Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

DUTTON (—) (): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We were very happy to grant an extension of time for the Prime Minister on a very important topic. I think the first point to make in response to the Prime Minister's answer is that every Australian Prime Minister has a big heart and wants to see an improved situation for Indigenous Australians. There's no moral high ground here. There's no lecturing to take place. Every Australian wants to see a better outcome for Australians, starting with those little boys and girls in Alice Springs at the moment who are living an unimaginable life. So nobody occupies the high moral ground here.

We have approached the situation—this proposal put by the government—in good faith. The Prime Minister made reference to a bipartisan arrangement, which included the member for Berowra, over a period of time. It included, over the prime ministerships of Gillard, of Abbott, of Turnbull and of Morrison, a bipartisan approach. And there was legitimate engagement. It resulted in us taking a policy to the last election which allowed for a local and regional voice, because we demonstrated that we wanted to hear, listen and act upon those local Indigenous elders and women and the voices that they were providing to the Australian public, in terms how their communities could be improved. That was our approach.

Since the election, there has been no bipartisan engagement in terms of the approach around the legislation. The government took an initial position, in relation to the mechanism bill, that there would be no booklet distributed to Australians, where, particularly for Australians where English is not their first language, people wanted to sit down and read the 'no' and the 'yes' case, to be informed in terms of the decision that they were being asked to make about changing our Constitution.

Australians in their millions, at the moment, have goodwill and have an approach which I think is reflected in the view that we have taken constructively as an opposition—that is, they want to understand the detail that the Prime Minister's proposing. There's no sense in saying that this is somebody else's process and we've just come along as an observer in relation to it. The fact is that people want detail. The very reasonable question asked by the member for Berowra earlier was whether the report, constantly referred to by the Prime Minister—the Calma-Langton report of 272 pages—is being adopted by the government. The Prime Minister, again today, refused to answer that question.

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