Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the Uluru Statement from the Heart, it talks about the request for a voice in this way:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

And, in an expression of generosity, as the Prime Minister has described it, the Uluru Statement from the Heart finishes with this invitation:

We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

That invitation is one that all of us in this parliament, in both chambers, must accept. We live in a country whose recent history is one of taking children from their families because of the colour of their skin, and for no other reason. But we live in a country where people of good heart and good intention want a better future, and they want it for all of us. We want it for those children up there in the gallery, and we want it for the children in remote and regional communities across this country.

I implore everyone who has a position of leadership: walk with the Prime Minister and our First Nations peoples to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart and get a yes at the upcoming referendum.