Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Listening to our First Peoples about what they want and crafting programs with their input is apparently a revolutionary concept that has not been tried. The Voice is about putting our First Peoples at the centre of decision-making. In medicine, we call this person centred care. In government, then, it must be person centred policy, and we need more of it across the board. The days of top-down policymaking are over. How does it start? With listening. I did plenty of listening as a doctor. As I said in my maiden speech, we need to listen to those on the front line, at the coalface—in this case, our First Peoples and their communities, who know the problems and also know the solutions. The top-down approach of the past has not delivered the results, but, worse, it has increased the mistrust between our First Peoples and government.

My constituents in Higgins rightly ask: what is the Voice? The Voice will be a permanent advisory body to parliament that aims to make a practical difference by putting our First Peoples at the centre of decision-making. It is about ending a long legacy of well-intentioned but ultimately futile programs and policies that have not delivered for First Peoples, nor met the expectations of the wider community.

Entities have been formed, then dissolved, only to be re-formed in another guise. In the past 30 years, at a national level, there have been at least seven representative organisations. Let's go through them. They include the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee from 1972 to 1977; the National Aboriginal Conference from 1977 to 1985; ATSIC from 1989 to 2005; the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation from 1991 to 2000; the National Indigenous Council from 2005 to 2007; the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples from 2009 to 2019; and the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council from 2013 to 2019. This list does not include representative organisations at the state and territory level. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent, but the results speak for themselves—statistics on education, housing, domestic violence and health that are a national disgrace. To paraphrase Einstein, we can keep doing the same thing over and over again, but don't expect a different result.

So how do we repair trust and end the stagnation? Our First Peoples have shown us the way. It has been a long and arduous journey towards implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It was over 14 years ago, in 2007, that Prime Minister John Howard promised Indigenous recognition in the Constitution. It is 12 years since Prime Minister Gillard established a panel to guide discussions on constitutional recognition; and it is six years since First Nations people explained what they wanted that to look like, through the Uluru Statement from the Heart. 'Voice, treaty, truth,' they cried. And it starts with listening, as it should.

This process has been going on for 12 years. How much longer should they wait? The Uluru Statement from the Heart is imbued with cultural authority. It emerged from a series of meetings of Indigenous Australians, community organisations and key stakeholders between December 2016 and May 2017. This process, known as the dialogues, involving thousands of people from across the nation, discussed the structural problems facing our Indigenous communities, from health to housing, education, suicide, youth detention and domestic violence.

The business of reaching consensus was messy; it always is. Not everyone who participated in the dialogues was happy. Some people walked away and now opine from the sidelines. Others, by virtue of their election to the House falsely claim legitimacy on behalf of all First Peoples when, like myself, they only represent their constituents. I don't profess to speak for all Australians; I represent the people of Higgins.

The people who rolled up their sleeves and got this herculean task done deserve more than our respect; they deserve follow-through. At the moment, parliament does not have a systematic process for our First Peoples to provide input, meaning that policy is often made for them rather than with them. The Albanese government seeks a new spirit of partnership between parliament and First Nations people. Empowering First Nations people is at the heart of our approach to closing the gap and aligns with our common values as Australians of fairness and decency. Rather than speculating on improvements we are likely to see with the Voice, let's look at what has happened in its absence. Sadly there is no shortage of examples.

The campaign to raise the age of criminal responsibility is one example. Juvenile detention is the purview of state and territory governments, but they can be influenced by public sentiment driven by a national conversation. Right now in juvenile detention centres right across Australia, children, some as young as 10, are incarcerated. Our First Peoples children are over-represented. According to campaigners, it has not been expedient for politicians to deal with this blight, which is why this problem has been kicked down the road for years. Those children are growing up. Do you think we have helped them as a society to find their better selves? With a Voice, there can be no averting our eyes, no turning away from these inconvenient truths.

Then there is the merit of giving our lawmakers—people like me—some help. There will be occasions when First Peoples communities disagree, for example, over the management of a parcel of land that may be on the crosshairs of development. At present it would fall to the minister of the day to arbitrate. Does that sound ideal? Wouldn't it be preferable to have a democratically elected body that is constitutionally enshrined to turn to for advice? A two-way flow of information is what the Voice will deliver. It may also take the heat out of some of these testy discussions.

There has been very little discussion about the spillover effects of the Voice to Parliament. The focus has been on the practical difference it will make to the lives of First Peoples, but what about the impact on the wider community? As someone who has been on the receiving end of racism, I suspect it will do more for fighting racism than any program we have implemented to date. Do you know what the most powerful debiasing force is? It's actually contact—contact with people from different backgrounds in our schools, workplaces, sporting clubs and neighbourhoods. In my electorate, our sporting clubs are like the United Nations. However at 3.2 per cent, our First Peoples, as Noel Pearson said, are an extreme minority. Many of us will never cross paths with them, so how are we to really understand their lived experience? By relying on the news? No thanks. A voice to parliament short-circuits all of this and gives us an opportunity to hear directly from our First Peoples without any filter.

In July this year our Prime Minister proposed the following additions to the Constitution. The words are simply a starting point:

It will be democratically elected, and it will have regional and national representation, according to the Indigenous Voice co-design report of the previous government, and it will communicate to the parliament through a parliamentary joint standing committee. There are some details to be worked through by the working and engagement groups, but the broad brush strokes are there, and the details will be filled in later. Why? Because we are running out of time. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Will be asked in a referendum whether we support a modification to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. To be successful, a 'yes' vote must be supported by a majority of Australian voters and a majority of voters in at least four states. I believe that Higgins will vote yes. There is a groundswell of goodwill amongst my constituents. They understand that a voice is not a third chamber of parliament. They understand that it does not have the power of veto. They understand that elected representatives like me will continue to make the laws. They understand that those laws are best crafted in collaboration with the people they affect. They see demands for more detail as running interference for the detractors. They understand that the Voice is above politics because it came from the people. They also understand that the people it will most affect are falling further behind at an alarming rate.

My constituents are riled at injustice and will fight it on the beaches, in the corridors and in the streets. Surrendering to more of the same is not something they aspire to. The call of history is rising in our chests. Rather than divide us, the Voice will bring us closer together. Why? Because if you believe, like I do, that reconciliation is the pathway to a more perfect Commonwealth, then the Voice is that gateway. Let's walk through it together.