Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and thank them for their strong and continuing stewardship. I'm pleased to speak on the tabling of this report from the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. I'd first like to acknowledge the great work of the co-chairs of that committee, Senator Patrick Dodson and the member for Berowra. Through the stewardship of these good men, this report has found common ground across the members of the committee, providing for the first time the possibility of a path forward for our parliament and for our nation. The committee traversed the country, holding 27 hearings in communities from the remote town of Fitzroy Crossing through to bustling Sydney and everywhere in between. They have listened to First Nations people.

This report recommends that, following a process of co-design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Australian government consider, in a deliberate and timely manner, legislative, executive and constitutional options to establish the voice. The call for a First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution was borne out of the First Nations National Constitutional Convention, held over four days in May 2017. At that convention, delegates met to discuss and find agreement on an approach to constitutional reform to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The resulting Uluru Statement from the Heart had two broad reform objectives: the establishment of a First Nations voice and a makarrata commission. I'll come to the makarrata commission concept in a minute, but first I want to talk about the First Nations voice.

Although the first word spoken on earth was an Aboriginal word, it has been 10 years since the issue of constitutional recognition of First Nations people was raised loudly and consistently in the public domain. Obviously, it's not a new idea to include our First Australians in the Constitution; it was discussed even before the Constitution kicked off in January 1901. And it's hardly revolutionary that Aboriginal people should have a say in the decisions that affect them on their land. It has taken far too long to get to this point of consensus about how we might move forward. Along the way we've seen scaremongering that a voice would become a third chamber of parliament. That is total nonsense, and I do call out the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for that craven framing of that call for a First Nations voice. A voice will actually be a mechanism for First Nations people to have a greater say in the policy issues that impact on their lives. It will not be a chamber of this parliament.

There are many complex issues that affect First Australians, and we should be working with them to find solutions. I'm very pleased that the committee report has produced clear, bipartisan recommendations on a way to achieve a design for the voice and a recommendation that the Australian government consider in a deliberate and timely manner the way to enshrine the voice into law, the law of this land. Labor made it clear that, if elected, a Shorten Labor government will establish a voice for First Nations people and will seek the support of all Australians for that voice to then be enshrined in the Constitution. It will be Labor's first priority for constitutional change. It's about time our birth certificate included the original Australians. Labor is committed to providing a genuine process of government and First Nations people working together to achieve meaningful change.

I mentioned earlier that one of the reform objectives from the Uluru Statement from the Heart was to seek a makarrata commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history. The word 'makarrata' is from the language of the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land. It conveys a concept of two parties coming together after a struggle and negotiating to heal the divisions of the past. It is about acknowledging that something has been done wrong and seeking to make things right. What a wonderful concept. The committee acknowledges that the word 'makarrata' means different things to different people. The Referendum Council says that 'makarrata' is another word for treaty or agreement-making; however, the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council calls it both truth-telling and agreement-making. The committee report acknowledges that there is no single defined and agreed way forward on the proposal for a makarrata commission.

The committee did come to consensus on truth-telling, saying in their report:

Truth-telling is crucial to the ongoing process of healing and reconciliation in Australia.

The committee has recommended that the government support the process of truth-telling. It suggests that the process could include the involvement of local organisations, local communities, libraries, historical societies and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander associations. The committee acknowledged that there is a desire amongst Australians for a fuller understanding of our history, including the history, traditions and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and settler communities. Such a process will help us all to belong here even more.

As a teacher and a writer, I'm particularly pleased that the committee has come to this recommendation to record our history. That history is so important. It is important to preserve the history and culture of our First Nations people so future generations can benefit from the knowledge of that history and culture. It is also important to record historic events and the impacts of colonisation on our communities. It is urgent that this be undertaken soon. History can be lost if we don't record it, and as older generations fall away.

Some of that history, some of our history, will be uncomfortable for us to acknowledge. For example, some of the events raised with the committee include massacres, dispossession, stolen wages, and many, many uncomfortable truths. It might be true to say that the statues of some white settlers stand on bricks that are held together with mortar containing the bones of First Nations people. That can be uncomfortable, but it does not mean that it was not a truth. These events are not events that we like to think about as our history. They weren't in the history books I was taught from when I was at primary school. And, if we think about them at all, we distance our own personal history, often, from these events. In some ways, that is not an untruth. We obviously were not around when these events occurred in many parts of Australia—not all parts of Australia but most parts of Australia. But failing to recognise these events in our history is not truthful.

Ignoring the damage being visited on the First Nations people of today because of that settlement would require a deliberate blindness. And that is not something this nation needs. We are seeking a new vision—a clearer vision.

Australia should never ever be a nation built on lies. We have unfinished business, and we must set that right. Truth-telling must include acknowledging the atrocities of the past, however uncomfortable that might be. We must seek collective penance, in a way, for our collective guilt, for the dispossession of First Nations people in so many parts of Australia.

I applaud the committee for the work that they have done in producing this report. I applaud them for focusing on the common ground amongst the broad views held by members of the committee. I applaud them for persevering and achieving agreement on recommendations that will take this nation forward. It is a long road ahead, but I take comfort that we have come some way already from the Barunga Statement presented to Prime Minister Hawke in 1988, to the High Court's Mabo decision in 1992—and I note, in passing, that it is Dr Bonita Mabo's funeral today up in Townsville—to the incredible, the magnificent, Redfern speech by Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992, which should be compulsory reading for every Australian, as far as I am concerned. It was the first time an Australian political leader publicly admitted the impact of white settlement on Indigenous Australians, and then, in February 2008, on my first day at work in this building, the apology to Australia's Indigenous people delivered by Prime Minister Rudd—still my best day in this building—and then the Uluru Statement from the Heart and this report from the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

But we are nowhere near done. This is the beginning, and I look forward to the process from these recommendations beginning to bring us closer to healing and reconciliation, and a true, true sense of belonging. I look forward to the whole parliament working together to achieve constitutional recognition of the First Nations people and to a process of truth-telling being implemented as soon as possible.

The opposition leader, in his address to the anniversary breakfast for the national apology to the stolen generations this year, when talking about 'bipartisanship', said that it is a meaningless word if it is an excuse to do nothing. Bipartisanship can never be an alibi for inaction. We've made it clear we'll work with this government, but we will not wait for them. Enshrining the voice is Labor's first priority for constitutional change. Let's get this done.

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