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

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House:

(1) notes the Prime Minister is dividing the nation with his divisive voice proposal by deliberately refusing to provide detail to the Australian people;

(2) further notes the Prime Minister promised on 34 occasions to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full, which includes the Makarrata Commission's national treaty-making process, but has since continually denied there will be a treaty;

(3) notes the Minister for Indigenous Australians said work on a treaty was to start within weeks but the Prime Minister is now walking that back and in two train wreck media interviews, the Prime Minister is telling different audiences different things on the treaty;

(4) further notes that despite the Prime Minister being shifty on whether a treaty is being worked on, he has already allocated $5.8 million for the Makarrata Commission national treaty-making process but refuses to explain how $900,000 of this money has already been spent;

(5) notes that the Government's Minister for Indigenous Australians has treated this House with contempt by repeatedly and consistently failing to answer direct questions in Question Time; and

(6) condemns the Prime Minister for his complete inability to be upfront and honest with the Australian people and calls on the Prime Minister to explain today in plain language what:

(a) The Voice will be, how it will be structured and how it will operate;

(b) the Makarrata Commission will be, how it will be structured and how it will operate;

(c) the money for the Makarrata Commission is being spent on; and

(d) the treaty making process will be, how long it will take, and what the financial implications for the Commonwealth and for taxpayers will be.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion—

That the House:

(1) notes the Prime Minister is dividing the nation with his divisive voice proposal by deliberately refusing to provide detail to the Australian people;

(2) further notes the Prime Minister promised on 34 occasions to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full, which includes the Makarrata Commission's national treaty-making process, but has since continually denied there will be a treaty;

(3) notes the Minister for Indigenous Australians said work on a treaty was to start within weeks but the Prime Minister is now walking that back and in two train wreck media interviews, the Prime Minister is telling different audiences different things on the treaty;

(4) further notes that despite the Prime Minister being shifty on whether a treaty is being worked on, he has already allocated $5.8 million for the Makarrata Commission national treaty-making process but refuses to explain how $900,000 of this money has already been spent;

(5) notes that the Government's Minister for Indigenous Australians has treated this House with contempt by repeatedly and consistently failing to answer direct questions in Question Time; and

(6) condemns the Prime Minister for his complete inability to be upfront and honest with the Australian people and calls on the Prime Minister to explain today in plain language what:

(a) The Voice will be, how it will be structured and how it will operate;

(b) the Makarrata Commission will be, how it will be structured and how it will operate;

(c) the money for the Makarrata Commission is being spent on; and

(d) the treaty making process will be, how long it will take, and what the financial implications for the Commonwealth and for taxpayers will be.

The reality is that this Prime Minister stood up at Garma and said to the Australian people, with great passion and with much emotion, that he proposed words that hadn't been consulted on, that hadn't been properly researched and that were, ultimately, against advice by the Government Solicitor, who had advised against the breadth of words that now are being proposed by way of referendum to the Australian people.

Every Australian wants a better outcome for Indigenous Australians. Every Australian wants to see a better outcome in Alice Springs. Every Australian wants to see better outcomes for children on school attendance, health outcomes and life expectancy. We want to see better housing options. But the Voice is not going to deliver that practical support on the ground, because it is a Canberra voice and a voice for the elite of this country.

Mr Speaker, ask yourself this. Why, on the current information available to us, do we have a situation where 29 per cent of Labor voters in this country are not supporting the Voice? If the Prime Minister had any coherent explanation for the Australian public as to how the Voice will work, what outcomes it will deliver, its breadth, what the interpretation will be in the High Court and how it will change our system of government then perhaps there would be some chance of convincing those 29 per cent of Labor voters. But the Prime Minister is deliberately and willingly withholding that information from Labor voters and from the Australian public.

That is why this situation goes from bad to worse—because the Australian Prime Minister is seeking to divide his nation. That's what's happening here. The best-case scenario on this incompetent Prime Minister's approach to the Voice is that you might get a 51-49 'yes' outcome, bearing in mind that you need a double majority. That splits our country straight down the middle. No Prime Minister in good conscience would decide on such a process unless he was seeking political advantage or unless he was out of his depth.

Australian families at the moment are paying more for their electricity bills, more at the grocery checkout, more for their insurance and more for their mortgages because of this incompetent government. The incompetence is not just demonstrated in terms of the Prime Minister's management around the Voice but in every aspect of government delivery at the moment. That's what the Australian public is experiencing. Mr Speaker, when you walk the streets, when you talk to people across the country, that is why they are saying they are not better off today than when Labor was elected.

The Australian public know that this Prime Minister is taking us down a cul-de-sac. This Prime Minister is dividing the country unnecessarily, because there is a bipartisan position in this country at the moment that would see a question on recognition in the Constitution for our first occupants of this country. It would receive 80 per cent support across the nation. It can be put to the people in October this year. It would not divide but unite the country. Yet our Prime Minister knowingly rejects that proposition.

Why? Why would he reject a proposition to unite our country? Why would he cast that aside and instead go down the path of pitching one Australian against another? Why would it be that one in three Labor voters has called this Prime Minister out as a fake and a phony? We know this Prime Minister. We know more and more about him every day. His great idol Kevin Rudd: we see more of Kevin Rudd in this Prime Minister as every day goes by. We knew of Kevin Rudd that he turned out to be somebody very different to what the public believed him to be. This Prime Minister will say one thing to one audience and tell the next audience what they want to hear. The problem is that people match up what he's saying.

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