Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Later this year Australians will face an important choice, a choice that will have lasting impacts on our country, and that is whether we will change the Constitution. All Australians want to see improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Of course we do. We all want to see practical outcomes that improve the lives of Indigenous Australians, especially in some of our most remote communities. What is happening to Australians in those communities is truly terrible—devastating. As Peter Dutton has said, no leader, no party and no Australian occupies the moral high ground on this matter.

The Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023, this proposal—the government's Canberra voice—does not provide any practical solutions that will address the issues Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are facing. How can it? There is no detail. We do not know what it will look like, let alone how it will operate. Details should come before the vote, not after it. Australians deserve the detail so they can make an informed choice. To me personally, there are three good reasons to vote no.

While we do support the Australian people having their say, let me be clear: we do not support this risky, divisive, unknown and permanent change to our Constitution. The first point I'd make is that this proposal before us is permanent. It is impossible to change without another referendum. Once our High Court makes an interpretation, the parliament cannot overrule it.

Our Constitution, which this referendum seeks to amend, is, of course, our founding document, a document that has always intentionally been minimalistic. It's a short and relatively succinct constitution, deliberately so. It emerged from many, many years of constitutional conventions and deliberations. I encourage all Australians, if they get the opportunity, to have a look at some of those conventions and deliberations. They were Australians at their very best. They weren't Australians at that point, of course—they were part of a whole series of different colonies—but it was Australia at its best. It gave birth to the modern Australia that we know. This document is a recognition of the work, the collaboration and the time that went into its formation, of people from across all parts of Australia collaborating and working together to come to a document which has served us so well.

Like many Australians, I'm sceptical about changes to our Constitution. Changes to our founding document have the ability to change the fabric of how our government, our country, operates, not always for the best. That's the very real risk for this proposal. The proposal risks that the administration and decision-making of government departments will be wrapped in another layer of complexity and, no doubt, be slowed down by the process. The government denied Australians the benefit of a constitutional convention in keeping with what brought our founding document into place in the first place. A convention could have ironed out details and narrowed the issues in dispute, but the government chose not to have one. The Australian people should be trusted to make an informed choice. They should never again be asked to vote on a permanent constitutional change without knowing what they are voting for.

The second point I would make and reason why I'll be voting no is that this voice proposal is broad and it is uncertain. Australia hasn't changed its Constitution by referendum since 1967. These are big decisions that Australians rightly take very seriously. We want to know how proposed changes will work and what the impacts will be. Will there be unintended consequences? But the government has been deliberately vague. The government is asking Australians to vote without knowing how the Voice will operate.

We don't even have the most basic details you would expect with a change of this magnitude. Australians deserve all the details before they vote on a permanent change to our Constitution. Is it a fourth arm of government? Is it another chamber of the parliament? Will there be another physical chamber? How many new politicians will there be? How much will it cost? What will be the practical applications of the Voice when it comes to decisions of government legislation? Will it delay processes of government, particularly urgent processes, as we saw during the pandemic? These are all questions the government can answer and has chosen not to, and clearly we don't have the detail we would expect of such a significant change.

We have asked questions in this place that the government hasn't answered, like the scope of the Voice. Does it extend to the Reserve Bank, to Centrelink, to the many other agencies that work across government? How will it apply to them? What's very clear is that the breadth of what is being proposed could extend to those agencies. The practical operation of this is a very serious issue for governing this nation, and practical application matters. I learnt this in my previous life, in business and out in the community before coming to this place. Great ideas are one thing, but practical application is ultimately what matters. We don't know how the Voice will practically engage with decision-making processes, what role the Voice role will have in relation to the legislative processes, for instance. In fact, the Prime Minister himself has admitted it would be a very brave government that didn't take the advice of the Voice, whatever it may be.

What is clear is that the proposal will reach far beyond just the issues that relate to Indigenous affairs. Labor's proposed Voice model isn't just to the parliament, but to all areas of executive government. Worryingly, there's no agreement amongst legal experts on the impact of the Voice and how the High Court will interpret such a constitutional change. For instance, Ian Callinan AC KC, former High Court judge, has said:

… I would foresee a decade or more of constitutional and administrative law litigation arising out of a voice …

We know that even the government's own Constitutional Expert Group could not reach agreement on what the constitutional change would do. The Solicitor-General has conceded there is room for argument, and we've former High Court Chief Justice French say a duty to consult would 'make government unworkable'. Former High Court Justice Hayne said it would disrupt the ordinary and efficient working of government to such an extent it would 'bring government to a halt'. Former High Court Judge Callinan, again, said no-one could reliably predict how the High Court would interpret the constitutional change. And former Federal Court Justice Giles has said the same thing.

Let me turn to the third reason I will be voting no. We need to bring Australians together on tough issues, not divide them. The starting point here is that every Australian citizen is equal in the eyes of our founding document. This is a fundamental principle underlying and underpinning our democracy. All Australians are treated equally in the Constitution. Any and every Australian can be a member of our parliament, our judiciary, our executive—and that means Australians across all walks of life. We want to see Australians across all walks of life in this place. That's the purpose. At the end of the day, it is the House of Representatives. Labor's Canberra Voice will change this equality of citizenship that is so fundamental to what I have been brought up with and what has been such a successful formula in our nation.

What's being proposed is to create a new institution where this is no longer the case, and the risk is that it will divide Australians and not unite them. Enshrining in our Constitution a body for only one group of Australian citizens means dividing Australians by race. It says to some of the most marginalised Australians, the Australians who do need appropriate support from this place, that you are different from everyone else, and you'll be treated differently forevermore. This proposal will enshrine in our Constitution a group right. Traditionally, constitutions around the world, to the extent that they acknowledge rights, have individual rights. There is no comparison with this group right in other countries. It would be unprecedented. That's not what we're about here in Australia. As I mentioned, the great thing about this country, the principle that I grew up with and believe in very deeply and very firmly, is that in our Constitution and in our nation all citizens should be treated as equal citizens in the eyes of the law.

The Canberra based voice is permanent, broad, uncertain and risks being divisive. There is a better way forward. What's not permanent, broad, uncertain and divisive is establishing local voices. It's those local voices that know where the problems are. We all know in this place that local communities understand best what's right for them and what's needed for them. Every local community is different. I see that even across my community in Hume, which extends from south-west Sydney all the way out to Central West New South Wales. Every part of my electorate is different, with different communities with different needs, and that is absolutely true of our Indigenous communities as well. It's those local voices that we want to hear from, that we see as solving the hardest problems and needing strong and effective governance most of all.

This wouldn't be a Canberra based voice but local and regional voices, recommended in the co-design process by Professors Tom Calma, and Marcia Langton. They are bodies embedded in local communities and regions, established at the grassroots level, and they would be recognised by legislation. These local voices have the potential to be engine rooms for real change on the ground, the change we all want to see, because they're tailored to the needs of that community. We could do that right now. We could establish that process, get it working, evaluate it, strengthen it and build from there. Outside of the Canberra bubble this is how businesses, community organisations and not-for-profits develop now. It's how the real world works. We have an opportunity to do that right now with agreement right across this place. What works, you keep; what doesn't work, you fix. This proposal being put forward by the government doesn't do that. Local and regional voices would not be divisive but would unite.

Let me finish by saying that the sad reality is that it seems the government is happy to divide Australians. That's not what we want to see, but we have seen alarming signs of the divisive nature of this proposal by some. We have seen some appalling behaviour. Some of those on the 'no' side of this case have been treated in a way that is truly a disgrace. The sad reality of modern politics is that many now want to play the person rather than the ball. I implore both sides of this argument, both sides of this important debate, to focus on the issues, focus on the debate and focus on the arguments. It is a reflection on the people who have engaged in some of the less positive behaviour, rather than a reflection on the issue at hand. This sort of behaviour has unfortunately become part of the activist playbook for some. I won't engage in those tactics, and I certainly urge others to stay on the right side of this debate, which is to focus on the issues. I'm calling on all sides to be respectful in this debate. In this country we can disagree without personal attacks.

The outcome of this referendum is not any political party's choice. It's not the choice of the Referendum Working Group, and it's not the choice of companies, businesses or sporting codes. It's the choice of the Australian people. This is every Australian's choice.

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