Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very proud to be a member of the government that has brought the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 and, ultimately, the referendum to the people of Australia. We're a country with a very rich and varied story. Every one of us has a story to tell. We have many institutions that are based on community values and ideals. We have vibrant multicultural communities made up of people who have come here from across the globe and have brought their languages, their food, their songs and their cultures to us, to our great benefit, and yet our national document, our national Constitution, and the parliament have failed to make room for the First Peoples of this land. That is why I think this legislation is so important. It will set in motion a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appropriately recognise in our Constitution the Indigenous people of our country and provide them, as has been said, with a voice to our parliament and to our decision-makers.

I'm old enough to well remember the 1967 referendum. I can remember, at that time, the opposition to that referendum. My father was a dentist in quite a disadvantaged community in the south-west of Sydney, in Punchbowl. There was a large housing commission area that had lots of Aboriginal families. My father had been quite a good sportsman in his youth and had quite a number of Indigenous friends. I can remember speaking to him about the 1967 referendum and his views. He felt very strongly that it was well over time that our Indigenous people should be heard and should be part of our community. I think this referendum will very much set that in stone, if it's recognised in our Constitution, and I fully support it.

I understand there are different views, and I understand people have, in those views, many variations of those views. I think we have to be very respectful about this discussion. I think this legislation is extremely important. I feel it will succeed. I speak to a number of people in my community, some of whom are Aboriginal, some of whom are not, and I think they all agree this debate needs to be held in a respectful manner and we need to be very careful about divisive language and divisive methods of putting across a point of view.

I thank very much my colleagues in the Indigenous caucus, in particular the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Linda Burney, who has done a wonderful job—as have Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and the great Pat Dodson, who, unfortunately, is not well but is a big part of the Voice. When it is part of our Constitution he will be remembered very strongly for his role. I wish him well and I hope that his recovery is swift. I think we have many other members across the parliament, on both sides of the parliament, who strongly support this legislation—not least of which is the member for Berowra. I commend him for his bravery and for his role in what has been quite a long debate.

Like most Australians, I don't want this to be a dividing issue. I don't want it to be a nasty debate. I call on all of us and those in our communities to conduct this debate in a respectful manner. I thank the member for Dunkley, who has done incredible work on the referendum joint select committee and has conducted that in a most respectful manner. Her unwavering support for our First Nations people has been fantastic.

At the heart of the Voice to Parliament are two key principles: to recognise, and to listen. They say that all politics is local. It is, and I have a wonderful example in my electorate of the Tharawal Aboriginal Corporation and the Tharawal health service, which is run by CEO Darryl Wright and his committee. I have the utmost respect for Darryl and his team, and I've had a close association with the corporation since it opened over 32 years ago. What they have done in Indigenous health has been absolutely remarkable in improving the health of Macarthur's Indigenous community, which is quite large—and not just their health but their education and their care for their community and their old people. We now have a Tharawal housing corporation that is helping provide housing support for a whole range of Indigenous members of our community, including older members. This community run health service has been able to influence the way our health service deals not just with Indigenous people but with many other people of disadvantage, including refugees, people who have struggled to get housing and people who have a non-English speaking background. It has influenced the whole way our health service deals with the broader communities that are flocking to Macarthur, with its rapid growth. I can see how at a local level hearing Indigenous voices say what they want and how they think their community should be treated and how their community should deal with issues—like housing and social welfare, drug and alcohol problems, education, early childhood education—we now have quite a large preschool at Tharawal—have made our community better. They're in control and they're talking to us about what they need.

We have services at Tharawal that include things like Centrelink, a legal service, a women's health service, specialist services in cardiology and neurology, and a diabetes team. We've actually been able to dramatically improve the health and wellbeing and social engagement of the whole community because of the work that Darryl and his team at Tharawal have done, so I can see how local involvement has actually made a huge difference. Being able to communicate to our politicians, our health bureaucrats, our senior health management people and our criminal justice system has made a huge difference in my own community of Macarthur, so I am a strong believer in the Voice. I really am strongly of the view that my community will fully support the Voice to Parliament.

I have met with Tharawal's people, and I am very keen to get the minister to come out and conduct a roundtable for us. I believe this will happen in the not-too-distant future. I would like to thank Tharawal and my Indigenous community for being so supportive of a respectful discussion about this legislation. This will only improve our society in general, if we can get a Voice to Parliament for our Indigenous people.

I'd like to echo the words of Aunty Pat Anderson, who told the committee that our First Nations people are not asking for a Canberra voice, they're asking for a voice to Canberra. It's important that we get this distinction right. This is not a political exercise. This is an exercise in giving our First Nations people the ability to talk about how they think we should manage their issues. It's not coming from Canberra to them. It's really important that community will only be made better for this voice to Canberra. And I commend Pat Anderson, who is known by all of us for her many years working as a really important part of improving the health not just of Indigenous people, but of disadvantaged people around Australia over a very long period of time.

It's important that we address these critical issues by listening to what our First Nations people want. We have focused a lot on the Closing the Gap targets. One of the problems with the Closing the Gap targets is they focus too much on short-term fixes, which don't exist in this situation. Any changes we have in Indigenous health, Indigenous education, Indigenous social interaction and Indigenous engagement in work and business are long-term solutions. That's why focusing on the Closing the Gap targets has, in many ways, not been helpful. Certainly, in some of the issues regarding birth weight and growth and nutrition—the principles that I am heavily engaged with in the first thousand days health policies—need long-term solutions. We need to look for those, and things will only improve when we listen to and connect with Indigenous communities. This is not something that we can send from Canberra. We have to get it from our Indigenous communities. I strongly, strongly believe that. I cannot emphasise that enough. I think this referendum will change Australia and it will change Australia for the better, and I fully support it.

It doesn't mean that we don't have to do things in acute health. We must act on things like fetal alcohol syndrome, Indigenous incarceration and Indigenous children's involvement with the criminal justice system. We know that. But the solutions must come from the communities. We will support them, and it is very important that we do so, but those solutions are long-term solutions. I know that. We're talking generational solutions. There is no short-term answer.

I see it in my own community. In my electorate we have a very large juvenile justice centre, Reiby Youth Justice Centre, in Airds, near the suburb of Campbelltown. It is absolutely tragic to hear the stories of the children that are in that institution. I know that the solutions to those problems are generational. I've seen it over many generations, working as a paediatrician in Macarthur, in Campbelltown, and I've seen it as I have travelled looking at Indigenous health issues around the country, from Palm Island to Bourke and Brewarrina and Arnhem Land. We must act in the long term and we must act according to the wishes of the communities.

When we read about some of the issues in these communities, it's very sombre reading. I can't emphasise enough that we must have a bipartisan commitment to making change. I think that we have to be very respectful in this debate. I know there's a lot of debate about the wording. I know there is debate about how this has been presented to the community. And I want some of that division to stop. We can argue so much about the detail, but the principles are what is important. There's always going to be a need to discuss these issues. There are always going to be people who will try and create division around this issue, but I'm very hopeful that our debate will continue to be respectful, and I'm very hopeful that a very large proportion of the Australian population will vote for this legislation.

To me, it's really important that we don't forgo this opportunity not just to right the wrongs of the past but to create a better future for all of us. I'd like to see the same result as the 1967 referendum. I would love to see that, and I'm very hopeful something like that will happen. I'm an optimist, and I do really feel that this will happen.

I'd like to thank everyone who has been involved in bringing this legislation to the parliament. I'll be out there urging a 'yes' vote for this referendum. I hope I'm right. I thank the House for listening to my view.

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