Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition (Sunset Extension) Bill 2015 seeks to extend, as its name suggests, the sunset date of the act by three years to 28 March 2018. The recognition act was passed unanimously by the previous parliament. It recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of Australia and records the parliament's intention to move towards constitutional recognition. This is not a new idea.

The sunset date set in the legislation as 28 March 2015 was to give the parliament and the public a date by which it could consider further steps towards a referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples. The Prime Minister had indicated his view that the referendum was likely to be held in 2017. That is an issue, I think, which is open for some discussion. If the act were to collapse, there would be no legislative instrument of Indigenous recognition in place and it would be viewed as a backward step on the path to constitutional recognition.

The review panel established under the recognition act comprised the Hon. John Anderson, AO; Tanya Hosch; and Richard Eccles. They recommended an extension of the sunset date to no more than three years to align with the timing of a potential referendum. The Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples made this recommendation in its progress report tabled on 27 October 2014, following their very wide and extensive national consultations. It is important that we pass this piece of legislation. I am pleased to say that, as you would expect, there is strong bipartisan support for that objective.

This legislation gives me an opportunity to talk about a range of things, one of which is history. Whilst we are today talking about national recognition, we all know that our nation's founding document is silent on the special place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and we accept that it is now a historical wrong that has to be put right. That has not always been the case. Indeed, the time since Federation has been littered with many examples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their supporters canvassing for recognition and change, without a lot of support—except in one particular instance, and I will come to that in a moment.

It is worthwhile understanding that calls for recognition to amend the Constitution to give the Commonwealth power in Aboriginal affairs went back to the first decade after Federation, so this is not a new discussion. Churchmen, anthropologists and activists such as Bessie Rischbieth of the Australian Federation of Women Voters had argued that the federal government should have responsibility for Aboriginal people and that that should be recognised in the Constitution. Many events have happened since then.

There were great movements in New South Wales in the thirties and forties to give recognition to Aboriginal people and their rights, none of which were taken up. Then, in the fifties and sixties, we saw some significant change. That was largely as a result of a movement by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but mostly Aboriginal people in the southern parts of Australia, and some in the Top End, who set about trying to change the views of the Australian community on the need for recognition of Aboriginal people.

Instrumental in this was an organisation known as the Legislative Reform Committee, which, in 1965, became the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, FCAATSI. It took the responsibility of keeping the constitutional amendment issue politically alive. It had some very interesting people behind it, including Lorna Lippmann, who was a leading convener within the Legislative Reform Committee. She wrote to all members of parliament explaining that section 51(xxvi) needed to be amended so that 'the federal government may take positive steps to improve the lot of Aborigines'. Other members of that committee were Shirley Andrews; Lady Jessie Street; Barrie Pittock; Gordon Bryant; Joe McGinness—someone I knew well and who was from a family in Darwin, a Kungarakan man, who subsequently moved across to Cairns and there died many years ago now; Faith Bandler, whose life we celebrated at a funeral service at the University of Sydney this week, and I will say more about her in a moment; Bert Groves; and Edna Blackshaw. The Bandler family were integrally involved right throughout this process.

Following the passage of the Constitution Alteration (Repeal of Section 127) Bill in February 1966, Barry Pittock, who succeeded Lorna Lippmann as the convener of this committee, refined a petition sent to the committee by Mr AS Luchetti MP. In February 1967 at a cabinet meeting, the then Attorney-General Nigel Bowen reviewed the arguments put by his predecessor, Bill Snedden. Bowen considered the merits of the Wentworth proposal and told cabinet that he believed there would be widespread dissatisfaction if the Commonwealth did not think about section 51(xxvi). He urged members to support a proposal that the government hold a referendum to seek legislative power for the Commonwealth with respect to Aborigines by omitting the words 'other than the Aboriginal race in any state'.

It is an open question, a live debate, in some quarters about whether or not there was in fact a power already held by the Commonwealth or whether it used that power to pass legislation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In fact, I learned this morning that, every 3½ months since Federation and up until the referendum in 1967, the Commonwealth had passed either legislation or regulations that were solely for and directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. This was revealed by John McCorquodale, who wrote a book, a monograph, published by Aboriginal Studies Press, Aborigines and the law: a digest, which explains very clearly that there was a question about whether or not these special laws were needed, because the Commonwealth had previously had that power, which it had expressed by passing legislation and regulations specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Nevertheless, in April 1967, a delegation from the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, FCAATSI, came to the parliament to seek the support of all federal members on the question of Aboriginal recognition. In response to the parliamentary support, churches revealed their support in favour of a yes vote. The Australian Council of Churches, the Methodist Commission on Aboriginal Affairs and the Society of Friends had developed Aboriginal affairs policies which favoured greater Commonwealth power in formulating and implementing policy for Aboriginal advancement. The FCAATSI set up a national 'vote yes' campaign, with a directorate headed by Gordon Bryant and my friend Joe McGuinness.

On 27 May 1967, over 90 per cent of the Australian electorate did vote yes on the question put, and of course the size of the vote was fundamentally important. And it is important that, in any discussion about any other potential changes to our Constitution, recognition is given to the fact that we need strong bipartisan support. This is really important in the context of actually giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the recognition they properly deserve within our Constitution. It is also important to accept the need—as has been amply demonstrated—to remove section 25 of the Constitution, which says that the states can ban people from voting based on their race, and remove section 51(xxvii), which can be used to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race. Clearly, these should go. Then there is the question of how we provide adequate recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians within the Constitution, and there are various proposals being put in this regard.

There is a recognition campaign which is being driven across this country which I would encourage members of this parliament and the community to get behind to ensure that when we come to a vote on this question, as we inevitably will, the question put in the referendum will be one which was finally settled as a result of discussion and negotiation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders across this country as well as with the broader community. We must get behind it and make sure that it is actually successful.

Earlier this week, I spoke about Faith Bandler and her wonderful life—and she was given enormous tributes this week. It was a great privilege for me to attend her funeral, and there were wonderful speeches given. But I have here an interview Faith Bandler did in 2004, involving George Negus. Faith Bandler said:

So we got the petition going and I started to take this petition around—calling on the government to … well, hold a referendum to give the Indigenous people equal rights. And I peddled this petition from '57 until '67 with my little group. We only had a little handful. There would have been no more than 9 or 10. Every day for 10 years, except for the weekends, I took that petition around. I spoke, I suppose, to every VIEW club that was in existence, to every Rotary Club I could think of, Lions, churches, schools, um … Oh, you know, it just went on. It was pointless getting signatures to a petition. The petition, of course, had to be presented in the House. So every day … when the Speaker called for petitions, we'd have someone there to hop up with ours, and this went on for 10 years. We only had to get 100,000 signatures but we got 10 times that over. And we kept getting the federal members to present our petition, to present it, to keep it going. The most important visit to Parliament House was a visit with our executive—

the one I referred to earlier. She went on:

They came from each State to meet Prime Minister Menzies and I am sure it was that visit that turned the tide, and I'm sure we convinced the prime minister that a referendum should be held.

That war of attrition, which is surely what it was, started with a small handful of people in the 1950s and culminated with the resounding success of the referendum in 1967.

We now have a real opportunity to set things right once and for all. If we are to set things right once and for all, we need a united voice across this parliament and across the community. If it takes us going to every town hall meeting, to every Rotary Club, every Lions Club, every church meeting and every trade union meeting across this country, then we should do it. We should mobilise the community around the importance of this particular question, understanding that finally we can put to rest forever the notion that somehow or another Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should not be recognised within our Constitution. That recognition is properly deserved. We need to do that so that we can say that this nation is actually a mature country, so that we can look at ourselves in the mirror and say, 'At last we have recognised what should have been done at the time of Federation.' Sadly it was not. We have that opportunity now. Let's make sure it is successful by working across this parliament and across the wider community to ensure that when the referendum is put we get 90 per cent or more. (Time expired)

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