Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to rise this evening to make a related and brief contribution to what has been a marathon debate. I think there have been over 100 speakers so far, and I have listened very respectfully and with interest to the contributions from all sides. While we obviously have points of difference, there has been a great opportunity for the House to debate this bill and for all people to put their points of view. I want to take the opportunity this evening to explain to my constituents my position on the Voice. I've been very consistent in my media statements that I have always supported the recognition of Indigenous people as the first inhabitants of this continent that we all now enjoy; that is a no-brainer and it should be recognised. However, I don't support the enshrinement of the Aboriginal Voice advisory body in our Constitution. I will explain why in a moment.

I did also want to make the point that I absolutely support the right of the government to take this referendum to the Australian people. It was certainly an election commitment that they had made, and the Australian people deserve to have their say on this important issue. I will be voting against this particular legislation this evening, if that is in fact when the vote takes place, as an authorised dissenter. The reason—I'm talking specifically to my constituents here—is because I had some input into the 'no' pamphlet I will have to be recorded as having voted against this legislation. That is why I stand here tonight—to explain that position. I will also now explain why that is so important.

Many people in my electorate don't have the IT skills or the access to IT to simply google all of the details on the Voice. There are many elderly people. I have a larger than average cohort of older Australians. Many have already contacted me and asked for more information, so I do believe that the 'yes' and 'no' pamphlets will be critical for my constituents to come to an informed position on the Voice. I encourage all of them to take advantage of that process.

I want to take a moment to quote from Paul Kelly's—the doyen of the press gallery—article in The Australian on the weekend about this process. This is not me speaking. This is not any partisan o Liberal member or indeed those from the other side. This is a scrupulously fair and balanced commentator who has enjoyed the title of 'doyen of the press gallery' for many years. He said:

This is a government that refused to convene a constitutional convention, refused to authorise a full-scale parliamentary assessment at the outset, made no early effort to achieve bipartisanship, declined to legislate the voice first to test its viability and decided the details of the voice would be released after the referendum, not before.

This is why we so desperately need these pamphlets to be sent out to all Australians, I'm speaking here tonight specifically to my electorate. We have fought very hard to get this pamphlet up. The government initially refused or was not going to include a pamphlet as part of the process. We have got them over the line on the pamphlet, and I will be taking part in providing some input into the wording of that 2,000-word pamphlet.

As I've said, we've heard many contributions in this place, many of them wonderful speeches. I just want to add my small, unique perspective as the member for an electorate which is 9.1 per cent Indigenous. From the north of the Ngaanyatjarra lands right up to Wingellina on the South Australia-Northern Territory border, Warakurna on the NT border and right down to Nannup and Manjimup in the south-west of Western Australia, it's an enormous electorate with a very diverse range of Indigenous people living across it. We've got some of the most desperately disadvantaged remote communities and we've also got some very highly functioning communities in the southern part of the state. I deal with those Aboriginal people on a virtually daily basis. Just on Friday night I was in Leonora at a function where I spoke to some very dear friends about this very issue. I'm not going to reveal their thoughts, because I want to retain their privacy, but my point is that I engage with Indigenous people, as I say, on an almost daily basis.

When I hear this sort of paternalistic view that all Aboriginal people agree on everything and that, if we have this panel of 24 that will meet here in Canberra, they will speak for that incredibly diverse range of people across my electorate, I just don't accept that. That's not my lived experience of dealing with those people. A great example of that was the cashless debit card trial, which operated in my electorate for five years and was removed recently by the government. Some of those very dear Indigenous friends of mine fought tooth and nail to have the cashless debit card introduced to make a difference to their people. That was opposed by other Indigenous people around the country, many academics, many high-ranking public servants and others who thought it was paternalistic et cetera. It was never actually intended to be targeted specifically at Indigenous people. Across the Goldfields, in fact, fewer than 50 per cent of the people on the cashless debit card were Indigenous, but that's the way that it was construed by opponents in the government, in the media and in other areas on social media.

There was no consensus from Aboriginal people on that particular issue, and certainly, while the government may claim they had support for the removal of the cashless debit card, I have many Indigenous people across the Goldfields who opposed that particular policy. Lo and behold, in today's West Australian the headline says 'Cashless debit card: secret reports reveal spike in drinking, violence after controversial scheme axed'. It goes on to say:

A rise in drinking, gambling, stabbings, domestic violence and school non-attendance was reported in the East Kimberley in the weeks after the cashless debit card was abolished.

So the people of the East Kimberley, who fought to keep the card, would possibly disagree with Aboriginal people in other parts of the country. This notion that all Aboriginal people are going to come together, including three of them from Western Australia on this panel of 24, and agree on these issues is completely wrong. That is part of the reason that I will be voting no and encouraging people in my electorate to vote no.

I think, from the broader perspective of the community—and everyone I speak to wants to see better outcomes for Aboriginal people; there's no question about that—what I'm hearing is that people are very concerned about the risks of introducing this Voice to the Constitution. We've heard a whole range of legal views in the media. We've had the parliamentary inquiry. We've had contributions here in the parliament saying that, because such and such legal expert said that there's not a problem, there can't be a problem. I'm not a lawyer; I'm a humble farmer. But I've seen a few legal cases play out in my time, and a recent one that springs to mind is the Love case in the Hight Court. I'm not going to go into the details of that case. However, I assume the Solicitor-General briefed counsel on behalf of the government, and I assume he briefed them that there was a significant chance that the Commonwealth of Australia would win that particular case in the High Court. Well, the Commonwealth of Australia didn't win the case. I use that example to illustrate that just because you get a legal opinion, whether it be from constitutional expert A, from the Solicitor-General or from a certain retired High Court Judge, that doesn't give any guarantees of how these things may play out in the High Court in future.

So, my position is that I will be voting no in the actual referendum. I will be voting no to this particular legislation enabling the referendum. However, that doesn't mean I don't support the legislation. I'm simply voting no so that I can be part of the 'no' pamphlet process, which I'm very much looking forward to.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that as this debate carries on over the next six months people make the effort to inform themselves, to ask questions, to not be afraid to dissent if that's how they feel and, most importantly, to treat people who have an alternative point of view with respect. Thank you very much.

See this speech in context