Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

It's not without some degree of sadness and trepidation that I make my contribution on the bill before the House today, the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. I say that because I listened to the Prime Minister's speech here this morning and his claim that he is desperate to unite our nation, but just like the member for Durack, who made her comments just a few moments ago, I fear that the approach taken by the Prime Minister is dividing our nation in a horrible way. At a time when I would rather be here celebrating the extraordinary achievements of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this country—achievements through the arts, through culture, through sporting fields, here in this parliament, in business and in commerce—we are having a conversation that is talking down our country in a way which makes me very uncomfortable.

I stand beside the member for Canning, who knows full well the contribution that our Indigenous brothers and sisters have made to the Australian Defence Force over decades. Even before they had the right to vote, Aboriginal men went to war and fought for our country, and no-one saw the colour of their skin when they fought in the Army, the Air Force One or the Navy; they saw them as fellow soldiers, airmen and Navy personnel who could assist to keep our country safe. I'd rather be celebrating those achievements here today in my comments than participating in a debate which I fear can only end in a more divided Australia.

In joining this debate, I want to make a very simple point from the outset: there is so much that I agree with the Minister for Indigenous Affairs on when she speaks about the enormous issues facing our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, just as I agreed with the former minister, my great colleague Ken Wyatt, and supported his efforts towards practical reconciliation measures and Closing the Gap measures. I offer my sincere bipartisan support to the minister in almost all of her endeavours, and I think that is a feeling, an emotion and a practical view that is held virtually across the entire chamber. But I do believe this debate will only get worse in the months ahead. It will become more divisive, and it will paint a negative picture at the expense of the truth, just as, when I worked very closely with our veteran community over a period of several years, there was a public narrative that all veterans were broken, busted and bad, which played into a cycle of despondency and desperation which simply didn't reflect the reality of the situation. Certainly there are many veterans who need great assistance from the government and our community, and they are entitled to receive that, but the vast majority are transitioning well and going on with their lives.

In our Indigenous communities, there are many success stories we need to celebrate in this place, notwithstanding that we have to acknowledge the challenges we face. The minister and I agree entirely that issues around life expectancy, family violence, incarceration rates, and health and education outcomes are all genuine issues, to which the full strength of this parliament and the full strength of state parliaments needs to be applied to achieve real action on the ground, but in this debate we must be so careful not to completely embrace a simple narrative that everything is broken and everything is bad. There are some incredible programs occurring right now across rural, regional and remote Australia. There are local actions being taken by dedicated communities, volunteers and professional people achieving great outcomes. People are getting out of bed every day and making a difference in their own communities, and we must not disrespect them in this debate. We must not disrespect them by pretending that nothing good is happening on the ground in our communities at the moment.

I say 'our communities', because it is 'our communities' in my party, the National Party. Overwhelmingly, the people we are talking about here, in this debate in Canberra today, live in rural, regional and remote Australia. I'm not for a second suggesting there aren't Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in our suburbs, but when you look at the electoral map and you look at the census data it is evident that a higher percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in the electorates that are represented in this place by the Nationals. I had the chance to listen to the contributions of several of my colleagues, and I want to single out a couple of them.

I listened to Mark Coulton, the member for Parkes. I think the percentage of Aboriginal people in his community is about 16 per cent. In the last election, Mark received an increased primary vote, and he won booths which are the homes of predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. He wouldn't have been winning those booths or winning that seat with an increased margin if he weren't doing a good job on these very difficult practical challenges of helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people achieve their full potential.

I also listened to my good friend the member for Cowper, Pat Conaghan. He talked about his lived experience as a whitefella growing up in Kempsey, where there were Aboriginal kids playing sport with him and going to school with him. His dad was a doctor, the first doctor in his community to allow Aboriginal people into his clinic— in the 1960s—to get treatment. That's not the activity of a person who, as he was unfairly portrayed in today's media by a Supreme Court justice, is somehow being racist.

In my own lived experience, growing up in Gippsland, my extended family included Aboriginal children who had been fostered and adopted by my dad's cousin, so family reunions were very much a black-and-white affair. The kids would turn up from Orbost. We'd have an instant cricket match when a busload of Aboriginal kids, who we regarded as our cousins, turned up. So we had a very interesting upbringing.

So my opposition to the Voice today is not because I'm racist. It's because I believe it's actually poor public policy. I believe it won't achieve practical outcomes. What really worries me is that I believe the Voice, this debate, where we're heading, will divide Australians on the basis of race where we were never divided before. It actually undermines the way our democracy is meant to work, and I simply can't support it in its current form.

From my experience, regional Australians do want to close the gap. They want to close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. Regional Australians want to improve the lives of all vulnerable people, but regional Australians also understand it takes hard work and consistent effort—not simply voting for a vibe because urban elites, the Prime Minister, sporting organisations or big corporations tell you that's what you have to do.

I have a simple message today in what is a complex debate. My simple message to people who are considering this issue is: it's actually okay to say no. You can consider this issue and reasonable people can examine the same facts in this complex area of public policy, and it's completely reasonable to have a different view—but please do it respectfully. It's actually okay to say no. You're not racist if you say no. If you don't believe that a new bureaucracy enshrined in our Constitution will make any difference on the ground, then vote no. If you believe the Prime Minister hasn't given you enough detail and he won't trust you with the detail of his proposed Voice, then don't trust him with a 'yes' vote.

I've been contacted by many Gippslanders seeking my view, and I've gone into some detail to explain my reasons, including a lengthy explanation on my website, so I won't go into all that today. I won't seek to change anyone's opinion either. I think Australians are smart enough to figure this out for themselves. I will say, though, that the tone of this debate has to be reset, and the only person who can reset the tone of the debate is the Prime Minister himself. The Prime Minister has to reset the tone of the debate. He can't make public comments like, 'It's the decent thing to do to vote yes.' When he says that it's the decent thing to do, he's saying that, if you intend to vote no, as an Australian citizen, you are somehow indecent. I just don't believe that. I do not believe that the people seeking to vote no are somehow indecent. So I call on the Prime Minister to try to reset the tone of this debate. I know you're passionate about it, Prime Minister; I know what your view is. Everyone knows what your view is. But don't try to portray Australians as somehow being indecent if they happen to have a different view to you.

But worse than that, we had the extraordinarily unhelpful comments from the leader of the Greens. The leader of the Greens is actually saying that people on my side of the House are racist if they intend to vote no. He's actually saying that we are racist by intending to vote. And then we have the Premier of Victoria describing people as mean and nasty if they intend to vote no. This is the grub who just sacked thousands of timber workers in my community, and he has the gall to suggest that somehow wanting to vote no in the referendum is mean and nasty. I say to people like that, do not talk down—

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