead, what the Labor government is putting forward is the weakest of all versions—an advisory body without any real influence. The parliament will retain supremacy over the Voice and can decide who it is and what it does. Tell me, where is the self-determination in that?

My people are sick of spending their lives advising those in decision-making positions, just to have their advice ignored. Just look at the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing them home report. They were self-determined pieces of advice provided to—an even commissioned by—government. Yet, decades later, their recommendations are still not implemented. Traditional owners in the Beetaloo advised that they do not want their country fracked. The government ignored their voice and fracking is about to begin. If the government, or any of the previous governments, were serious about listening to us they had every opportunity along the way, and they have failed.

I was, and am, prepared to constructively engage with the government around the Voice and around urgent action we need to see in the meantime, which would actually make a difference to our people's lives. The government could save lives by implementing the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The federal government has jurisdiction over a number of these recommendations. Health care in prisons equal to that in the community was a key recommendation from the royal commission. Many, many deaths in custody occur due to untreated and preventable conditions. This could easily be addressed by the government through bringing Medicare, PBS and NDIS into prisons.

Another action the government can take today is to provide increased funding to Aboriginal legal services across the country, as they are struggling to meet increased demands. We all know that if our people cannot get adequate—or any—legal support, they will be more likely be locked up and locked up for longer. Higher incarceration ultimately leads to more deaths in custody. Our kids don't belong in prisons. The government has an opportunity to raise the age of legal responsibility to 14. And there has been no progress on implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The referendum process has not come close to the requirements of free, prior and informed consent. So far, the government has shown no good faith to progress any of these actions or show that they actually want things to improve for our people.

Therefore, in the name of the black sovereign movement, I will be voting no the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. The government has failed to show good faith. I cannot support a referendum that does not acknowledge our sovereignty. A step away from recognising sovereignty is not a step in the right direction. I cannot support a referendum that is merely intended to make colonisers in this country feel better about themselves while not giving us any real say. I cannot support a referendum that is gammon and not actually improving our lives. I cannot support a referendum that is already dividing and hurting our communities. Instead, I will continue to fight for real change and to turn things around in this country. I will continue to work to achieve treaty.

The government repeatedly said they are committed to all elements of the Uluru statement, and that included treaty. I'll leave it up to the audience as to how genuine this government is about treaty if it can vote it down in a second. Treaty is commonly understood to be an agreement between two or more sovereigns and therefore requires recognition of sovereignty. Agreeing to a treaty process is a step in the right direction towards recognising First Nations sovereignty in this country. Recognition of our sovereignty is a foundation of respecting First Nations people. Each time our sovereignty is denied, this government chooses to continue the colonial legacy of violence and oppression.

I long for the day when we can celebrate an end to the war here—the war between the colonial government and First Nations people. It is a very one-sided war, but it is most definitely a war. We demand to meet as equals, sovereign to sovereign, to negotiate treaty. Treaties, when negotiated and not imposed, have proven to be effective at ending hostilities and providing long-lasting peace. We need that peace and justice, and that is what I will continue fighting for up to and beyond this referendum. Treaty is an opportunity for us to unite, heal the nation and move forward together.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this momentous bill, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. I first acknowledge and pay my respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples on whose land we're meeting today. I also acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people whose land I work and live on back home.

It's time. That's the view of Aunty Geraldine Atkinson. Aunty Geraldine has been working in Aboriginal affairs for the last 50 years. A proud Bangerang and Wiradjuri woman, she is co-chair of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria. She says:

As First Peoples, we know that for too long we have had policies made for us and to us but not by us—by politicians who don't really understand, or worse, don't respect our culture.

She's right; it's time. It's time for Australians to come together and support a momentous change but also a very simple one.

In 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was delivered with three important asks: voice, treaty and truth. The statement was informed and led by more than 1,000 First Nations delegates from each state and territory. Delegates at the regional dialogue in Naarm, or Melbourne, asserted with pride their survival in the face of struggle. They agreed on the importance of real recognition, not just tokenism. These dialogues led to the statement that will change history. With these powerful words, the Uluru statement reads:

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

This bill is really about accepting that generous invitation to walk forward together.

We took to the 2022 election a commitment that we would implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. Now, a year into government, we are committed to holding a referendum later this year to recognise First People in the Constitution through a voice to parliament. This bill is the first step of our commitment. This is really not about politicians or partisanship; this really is about the Australian people.

For 60,000 years, First Nations people have looked after and continue to look after and protect country. We live alongside the oldest continuous living culture in human history, and that is worth all of us recognising in the founding document of our nation. It's long overdue. For too long Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continued to face disadvantage because of colonisation, because of top-down government policies and because of intergenerational trauma. The gap in health, education, criminal justice and life expectancy is just not closing fast enough. The Uluru Statement from the Heart states:

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

It's time for a different approach. It's time for an approach that gets to the structural nature of the problem. It's time for an approach that is about self-determination and real change. We know that outcomes are better when First Nations communities lead the decision-making about their own communities and lives. We know outcomes are better where there is genuine partnership, genuine listening and genuine respect. Marcus Stewart is a proud Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung nation and fellow co-chair of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria. In his words:

A change in our lives requires a change in the existing systems that have continually failed us. With a voice, it is not hard to imagine a world in which things such as health, housing and incarceration receive tangible, real and lasting action.

Tangible real and lasting action is something we can all not just hope for but work towards together.

Marcus says that the Australian people are hungry for change. I agree. As a non-Indigenous Australian, I am hungry for the future that we can build too. Recognition of First Peoples through a voice will be good for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, for all Australians, for people who want to live in a country that is united, for people who grew up in a time in this country where our origins were barely spoken of and barely acknowledged, for people who want to live in a country that can be proud of the 60,000 years of culture and heritage offered by our First Peoples and for people who know that we can do better together if we accept the invitation of Uluru to walk together for a better future.

To quote the great senator Pat Dodson:

It would be a momentously unifying moment for all of us.

We will no longer remain diminished as a nation.

A successful referendum will signal a new and unifying era for this great country.

Senator Dodson also said: 'We are capable of doing better.' I know we are, and I commend this bill to the Senate.

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

I rise this evening to speak on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. The moment in time we have before us today is a deliberation we, as the elected lawmakers in this country, will make perhaps once in our time in this parliament—a deliberation about whether to change our foundation statute, our nation's most important legal document. Each word and each phrase of this document can be open to interpretation in the way we conduct the matters of our government, in a delicate symbiosis between the executive arm of government and the judicial arm, in the form of the High Court of Australia.

I stand here today as someone who has declared my fervent support for reconciliation and for recognition of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. If the referendum question was dealing with either separately or independently, I would be able to support that question. But this government has chosen a different path that conflates the issues, confuses the topic and confounds good government and constitutional amendment.

Many of us have been on this journey for a long time, and my record as a National Party member, as a senator and as a minister is testimony to this. I changed my view on these topics as a result of my engagement in the Joint Committee on Constitutional Recognition—the very first one that was set up on this topic, chaired by former senator Nova Peris and Ken Wyatt. And, whilst minister, I was able to negotiate the Barkly regional deal with the then Northern Territory Labor government following the rape of a two-year-old in Tennant Creek. I stand here as the leader of a party in the Senate that supported our most successful referendum in 1967, when, as Harold Holt declared in May of that year, all three political leaders—the leader of the Country Party, Mr McEwen; the leader of the Labor Party, Mr Whitlam; and himself—had joined together to prepare the official 'yes' case.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the founding part of the cultural and social fabric of our communities, and we acknowledge their essential and ongoing contribution to our nation. The Nationals, including members of the Liberal National Party and the Country Liberal Party, have represented regional, rural and remote Australia for more than a century. And our party has proportionately more Indigenous within the boundaries of our electorates than any other political party. Never let it be said that my party does not have a deep and abiding concern for the rights and welfare of Indigenous Australians.

But today I stand in this chamber to express my concerns and opposition to the proposed change to our Constitution outlined in this bill. This bill has garnered significant attention. And while it professes to address the needs of Indigenous Australians, I firmly believe that its implementation poses great risk to our democratic institutions, to the decisions of future governments and to national cohesion. My concerns are twofold. Firstly, I fear it will fail in its stated aim of being the final and ultimate cure-all for the problems affecting many Indigenous Australians, particularly those in the remotest part of our country—in health, in welfare, and in educational and opportunity outcomes. As my colleague Senator Nampijinpa Price wrote earlier this year:

We have every right to question, seek clarity or outright disagree with a vague proposal that's being sold as a completely new approach to resolving disadvantage. There is zero proof the voice proposition will be successful.

Second, this change will have unintended consequences for the delicate fabric of our democracy. You've heard from those opposite that these concerns are completely unfounded—'Just trust us.' Well, I'm no lawyer, but when I was reading the submissions on this bill, in the hastily conducted inquiry set up by the government as a shroud, as a veneer of sensibility, I was drawn to a submission by Mr Gyles, who said: 'Much of the commentary that denies that proposition seems to be based on the commentator's personal opinion or upon the commentator predicting what the High Court may or may not decide. That is a most insecure method of reasoning when considering inserting a new chapter in the Constitution that entrenches forever an entity with a stated function of making submissions to executive government.' That is the learned opinion of somebody trying to give us as lawmakers very sound advice about what some of those unintended consequences could be from inserting a Voice into our Constitution.

My concerns are shared not just by constitutional experts but also by many Indigenous Australians who also do not want our founding document to be permanently divided along the lines of race and culture. Again, proponents of the 'yes' case refuse to listen. It's all about the Voice—but only if you're speaking with certain words and favouring certain opinions. In a liberal democracy like ours, all voices should be respected equally, and all perspectives should be considered and heard, and then each individual can determine their own views.

I'd like to quote from the dissenting report on the inquiry into this bill, which warns:

If proposed s 129 is interpreted by the High Court in a way that imposes on the Executive either a duty to consult the Voice or consider its representations, this will have profoundly disruptive effects on the operation of government.

These assessments were made by none other than former justices of the High Court Robert French and Kenneth Hayne. Let us recall Mr French's comments:

Given the immense range of matters in which there might be an interaction between a proposed policy or practice and impacts on Indigenous people in one way or another, to imply a duty to consult across all of that range would really make government unworkable. I don't think the High Court is in that business.

This proposed change opens a proverbial Pandora's box and could result in significant delays in government decision-making, ultimately leading to dysfunction and inability to effectively address the needs of all Australians.

The Australian Constitution is the cornerstone of our legal framework. That is why amendments to it should be approached with immense caution and why Australians of all political persuasions are incredibly conservative—that is 'conservative' with a little 'c'—on changing our founding document from the past. Each word and provision within it can be open to interpretation. By incorporating the proposed Voice, we will expose our Constitution to legal challenges and once practical decision-making could be at the mercy of the High Court. We cannot predict what a future High Court will decide when the Voice seeks to challenge a law, a policy or a future direction of government. Despite the promises that the risks of those interpretations are low, history would show us otherwise.

In another submission, again, from Roger Gyles:

… neither the government nor any expert can give those unequivocal assurances …

Justice Callinan warned:

It would be imprudent to underestimate the capacity of any future High Court for ingenuity or originality.

As a constitutional conservative, who believes the Westminster system of government is the best form of democracy that we can have, I believe we should be slow to transfer authority out of the hands of the people and into the hands of the courts because the courts do not represent the people. The vagueness of the Voice demands that we trust future courts to act in Australia's best interest. The fundamental basis of our democracy is trust, and we elect our representatives to act on our behalf. With the knowledge of that, if they make the wrong decisions, we can vote them out. But the deficiency in the process of this referendum shows a deficiency in that trust. The Labor Party has not been up-front, nor has it been inclusive, and it has approached the whole referendum from a position of superiority and self-righteousness, bypassing the normal conventions of a constitutional change. It has been dismissive of any concerns raised across the community, within this chamber and in the inquiry process itself.

The reason we have conventions embedded in how a country like ours approaches constitutional change is so that all voices and perspectives can be heard and the sovereignty of the Australian people is paramount—they will have the information available to them; they'll be able to assess its impact against their own personal values and philosophy and vote accordingly. Putting those measures in place meant that the 1967 referendum was an overwhelming success because Australians knew it was a change that they wanted to make and it reflected their own personal values. Denying that public debate, that respectful conversation, and asserting that people that don't agree with this constitutional amendment are somehow racist really does not respect the sovereignty of the Australian people. I think it doesn't give the Australian people the privilege and responsibility of knowing the details and impact of this proposition and of being able to discuss and debate that openly and respectfully to therefore make their own decisions. It is a failure of this Labor government to run from that. You've got to ask yourself why they have chosen to do that.

Why didn't the government choose to legislate the Voice? If it's the answer to the problem, legislate it and enshrine it later. My party, the National Party, holds to democratic principles and the trust in the processes that are unique to the 10 oldest democracies in the world. We are therefore cautious about any measure that involves transferring authority away from people and putting it in the hands of unelected high courts. We acknowledge the importance of democratic representation for Indigenous Australians by Indigenous Australians—something that has advanced considerably in this chamber since 1967. As so many have made reference to in this debate, the Australian people elected 11 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives in both the Senate and the House and, proudly, from all political philosophies too. I think that is quite incredible and shows the journey that everybody has been on.

Just as the potential legal quagmire is an issue, the lack of transparency around the operation of the Voice is deeply concerning. The Australian people are being asked to vote on a permanent change to our Constitution without knowing precisely how it will operate. Either they don't want to describe the impact, or they don't trust the Australian people. Either way, it is not the way a government that is operating in a liberal democracy should actually work.

Once it's enshrined it will become exceedingly difficult to reverse any negative consequences or make adjustments to its operations. The National Party wants to address the serious issues impacting Indigenous Australians by delivering frontline evidence based and place based solutions that will help the most marginalised in our communities. We should be striving to bring Australians together, not creating further divisions.

By enshrining a body solely for one specific group of Australians in our Constitution, we perpetuate divisions based on race and culture rather than resolving them. And as Faith Bandler, a prominent Indigenous civil rights activist and campaigner, said in the lead-up to the 1967 referendum: 'There is only one Australian, and his colour doesn't matter at all.' It was this unity of purpose that meant that was an incredibly successful endeavour in changing our Constitution. The limited time and inadequate comprehensive hearings of this inquiry have deprived Australians of the opportunity to engage in a robust and inclusive discussion.

I just want to go to Justice Callinan. He said:

It is an irony that so many of the proponents of the Voice, well-intentioned and highly-regarded as they are, should be echoing the language so often and infamously used by the late Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen to reporters seeking information about government, "don't you worry about that".

I am firmly committed to addressing disadvantage. I am a very respectful no, but a firm no nonetheless.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Constitutional Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 bill. I acknowledge and pay my respects to the First Nations people with us here today, especially Uncle Major 'Moogy' Sumner, an honoured elder and leader of the Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna people of South Australia.

This bill creates a pathway, a pathway with still more steps ahead, to finally, constitutionally, recognise Australia's First Nations people. It responds to the eloquent and considered call of First Nations Australians for that recognition and for a voice. It is a first step. Beyond it, we have much more to do: to teach our children our real history, to understand that history and all it's meant for generations of First Nations people, to clearly see the cost of colonialism and the long legacy of frontier wars in our country, and to move to create treaties.

Today, our children, including my own grandchild, learn songs and words in Kaurna language, the language of their place. Our public events begin with Kaurna words spoken on Kaurna land in Adelaide. That was not my history, my learning, and it's taken many decades to change the old ways and begin to pay respect to the true history of our nation and our First People.

I grew up as a country kid in Mallee country—what I now know was the land of the Ngarkat people. I had a great public primary education at Lameroo area school, but that education was of its time. It didn't tell the truth of our history. It did not recognise First Nations of this country. It did not recognise a 65,000-year-old history. It did not recognise the deep culture of our place or the role of First Nations Australians across our history—the first agricultural cultivation, the management of fire, the care of country. It did not recognise contributions made in history and in contemporary times to arts, culture, sport and music in Australia. It did not recognise the role of our First Peoples in the long war of resistance to invasion and loss of land and livelihood. It did not recognise a frontier war fought to protect and defend the children and families of First Nations people. And of course we failed to recognise for so many decades the roles of First Nations people fought in wars since invasion. The kids of my generation were raised on British history. But it was whitewashed. It's time to tell the truth and move to makarrata—to treaties that recognise First Australians and their associations and deep connection to land and to sea and to water.

Although I spent merely a decade and a half of my childhood on our farm and on that country, I have no trouble understanding First Nations people's deep connection to country. For me it was a connection borne of a mere century of occupation and a short three generations. I don't compare that short experience and attachment to country with the deep legacy of thousands of years lived on country by First Nations people. But I live in awe of the kind of connection to country that exists for First Nations people, arising from their custodianship over thousands of years and hundreds of generations.

I'm delighted to be making this contribution with Uncle Major 'Moogy' Sumner with us. Uncle Moogy was my Senate running mate in 2022. I didn't know until then that when we were both 11, Uncle Moogy lived just 120 kilometres away. And, while I was enjoying all the freedoms of farm life, his family were required to have a pass to travel by bus from Raukkan at the Coorong to Adelaide, where their movements were tightly constrained as they collected clothes and blankets. Uncle Moogy has taken me and so many others to Raukkan to tell that history for truth-telling. I acknowledge and thank Uncle Moogy and his Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna community, and, indeed, all South Australia's First Nations communities for their great generosity in telling us of this painful and unequal history. It is never too late to tell the truth of our past.

This legacy is, of course, not behind us as we engage in this important new conversation about truth, treaty and voice—and as we come to the Voice in this bill. When I've asked Uncle Moogy about the voice, treaty and truth, he has spoken of the need to come together, to walk together, to create a new voice for First Nations South Australians and to celebrate the culture, contribution and the past and future of our place and our people. When Uncle Moogy welcomes us to Kaurna land, his mother's country, he calls up all our ancestors—from all directions—to come together in respect and to guide our meeting for good, to take away bad energy and to help us work together to build a better future for all of us. We could have done with some of that energy in recent days in this place.

Constitutional recognition of First Nations people is a first step. It is our duty, it is long overdue and it is essential. And we need to do more than that. We have to ensure that First Nations Australians have a clear voice into this parliament and into parliaments across our country. There are too many examples of the failure to listen.

In South Australia, as I speak, First Nations people are in the Federal Court contesting a decision by the previous coalition, now being joined by Labor, to build a nuclear waste dump on their land—the land of Barngarla people near Kimba—without their consent and, indeed, without the consent of most South Australians. The Barngarla people have yet to be consulted, a decision that compounds the awful history and intergenerational trauma of British nuclear testing at Maralinga and at Emu Field on country then actually occupied by First Nations people—a trauma with consequences that reach across the decades to today. In October this year we celebrate, we mark and we remember 70 years ago when the nuclear testing occurred—we do not celebrate it; we remember it—at Emu Field and the long consequences which were drawn to this parliament's attention this week by a visit of First Nations people and veterans from that country, who told us about the intergenerational legacy of this terrible testing. That is why we need a voice, and we need a voice that is heard.

We are overdue for recognition of Australia's First Nations peoples in our Constitution and for a real voice for them in all the matters that affect their lives, including in relation to nuclear waste dumping. We must create this Voice, and, most importantly, we must listen to those voices and do no fresh harm by ignoring their wishes and their connection to country. We are not honestly facing the truth of our past if we fail to respectfully listen now and create that Voice and amend our Constitution to recognise First Nations people.

We are a better country for telling the truth of our history and hearing the invitation at the heart of the Uluru statement, which, I'm proud to say, the Greens were the first party to support in full, and which, I'm often told, so many South Australians passionately support: 'Tell the truth, create treaties and ensure a First Nations voice to our parliaments, rooted in the truth.' The Uluru Statement from the Heart brought together First Nations people from across the country to reckon with the past and create a better future. The statement provides a powerful call for action to the whole country. It says:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

The Greens support progressing all three calls to action in the Uluru statement: truth-telling, treaty-making and the Voice. The Voice is just one part of the story. A successful referendum will be the start of decades of change for First Nations people, as we move towards truth-telling, treaty-making and self-determination. This proposal for change comes after many years of other kinds of effort and many disappointments. The Barunga Statement of 1988 calls on the Commonwealth parliament to create a treaty recognising First Nations' prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty. Bob Hawke committed the Australian government to delivering that treaty, but it never happened.

What we need now is action. That is the responsibility of every one of us, all of us, as we go to vote, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in remote communities, our regional centres and our cities to the decision-makers in government. First Nations people have answers to the challenges that impact on their lives, and the Voice to Parliament will allow those answers to be heard. Securing a 'yes' vote at the referendum will recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this continent by establishing a body that has a say on matters that affect us—all of us.

We have an opportunity to change things for First Nations people in this country, and that means a better country for all of us—for all who grow up here and for all the kids to come. They can live a life with full knowledge of our history, all the history, which includes progress towards treaties that recognise First Nations' prior occupation and gives a voice to First Nations people—a voice that is heard and a voice from the oldest living culture in the world. This must be a unifying moment for all Australians.

South Australia has already taken its first clear steps to achieve that goal. I'm proud that our state has moved ahead and proud of the very moving ceremonies—some of which were led by Uncle Moogy, welcoming us to his mother's country. They were widely participated in by so many citizens in our state. South Australia became the first state in March to legislate a First Nations voice to parliament, and, in the wake of the bill passing parliament, Uncle Moogy said, 'First Nations people have got to have a voice right across the country—a say in everything, from land care to health outcomes.'

This country is changing, and I stand with my fellow Greens senators and so many others, like the majority of South Australians, who want a different future. We want to come to terms with how we all came here. We want a country that treats people fairly and faces up to disadvantage—one where everyone's voices are listened to. It's an opportunity for treaty, for truth-telling and for voice. We must reckon with the truth of our history and move forward together through treaty and through that voice and constitutional recognition. That is the only viable path.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The need for constitutional recognition of First Nations people is, in my mind, unquestionable. The invitation from the Uluru statement was to the people of Australia—all of the people of Australia. It says:

We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

It is a generous and heartfelt call to put aside the hurt and the harm caused by the violent colonisation of this country—not to forget but to make good; to remember and to celebrate the 60,000 years of stewardship of this country; and to acknowledge the 200 years of deep and unconscionable injustice. I am proud to stand here and say yes—yes, I will walk beside you.

Through this referendum, as a nation, we all have a choice. But, in making that choice, one of the biggest challenges that we are facing is a flood of misinformation and divisive, nasty campaign tactics. We should be better than that. A yes vote is a profound step towards reconciliation with First Nations people. A yes vote is a statement that we are committed to acknowledging and addressing the injustices of the past and creating a more equal and inclusive future. A yes vote will give us a body enshrined in the Constitution to enable First Nations people to have their voices truly heard and their perspectives truly considered in the decisions that affect their lives. If the referendum is successful, we will be a better country.

Why shouldn't First Nations people secure a formal structure through which it provides advice to the parliament and the government on matters which affect them? There's nothing threatening here. The sky won't fall in. As we have seen in South Australia, this process that has been put in place is going very well. It is a chance to heal, a chance to be better. This Voice is a vehicle to provide that advice to the parliament and the government. Importantly, it will be accountable and transparent and will work alongside existing organisations and traditional structures. Parliament will be unencumbered in its law-making functions. There is nothing to fear here. By protecting the Voice, in our founding document, we ensure its enduring ability.

There is no doubt government policies have failed First Nations people. They have entrenched poverty, incarceration and child removals. The Closing the Gap data released this week shows us, alarmingly, that only four out of the 19 measures are actually on track. That is a statistic that we should all be deeply alarmed by. The structures that we have have not succeeded in addressing this unconscionable gap. I've worked in those structures, often with some really good people with some really good intent, but never with that true engagement and value of First Nations people. It's a very simple, simple structure. It's a very simple concept. The evidence tells us overwhelmingly that those structures have not worked. So we have to do something new. A successful referendum will signal a newer era, a unifying era, and a path to genuine reconciliation. We can do better as a country. We can do better as a parliament. We can do better as individuals, and we must do better. A permanent voice with a singular focus on such matters will help achieve better outcomes.

The past two decades have seen consultations, reviews, inquiries and processes to develop models for recognition. There have been reports, so much work and so much effort to find a structure and a model that both is acceptable to First Nations Australia and works within the framework of Australia's public law and governance. I believe we've found it. In 2017, this process culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and I would urge anyone who hasn't read it to read it. It was a constitutional convention bringing together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders at the foot of Uluru in Central Australia to provide a generous invitation and a pathway forward. We cannot let it fall on deaf ears. During this convention, the majority resolved to call for the establishment of a First Nations voice in the Constitution. The Uluru statement is a catalyst in a long-running movement for Indigenous constitutional recognition. We must now honour the resolution of this convention and enshrine a voice into our Constitution.

While today we're focused on implementing the Voice, tomorrow we must implement the other deeply important elements of the Uluru statement: treaty and truth. The Uluru Statement from the Heart also seeks a makarrata commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations to facilitate truth-talking about First Nations history. In the October budget, the Albanese Labor government set aside funding for the establishment of that commission to advance treaty and truth. While it is important to enshrine a First Nations voice to the parliament now, we will not forget the other elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

As explained in the explanatory memorandum, the constitutional alteration bill that we are debating here tonight has four key elements—not a range of the other things that are being bandied around but four: (1) to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia; (2) to provide for the establishment of a new constitutional entity called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; (3) to set the core representation-making function of the Voice; and (4) to confer upon the parliament legislative power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

Last month we saw the Joint Select Committee on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Referendum hand down their report on the bill. They received more than 3,000 contributions from across Australia, and a significant majority of those submissions were supportive. They were supportive of the proposal for a voice enshrined in our Constitution. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders passionately expressed the importance of being recognised as the first Australians in the Constitution and expressed their hope that the Voice would fundamentally alter and improve the lives of current and future generations. Witnesses told the committee that they were concerned that the lives of their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would not improve without change. The evidence would tell us that they've got a solid point there.

We have to make change. We have to do better. We have to do different. Those people said that what they would like to be able to do is see that, when they're adults, or when their great-grandchildren are going through school, they are not sitting there having the same conversations that we have been having for decades. Let's make this happen. Let's respect the deep culture and knowledge and let us finally deliver on recognition and reconciliation. I am proud to stand here and say yes, and I urge you to stand with me.

I want to thank and pay my respects to all the people who for decades have fought for First Nations recognition and justice. In particular I want to send a shout-out to Senator Dodson, who cannot be with us today, for his unswerving dedication to this critical issue and to thank him for his inspiration. I pay tribute to his tireless work and the tireless work of my other colleagues, particularly Senator McCarthy, and various other people in this building who have worked so hard to get a respectful conversation and a decent pathway through to do the work that we need to do for true reconciliation, for true recognition, to truly hear the voices of First Nations people and to do better.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I firstly want to put on the record in this debate on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 that I am very passionate about improving the livelihoods of and prospects for Indigenous Australians. I've tried to contribute in my small way as a senator for Queensland and as a minister in the former government. We helped settle the very first loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to an Indigenous business to establish the very first fully-owned iron ore mine by Indigenous Australians in Western Australia. I set up the northern Australia Indigenous advisory panel, which I think is being continued by this government. There are some fantastic Indigenous Australians on that. I thank them for their work, particularly around economic opportunities in northern Australia. There are a lot of positive things going on for some Indigenous Australians across this country, because there are a lot of entrepreneurial Indigenous Australians, especially young Indigenous Australians, who are taking the opportunities that this great country does present to lots of people.

We're not a perfect country—of course, we're not—but we are I think one of the best places in the world. You have won the lottery if you are born here and have the opportunity to pursue your own form of happiness, have a family and provide for that family through the great employment and business opportunities we have in this nation. There's no doubt that, unfortunately, across generations we as a country though have failed to provide equal opportunities to Indigenous Australians, and we still fail today.

I think the best that could be said for this proposal to have a Voice to Parliament is that it's an unnecessary distraction from our shocking failures to deliver for Indigenous Australians. As I will try to outline this evening, I cannot see how a bureaucratic body here in Canberra can unpick the complex problems that Indigenous communities face across Australia. This is, at best, a distraction from the action that needs to be taken—not talk, not the Voice. In its word there's a problem. It's about a voice here. This place is all about talking. A lot of talking goes on in Canberra, and this will be another place that does a lot of talking. But it's action that's needed to solve the issues for Indigenous Australians, and I don't think this body will do that, with all respect. The worst this body could be is a trojan horse for radical activists who seek to bias Indigenous policy in particular and probably broader policy settings in this country in a certain direction that even, I would say, most Aboriginal people do not support but some activists among us have an agenda to pursue.

One reason why I'm sceptical about whether this Voice will actually contribute practically to help Indigenous Australians is that we continue to ignore the Indigenous voices that are in this parliament—in this chamber and in the other place. We had a clear example of that over the past few months when the shocking explosion in crime occurred in Alice Springs. Alice Springs is perhaps one of the most overrepresented towns in this parliament. There are actually two members from Alice Springs in the parliament. My colleague Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price lives there and was a deputy mayor in Alice Springs. Also the new Labor member for Lingiari, in the other place, is from Alice Springs. There are about 30,000 people in Alice Springs and there are two representatives in the parliament—that is, about 15,000 people in Alice Springs per parliamentarian. Not too many other towns in Australia have that level of per capita representation in the Australian parliament.

Both of those representatives—both Senator Price and the member for Lingiari—have been warning for months that the government's decision to end the cashless debit card, and the Northern Territory government's decision to end our coal restrictions, would lead to absolute disaster in Alice Springs. They have been warning that for months. They have been using their voice as elected representatives to say these things. But the government and the parliament as a whole completely ignored them and ran roughshod over their views and pursued, at a million miles an hour, this ideological campaign to get rid of the cashless debt card, and we all saw what ensued as a result. Thank God, some of the alcohol restrictions have come back. The government are desperately trying to find a solution on welfare payments that doesn't amount to them having to embarrassingly back down on the cashless debit card. But we ignored their voices. We ignored the Aboriginal voices that exist here in this parliament. So would we listen to any other voices? We don't know how they will be selected or elected in this Voice body.

But there is a broader issue here than just whether or not the Voice itself will be effective. It is very clear that some of those pushing the Voice have a radical agenda in mind—and only sometimes this iceberg is exposed above the surface. Yesterday it was very clearly exposed at a conference in Cairns—a long way from here. The Lowitja Institute put on a conference in Cairns on health issues yesterday, and Professor Marcia Langton addressed that conference. I have a lot of time for Professor Langton, I appointed her to a board looking at the future for the resources sector, and she has made great contributions there. But I do disagree with her on some things—and she clearly has quite a radical agenda when it comes to the Voice.

The Lowitja Institute tweeted yesterday that Professor Langton had said in her speech: "People who are opposing the Voice vote, are saying that we are destroying the fabric of their sacred Constitution. Yes, that's right. That's exactly what we're doing." Professor Langton went on to say: "First of all, our Constitution is racist. It was designed as a racist constitution. The slogan was 'Australia for the White man.'" Professor Langton is not just a commentator here in this debate; she helped design this legislation that is before us. She helped design that for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Her clear words are that this is exactly about 'destroying the fabric of our Constitution'. So when government members stand up and say "This is modest; there's nothing to see here," why is it that one of their key advisers for designing this Voice says that, actually, the intent of the Voice is to 'destroy the fabric of our Constitution'?

I am a proud Australian. I think we are a great country, and I think we should cherish our Constitution. The fact is that we are one of the longest-serving democracies in the world. Democracy is a very recent thing. We are not the longest-serving democracy but we are up there as one of the longest-serving continuing democracies, with effectively the same Constitution—with very few changes—the same parliament and very stable institutions. I think we should actively oppose anybody seeking to destroy the sacred fabric of our Constitution. It is a part of the foundation which makes our country great, which gives us freedom and which guarantees our prosperity. Yet we have here a codesigner of the Voice saying that our Constitution, our foundations as a democratic country, should be destroyed. That alone should ring massive alarm bells for anybody considering their vote on this referendum.

The government are, clearly, not being forthcoming with the details. They are open about that. They are not willing to put forward any detailed legislation before us about what the Voice would look like. They are saying, "We'll work that out after the vote." So what is going to be in this wooden horse after the vote and we have to open it up? We are not being told. The only way to stop that, the only way to prevent that door of the Trojan horse being opened, is to vote no so that we do not get a voice designed by politicians in Canberra in their own interests, not yours. That is the only rational decision that can be made, given the radical agenda that has been exposed, given the fact that the quiet part has been said out loud, yesterday at this conference and in a few other examples around the country.

I do think that, even if my concerns about a radical agenda are not forthcoming and maybe this is just a somewhat modest and probably ineffective talkfest here in Canberra, the broader problem is that this ultimately does divide our community in an unnecessary way. We would be introducing a provision into our Constitution that divides us along racial lines. As I said at the start, I do recognise the unique circumstances that Indigenous communities find themselves in. I do think we should pursue very strongly policies that help and support those communities. I think that introducing the concept of race into our founding document as a nation is incredibly dangerous, because we are and should be a country based on the principle that it doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is and it doesn't matter what DNA you have in your body. What matters is who you are as an individual human being, and every Australian individual human being should be sacred, should be supported and should be helped. There is no need to divide our country along these lines. People marry different people. People in the same family will have different voting rights in our country. I don't understand why we need to do that.

We had a great referendum in 1967 which did improve our Constitution, which was all about uniting us as a country and treating all Australians as equal. It wasn't about voting rights, which is often wrongly said, but it was about making sure that everybody is counted properly in the census and treated equally. That was a great change which united everybody. It actually treated everybody equally in this country, regardless of skin colour or race. This would do the exact opposite, and it would take us back to a pre-1967 situation when there were some racial elements in Australian policy that were wrong and that we should leave in the rear-view mirror. I don't think we should bring those back into the policy debate.

If this is about uniting our nation, why hasn't the Prime Minister made good-faith efforts to show some compromise on the design to try and build a bigger level of support for the Voice beyond the narrow partisan support he has from his own party and some of his allies in the Greens? He has made no effort to do this.

There have been good-faith attempts from politicians on this side of the chamber who support a voice model but are concerned about, for example, the proposal to have the Voice advise the executive government, potentially giving rise to more constitutional legal challenges, where this will ultimately be decided.

There are others who are very passionate supporters of the Voice, but they're concerned that this model creates a new chapter in the Constitution that's not subservient, at least in a hierarchical sense, to chapters I or II in the Constitution—chapter I being the parliament, chapter II being the executive. There's a question about why this Voice isn't under either of those chapters. It's meant to be. We're told the Voice is meant to be something that can't just run off and do its own thing; it's ultimately subject to the laws of this place. That's what we're told. Why is it in a separate chapter of the Constitution, which potentially, again, gives rise to concerns that an activist High Court could interpret this as its own somewhat separate body under our nation's Constitution?

Those are all very reasonable points, and not ones that would in any way undermine the spirit of the Uluru statement or the sentiments of some supporters of the Voice in the Indigenous community. But there has been no attempt to seek compromise on those views, no attempt to reach a broader level of support.

So we as a nation are facing a situation now where, even if the Voice were to get up, it looks like it would do so on the narrowest of margins. It won't be a uniting event for our nation if 51 or 52 per cent of people in a slim majority of states vote for this model. It won't be. There will be a very large minority opposed to it. It'll be a divisive moment for our country, which is very unfortunate. That is a consequence of how the government has approached and gone about this proposal, in a 'my way or the high way' fashion.

But we are where we are now, and the Australian people have this choice to make. I think we should, given these unanswered questions, given these undelivered details, not say yes to this particular model but, perhaps even more so now, given the Voice is potentially even facing defeat, the government should consider pulling this referendum. They have not done enough groundwork here to build wide public support, and, perhaps to avoid embarrassment, they should put it off and think of another way of how we could recognise Indigenous Australians and actually unite our country together on what should be a central pursuit of this parliament and our nation to improve the lives and prospects of all Indigenous Australians, not just a few that seem to share a radical agenda that wants to tear down the founding institutions of this great nation.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in strong favour of this bill before us today, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. Before getting into the detail, I would like to clearly and sincerely acknowledge the land that we stand and have this discussion on tonight, the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, paying my respects to their elders past and present.

I also want to acknowledge the Aboriginal people and nations in South Australia, the state that I am proud to represent. I live and work on the lands of the Kaurna people. I want to thank and acknowledge them for caring for the land that they share with us for tens of thousands of years, land that they are deeply connected to, land that they have cared for with compassion, deliberate action and thought, and lands that they continue to struggle for the rest of us to care for as well.

I want to pay my respects to the resilience and strength of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country. We know the real truth of Australia's history is one of colonisation, of violence and dispossession. That, of course, is the recent history. Yet, in spite of all of this, Aboriginal people have survived, they continue to care for this land that we all call home and they are still here, loud and proud.

I want to acknowledge in the chamber today that we have Senator McCarthy and Senator Cox, colleagues of mine who know this struggle better than most, who know deeply the meaning of connection to country, of care for the land and the desire for unity through this particular referendum.

The Greens have long been a party that stands for First Nations justice. We have fought alongside traditional owners to protect their country and ensure better respect for our environment, our animals and for all people. We believe in the right to self-determination and have fought with First Nations people for the rights on a range of issues but particularly for this land that we all call home. We have always listened and valued the voices of First Nations people and sought to walk alongside them.

Now this parliament and this country, very soon, is being asked to do the same. We're being asked to listen, to understand and to walk together with our First Nations people, to enshrine in our Constitution an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a voice that cannot be taken away at the whim of politicians or political parties, a voice that will ensure that First Nations people have a seat at the table on the issues that affect them and their communities.

In my time in the Senate, I have been lucky enough to work alongside many distinguished leaders from a variety of sectors, but no-one has inspired me and counselled me and shared their wisdom in quite the same way as Uncle Moogy Sumner. Uncle Moogy is a proud Ngarrindjeri man, a teacher, a cultural ambassador, a unifier. He also happens to be the leader of the original Greens, our First Nations Network in South Australia. He's here in the chamber tonight, and I'd like to give him a big thank you for all of the teachings and understanding that he shares not just with me and my family, but our entire community.

I first met Uncle Moogy at the mouth of the Murray—his country, his home. It was at the height of the millennial drought. There was a trickle of water running down the river, not enough to keep the river alive, and there was Uncle Moogy standing on the banks crying out for his country, for his land and for his people. He clearly articulated that the problem that existed, the problem that had been created, was a problem of greed. No respect for the land; no care for the river. Selfishness and greed had drained the river dry. Uncle Moogy was right. And if we listened a little harder and a little better to our First Nations people our rivers, our oceans, our forests, our communities would be better. They'd be safer, they'd be cleaner, they'd be healthier. Uncle Moogy reminds me that the First Nations people of this land are the original Greens: caring for the country, a deep connection to the land and knowing that, as humans, we are simply part of this incredible ecosystem of the environment. We must learn to respect it and each other.

Uncle Moogy has explained to me why the Voice is important to him and his people. He says: 'The Voice, for me and my people, is very important. It's important so that we've got a say in how this country is run, how we look after the land and who looks after the land, but also to talk about things that are happening with our communities. For years we weren't allowed to have a say. We were told to sit down, and told by others that they'd make the decisions on our behalf. What we need now is to have a say.' Thank you, Uncle Moogy, for your leadership.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a generous invitation from the First Nations people of this land to walk with them towards a better future for all of us. That's why we're debating it here today, because this is about the type of country we want to be. This is about us as Australians, as a community, as a nation of people and what we stand for and what we care for. The Uluru statement is clear. It's generous and it says clearly:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish …

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

That's the kind of country I want to live in. That's the type of nation we should all strive for. That is the type of Australia that this referendum is seeking to deliver. The Uluru statement has three clear asks: truth and treaty and, of course, voice. It is the voice that we are discussing here in this referendum—to deliver a voice to parliament.

We know there is much more work to do. The Greens were the first party to endorse the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and we support progressing, of course—and desperately know it's needed—truth-telling and treaty-making alongside a constitutional voice. This referendum is a chance for us to be on the right side of history. It's a moment that won't come again easily, and it is essential that we win this 'yes' vote this year. A vote for 'yes' is a vote for a fairer, kinder future, one where we are able to talk openly and honestly about the truth of our history and the impact that it has on our present.

It is an issue that should not be politicised, but, sadly, once again, the rights and recognition of our nation's First People are being politicised and used to divide. The nasty politics that seeps through the walls in this place and over the airways of our media is already rolling with a drum beat. It is with utter disappointment I note that the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, is not a man fit to lead this country with the views he holds on this particular issue. Mr Dutton is a man of form. He has form on this issue. He walked out on the apology to the stolen generation. He turned his back on First Nations people 15 years ago and he's turning his back on them now. He will be given fanfare and prominence by others who wish to see this referendum fail.

I say today: don't be fooled by the disinformation, the division, the fearmongering. Be aware of the naysayers, the spivs, the fearmongers, the very same people who, for generations, have benefited from the status quo. They're the ones who don't want this referendum to succeed. Well, let me say this: the status quo isn't working. It's not working for First Nations people, it's not working for Indigenous kids and it is not working to deliver the type of country Australia needs to be if we want to be a modern, strong, robust, compassionate nation.

It is time for us to right the wrongs of the past, to take the next step, to give the First People of this nation the simple proposition of having a say over their own lives and to propel us, as a country, to come to terms with our own real history, the damage that has been done, the violence, the dispossession, the trauma that has endured. It is time for us to say enough is enough. We need unity, we need compassion, we need understanding and we need learning. It is not a complex proposition to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a say over their own lives, the true recognition they deserve in our nation's Constitution, the chance to believe that this is an Australia for all of us and as Australians that we are all safe and respected and can hold compassion. This is why the referendum is important. This is why voting yes is important. It is not for today day; it is for tomorrow. It is for all of our children: our First Nations kids and our non-Indigenous kids. They deserve a country unified, proud, compassionate and caring, and that is what 'yes' is all about.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands upon which we meet and work here in Canberra, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and their elders, past, present and emerging.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Noongar people of the Whadjuk nation, where my home town of Perth is located, and their elders past, present and emerging. The Whadjuk Noongar people have been the traditional owners of the south-west of Western Australia for at least 45,000 years.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the Kimberley region, where I work extensively. The traditional custodians of the Kimberley are made up of more than 100 First Nations communities who speak over 40 Indigenous dialects. Specifically, I'd to acknowledge the traditional owners, past present and emerging, from the following countries and peoples: Nyikina, Mangala, Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkajunga, Gija, Yawuru, Miriwoong and Gadjirrawoong, and pay my respects to their rich cultures, their communities, their leadership, and the many friendships I've made with the leaders from these groups over the years. Thank you for letting me walk your land.

I am pleased to make a contribution on this bill, as it is an extremely important step forward for our country, for reconciliation and for achieving real and meaningful outcomes for our First Nations Australians. The purpose of this bill, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, is to amend the Australian Constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First People of Australia and establish an advisory body to be known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. It will also give parliament the power to pass legislation related to the Voice.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have lived on the land and waterways of this place that we now call Australia for over 60,000 years. They represent the oldest continuous living cultures in history, yet still our founding legal document, the Constitution, does not recognise them. Instead, until the Mabo judgement in 1992, Australia and Australian law was based on the fiction that this continent was unoccupied prior to European settlement. Not only is the Constitution based on this fiction, but there has also been explicit exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for the entire time the Constitution, as it is currently written, has been in place. The constitutional amendment in this bill will put an end to that explicit exclusion. Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our founding legal document and listening to their views on the laws and policies that matter to them will make a significant difference.

Schedule 1 of this bill sets up the text of the proposed alteration to the Constitution, specifically establishing a new section 129 of the Constitution that would be headed, 'Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples'. The proposed new section 129 would have four key features: recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia, giving constitutional authority for the body to be known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, providing for the Voice to be able to make representations to the parliament and executive government on matters related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and, finally, giving power to parliament to legislate on matters relating to the establishment and operation of the Voice.

I ask, what is so bad about that? For decades, there have been calls for an enduring representative body. The long list of reports and inquiries into this issue all stress the importance of a representative body to improve the development and implementation of laws, policies and programs that impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Only this morning the Australian reported that new data has revealed that poorer outcomes were still occurring in poorer communities and in those who are more distant from urban and regional locations. Furthermore, just four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track. This is why we need the Voice. We need structural change to ensure that grassroots Indigenous voices are heard in Canberra, to help direct better outcomes, including Closing the Gap.

I want to take a moment to really home down into what the Voice is. This is not a Labor Voice. The Voice will be an independent and permanent advisory body which would give advice to the Australian parliament and government on matters that affect the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples—pretty simple. Before the Uluru Statement from the Heart was written by 250 delegates from all across Australia, there were extensive Australia-wide consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, called regional dialogues. Twelve regional dialogues occurred between 2016 and 2017, at Darwin, Ross River, Torres Strait, Cairns, Brisbane, Dubbo, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth. The Voice was developed through these dialogues by Indigenous leaders and representatives.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart was formalised in 2017, when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from across the country gathered in Mutitjulu, in the shadow of Uluru, and put their signatures on a historic statement. The Uluru Statement from the Heart, addressed to the Australian people, invited the nation to create a better future via the proposal of key reforms, which included the development of a Voice to parliament.

Reconciliation Australia makes the point that for close to a century Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have called and fought for a seat at the table. Over this time their aims have remained resolute: to represent First Nations peoples in matters that affect their communities and to ensure that their perspectives are heard in the development and implementation of policies and programs, because they know that, when First Nations peoples are in the decision-making seat, outcomes for their communities are better. The Voice to parliament will help to achieve exactly that.

Despite what some on the other side might say, the Voice will not be required to make representations on every law, policy or program. Don't believe the scare tactics that the opposition are trying to spread in this respect. In fact, the Voice will determine when to make representations by managing its own priorities and allocating its resources in accordance with the priorities of First Nations people. In the words of Paul Keating, from his famous speech at Redfern in, 1992:

… there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.

There is everything to gain.

And that must be our mindset when we're thinking about this legislation and the referendum itself. Australian and First Nations peoples have everything to gain by having a seat at the table through a Voice to parliament. Constitutional or other legal mechanisms that ensure representation of Indigenous peoples above or beyond election franchise, like that granted in Australia by the 1967 referendum, are common worldwide. Representative mechanisms akin to the Voice can be found in OECD countries, in developing countries and in free and unfree states. Indeed, many other Commonwealth countries have long since enshrined representation for their Indigenous people.

To those both in this parliament and in the wider community who say that we should just legislate for a representative body and get on with it, I have one simple message: the only way this parliament could achieve that would be to use the race powers contained in the Constitution. What message do you think this would send to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? What would that say about us? It would clearly say, yet again, 'You are to be excluded, not recognised.' Furthermore, representative bodies established by legislation are easily abolished if the government of the day disagrees with them. In fact, since 1998, national Indigenous representative bodies have twice been abolished or defunded in favour of non-representative bodies, both times at the hands of a Liberal government. In 2005, ATSIC was abolished by the Howard government and replaced by the National Indigenous Council, the members of which were hand-picked by the then Prime Minister.

We remember that, in 2014, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples was defunded and then closed down by then Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Like Mr Howard before him, Prime Minister Abbott then installed his own hand-picked advisory body. What did that do for Indigenous advancement? Others that are opposed to the Voice, like my Western Australian colleague Senator Cash, are fond of saying—and I heard this yesterday—that you wouldn't buy a house without a plan. I don't know about Senator Cash's experiences of buying a house, but a lot of us Australians start by purchasing a block of land and then work on the design and eventual build of our new house. That is exactly what we are being asked to do here.

In fact, for the keen lawyers that are members of the Senate, including the former Attorney-General, I remind you that the only institutions that are recognised in our Constitution are the federal Executive Council, the High Court, the Inter-State Commission and, of course, the federal parliament. For example, the Federal Court is not mentioned in the Constitution. When the social security powers were inserted into the Constitution in 1948, the government of the day did not lay out all of the details in the Social Security Act. I could go on. The power to make grants to the states, including the GST top-up payment to Western Australia, is not specified in detail in the Constitution. Colleagues, it is long past time for us to correct our founding legal document, address the historical fiction of terra nullius and rightfully recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Constitution. We can do this this year. We must, and I believe we will.

It is not a secret in this place or out there that I have a long and passionate involvement with the people and communities of the Kimberley. I made my living driving road trains from Perth to Darwin and regularly stopped in the communities of Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Kununurra and others. When I entered the Senate as a representative of WA, I made a commitment that I would give back to the communities who helped me make my living. This commitment started with yearly visits up to the Kimberley. As I developed relationships with elders, Aboriginal corporations and local community service providers, those visits became much more regular, and I now run charity road trips as often as I can to support families and communities in need, with much-needed second-hand furniture, clothing and bedding, which has been generously donated.

I love the work I do with the people and organisations on the ground and the relationships I have built doing this work in the 18 years I have been in this Senate. It has meant a great deal to me personally. But what still troubles me to this day—whether it's from talking to the leaders of Aboriginal corporations, Indigenous cultural health organisations or women's refuges—is that the most constant questions I still receive include the following: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we want?' And I get: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we think?' Another one I always get is: 'Why doesn't anyone ask us what we need?' The Voice will provide the answer to these most basic and honest questions.

Our bureaucrats in government departments mean well, but they don't see or experience what it's like on the ground in communities every day. As unfortunate as it is, they don't have the time, but this is precisely the problem. I honestly believe that the only way livelihoods and outcomes more generally will be improved for Indigenous people will be if the decision-making is put in their hands and if they get to have a say on the laws and policies that affect them, their families, their communities and their futures. The Voice will deliver just that. We need to keep this front of mind during this debate and right up until the referendum and remember that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is an invitation to the Australian people. We have been invited by First Nations Australians to walk with them together in a movement of the Australian people towards a better future, and I look forward to joining that walk.

In conclusion, I'd just like to pay tribute to a very dear friend of all of ours in here, a proud Yawuru man and senior mudja: Senator Pat Dodson. Pat, we thank you for your guidance and leadership, mate, and your energy and wisdom. You are truly inspirational. You are the father of reconciliation.

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

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. I start by acknowledging the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia and the traditional owners of this land for more than 65,000 years. I also acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. They are the traditional owners of this land, but they were never recognised in this land's Constitution.

This is the bill that sets out to change that. It sets out to enable an amendment to our Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, another step towards honouring the commitment we made not just to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people but to all Australians. It is a bill to give all Australians the opportunity to vote for a better future, a future in which our nation recognises the First People of this land and where First Nations people are consulted on matters that affect them.

The Voice will be an advisory body made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who will give advice to government on issues that affect their communities. It is that simple. The referendum working group guided government on the constitutional amendment and the question as well as the design principles of the Voice. Those principles are: the Voice will give independent advice to the parliament and the government; the Voice will be able to make representations to the parliament and the executive government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; the Voice can do that proactively, and it can respond to requests from the parliament or the government; and the parliament could also seek input from the Voice early in the development of laws and policies.

The Voice will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people based on the wishes of local communities. It will not be appointed by government or parliament; it will be chosen by locals, serving a fixed term to ensure regular accountability. The Voice will be representative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, will be gender balanced and will include youth, ensuring that women and the voices of all of those generations will be heard. Members will be chosen from each of the states, territories and Torres Strait Islands with specific remote representation as well as representation from the mainland Torres Strait Islander population.

The Voice will be empowering, community led, inclusive, respectful and culturally informed. The Voice will consult with grassroots communities and with regional bodies to ensure that the representations it makes are informed by their views and experience. The Voice will be accountable, transparent and subject to standard governance and reporting requirements. The Voice will work alongside existing organisations and traditional structures, respecting their work and contribution, and the Voice will not have a program delivery function nor a veto power over this parliament. If the referendum is successful, there will be a process with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the parliament and the broader public to finalise the Voice design. Those are the details.

It is the result of years of work and years of consultation and discussion with and within communities. It is the result of more than 1,000 meetings that took place ahead of the First Nations constitutional convention held at Uluru six years ago. It is the result of discussions born out of a need for change because, for too long, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have not been heard. For too long, policies designed in Canberra and imposed on First Nations communities without meaningful consultation have failed to deliver outcomes.

I've been here for many years, and I've heard many and given many Closing the Gap speeches. The reality is we have tried to close the gap without listening to the voices of First Nations people. The consequences of this are evident in the stagnant and grossly disproportionate rates of disadvantage suffered by First Nations peoples, with Indigenous Australians living on average nine years less than non-Indigenous Australians, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boys born in the Northern Territory having a shorter life expectancy than boys born in Iraq or Libya.

As Professor Marcia Langton said earlier this year when speaking about the need for the Voice:

This has to change, people's lives have to improve. We know from the evidence that what improves people's lives is when they get a say and that's what this is about.

The Albanese government is committed to that change, to listening to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

I've been privileged through much of my time here to have been guided by Labor's First Nations caucus: former senator Nova Peris, Senator Jana Stewart, Dr Gordon Reid, Marion Scrymgour, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Patrick Dodson and Minister Linda Burney. I want to particularly acknowledge Senator Pat Dodson, the Father of Reconciliation, for his generosity not just with me but with our caucus, the parliament and indeed the whole country. Sadly, he can't be here for this debate and vote on this bill, as he is on leave to receive medical treatment. But I want to honour him and his contribution by sharing with the Senate in my speech some of the words that he sent me for this debate, so I quote Senator Dodson. He said:

This Alteration is profound because it is facing up to Australia's legacy of colonisation and assimilation.

It is in response to the generous invitation of First Peoples in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. A response to those communities who have been oppressed, de-stabilised, and who never ceded their sovereignty.

Through a successful referendum, Australians will finally acknowledge those injustices of the Crown and will do so without undermining the integrity of our political and institutional framework of our nation.

This move to recognise the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution is part of an action of restorative justice.

Doing this will give a sense of honour for all Australians, as we collectively stand with courage to face these past legacies and ensure that they are not bequeathed to future generations.

This is one commitment our generation can make.

The next steps will be Makarrata, a process of truth-telling and agreement making, where we can reflect on the various narratives that exist in relation to our history over the past 200 years and build on a new foundation together.

I continue the message from Senator Dodson:

In the Yawuru, we have a dreaming called the bugarrigarra and in that we have three sorts of pillars.

We talk about mabu liyan—that is a goodness. A goodness of a spirit. It transcends normal feeling.

It goes to liyan—and that is what we in This Place are trying to do. Not only create good feelings in the Australian population, but to create what we call in our Yawuru language—liyan ngarn—coming together of both our spirits, in a way that is respectful.

The second thing we talk about in Yawuru is mabu ngarrungunil—good community. Good people to live with. Good society. A good race of human beings.

And that is what we are also talking about in the referendum. A good nation. A population of people with the best and highest interest, for the care of everyone and for the betterment of everyone.

And the third thing we talk about in Yawuru is what we call mabu buru—that is good country. A good place. A better world, a safer world, a better economy.

But a place, where we and all Australians can enjoy our environment and grow up knowing we have a rightful place, having resolved the differences between the First Peoples and ourselves, as we go towards the Makarrata.

I am deeply grateful to Senator Dodson for providing his contribution for me to include in my remarks this evening, and I want to underline the opportunity his words reveal. I urge those in the 'no' campaign, arguing against the Voice, to meet that opportunity, to not use the soul and fabric of our nation as a political battleground, to resist putting political self-interest over the national interest, because we must have greater ambition not just to close the gap but to achieve our full potential as a nation, and we can only fulfil our potential when every Australian has a chance to realise their own.

The closing line of the Uluru statement said:

We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

I would like to invite those in the 'no' campaign and those opposite to reconsider this ask. 'We invite you'; it is a gracious and patient ask of us as Australians. It is an ask seeded by a grassroots movement and the culmination of years of discussion, consultation and hard work, including consultation with 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is an ask supported by eight in 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Already, this gracious call has been answered by organisations across Australia—faith groups, sporting clubs, national sporting codes, universities, the business sector, trade unions. The call has been answered by every single premier and chief minister across the political spectrum. We have an opportunity to vote 'yes' for constitutional recognition, to vote 'yes' for the form in which it has been requested—a voice to parliament. We have an opportunity to vote 'yes' for that better future. With the hope that this call for empowerment will be answered with the same ambition and grace with which it was issued, I commend this bill to the Senate.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we all rise in this place to speak on this bill, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, we all bring unique perspectives and we all probably reflect on our own backgrounds, our own experiences, our own history. In thinking about my position on the referendum, I couldn't help but go back to the tales my father told me and the interactions I had with Aboriginal stockmen on our coastal lease west of our farm in Pemberton—in particular with one good friend of Dad's, Charlie Burns. Charlie was a remarkable character, a real legend in the Manjimup-Pemberton area. Charlie was the first Aboriginal boy to go to Guilford Grammar School. He served in World War I in the 10th Light Horse Regiment. He was recognised for his gallantry in his service to the nation. He was a great friend of my father's. He spent many months, probably even years, out on the coastal leases on horseback, camping rough with my father, and led the most remarkable life. He was certainly always welcome—

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brockman, just resume your seat. If senators are not contributing to the debate, could they please either sit in silence or leave the chamber. Senator Brockman.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He was certainly welcome at our dinner table and was a close friend of my father's, but he also dined in the Governor-General's house in Western Australia—a remarkable life. I say this not to pretend that the past was better than it was or that Charlie didn't face racism in his life—I have absolutely no doubt that he did—but to say that I was raised to always look to the individual, to always look to what the individual brought to the conversation, to always consider the value of humanity as based on that individual value of the person.

This bill will easily pass parliament; that has been clear for a long time. And that is right. It is up to the Australian people to make judgements as to the nature and the words that make up the Australian Constitution. But I will vote 'no' in the referendum, and I wish to put on the record why that is so. The Australian Constitution is the fundamental bedrock of our democracy. It is the foundation upon which our democratic and legal institutions sit, and from which our society has grown. We must take any change to that foundation with the utmost seriousness.

Our Constitution is a living document; it's designed to accommodate change. But that change has to be made thoughtfully and that change to our great federation has to be made by the majority of Australians, but also by a majority of states. This was an important provision that reflected our desire, Australia's desire, to preserve our institutions, to avoid changing our Constitution unless strongly supported by most Australians. In practice, changing our Constitution requires a supermajority. This has prevented significant overreach by governments in the past.

You don't have to look far through the list of failed constitutional amendments to see that the Australian people have a lot of common sense in this regard. For example, we would have seen a significant, an unprecedented growth in Commonwealth influence if it had been given the power to take control of any industry or corporation deemed to be monopolistic. Australians, in their wisdom, defeated this attempted overreach. Another example: the referendum in the early phase of the Cold War to give specific Commonwealth power to regulate communism. This was defeated, at perhaps one of the tensest points of that war, because the Australian people were wary of giving government more power to control political thought.

We, as a Western democracy, are a part of the great Enlightenment tradition. The Enlightenment ideals—the need to separate and limit power; checks and balances to avoid the tyranny of the majority; equality of the individual as a key source of freedom; a robust federalism—turned sceptical ideas into a robust and meaningful set of institutions—our parliaments, our courts and, at the heart of Australia, our Constitution. Enlightenment thinkers distrusted mob rule and revered the rule of law. The Enlightenment project is the origin of the modern world and of modern Australia, but it has never claimed perfection. That is why we need mechanisms like referenda; to give us the ability to change, albeit with caution, our foundational document.

As my good friend Senator Paterson described much better than I could, and I would encourage you all to listen to or read his contribution, there is a stain on our foundational document in the race power. Like Senator Paterson, in preparing for this debate and clarifying my own thoughts, I went back to the constitutional conventions of the 1890s and read the words and the justifications for that race power. From a modern perspective they make uncomfortable reading. For someone who, like me, is a proud defender of our constitutional norms the justification for that power was blatantly racist in nature—not directed at Aboriginal people I should add, but at others mostly outside this country.

Some leading proponents of the Voice today were, just a short decade ago, calling for the repeal of that race power, for it to be taken out of the Constitution. I would endorse that view. Though now, strangely, that has been silenced in the face of this amendment to the Constitution to enshrine a permanent Indigenous Voice to Parliament. So while I acknowledge that stain on our founding document, it is also worth hypothecating for a moment. In one of the first acts of the new Commonwealth, the White Australia Policy was implemented. One of its chief proponents, Chris Watson, first Labor Prime Minister of Australia, used his position on the then crossbench to secure its passage. A few years earlier, he'd tried unsuccessfully to be elected as a Labor Party delegate to the Constitutional Convention. If views like his had had a more prominent position, might we have seen that White Australia Policy more directly enshrined in our Constitution? If so, how and when would it have been removed? The Constitution is difficult to change.

The fact that the race power there is an anachronism. It should go. But, as I have said, the enlightenment project is an ongoing one. Our Constitution can be improved, but the current referendum proposal does not do so. Sadly, it seeks to divide, not unite. It does not elicit universal principles of equality and a steadfast defence of the individual, regardless of heritage. Over the 19th and 20th centuries we've seen many manifestations of anti-enlightenment thought from both the far right and the Left, from fascism to communism. Today's anti-enlightenment movements are less obvious. They reject inquiry and debate as the centrepiece of democracy. Instead, they claim all virtue, as though it comes by way of instinct, as a quasi-mystical driver of our decision-making, and all those who disagree are wrong if not evil. This is the new methodology of the anti-enlightenment. They claim a purity of will while silencing what they deem as unacceptable speech. We need to return to core principles of liberty, progress, toleration, constitutional government, equality, citizenship and primacy of the individual. This constitutional amendment does not achieve those ideals.

The Senate transcript was published up to 19:51 . The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.