Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I put my hand up for the Senate because I saw problems in my Territory and across the country and I wanted to put the work in to help the marginalised people they were impacting—particularly the Indigenous issues that activists, academics and elites have no interest in actually solving. But today I do not rise to speak about those issues. Today I am forced to speak about what is at its core a multi-year distraction from this government's complete lack of a plan and complete inaction in addressing those real issues. Today I rise to speak about Labor's Voice. Over the last few days I have sat this place and heard empty platitude after empty platitude, virtue signal after virtue signal, paying of respect for First Nations Australians, cries for reconciliation and of course acknowledgement after acknowledgement.

The term 'first nations' was appropriated from countries like Canada where it has been used in reference to native Canadians. It is out of context here. When used in Australia it only fuels the story of division and suggests classes of Australians exist—from those who are descendants of Aboriginal Australians to those who arrived later, whether they be early settlers, convict descendants or migrants, both historical and recent. Through their Voice the Albanese government now seeks to constitutionally enshrine that class division in our nation's founding document. I am asked regularly by everyday Australians who are not of Aboriginal descent where they are supposed to fit in if the referendum is successful. Australians who have been here for generations, Australians who have left their families in other parts of the world and even Australians who have escaped their war-torn country of birth to call this great country home are left wondering if they are somehow less Australian.

Aboriginal Australia is now venerated, romanticised, revered and consistently acknowledged ad nauseam. Reconciliation isn't romanticising culture and Aboriginal spirituality, but that is what I have witnessed throughout this debate. Reconciliation shouldn't be making demands from the non-Indigenous community as if they are responsible for the lives of Aboriginal Australians to no end. Reconciliation is about creating understanding and sharing in practical terms where both sides contribute meaningfully in good faith for the betterment of all. Guilt politics is not reconciliation. Name calling, gaslighting and bullying Australians into submission is not reconciliation.

I've said it before and I'll say it again—I've had a gutful of being acknowledged. I know only too well that these acknowledgements have nothing to do with me or any other Aboriginal person being recognised. They are nothing more than a display of virtue- and clout-seeking by the acknowledger.

The Voice has been pitched to the Australian people as a generous gift or offering from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia to the rest of the country. Plainly, obviously and unquestionably this statement is false. Let's talk about the Uluru Statement from the Heart for a moment because I'm sorry, Senator Wong, but your invitation to participate in the Uluru Statement from the Heart has come far too late. The Uluru statement was the result of a closed process of activists and academics and signed by just 250 unelected people after just 12 regional consultations. So, 12 consultations with 1,200 hand-picked—invite only—unelected individuals who participated in the Uluru Dialogue. But there were 811,528 of us who were not invited to attend. And of that 250 who did, we've learned today from my colleague Senator Liddle that some signatories, Anangu elders themselves, didn't even know exactly what they were signing.

One of the very reasons I chose to stand to be elected to this parliament was because I have witnessed the exploitation of culture and Aboriginal people, people whose first language is not English, being exploited for political purposes. That is exactly what is going on here. When activists, academics and elites descended on Uluru they were exploiting a landmark of significance to only a few, including my own Walpiri people.

If this is about respecting culture then let's talk about spirituality and culture, shall we? My great-grandfather marla jukurrpa was a senior law man for the marla Dreaming of the rufous hare-wallaby men. This Dreaming story travels from Walpiri country, south all the way to the base of Uluru. We Walpiri have a direct spiritual connection to Uluru, unlike people across from me here and major Voice proponents like Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton and Megan Davis. The Anangu and the Walpiri are connected as kin through marla jukurrpa. But a Walpiri signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart does not exist.

No-one across this chamber has a clue about real spiritual connections. These platitudes, statements of grandeur and so-called respect are purely for the purpose of exploitation. They have exploited Uluru by attempting to make it symbolic of all Indigenous Australians. There are nearly one million Indigenous Australians from more than 300 individual language groups, each with their own similar but unique customs, traditions and beliefs; each with their own significant landmarks and stories. No single person, no single party, no government department and no so-called advisory body could hope to speak on behalf of all of them, nor hope to adequately represent the broad range of opinions, beliefs and values held by such a large and diverse population. This is why we have our one person, one vote system.

Individuals have the right to put their own hand up for election or to vote for the candidate they believe best represents their views. Under that system, based on fairness and equality, there are 11 Indigenous voices which the Australian people have democratically elected to this parliament. Those 11 voices did not get here because they are Indigenous, but because of their views and hard work. No matter what you might hear from certain media elites who believe some of us are simply the diversity pick, those 11 voices come from five different parties and an Independent; they come from five states and a territory; they come from different walks of life and different backgrounds; they are individuals.

As the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, I speak today on behalf of the Indigenous Australians who have no faith in this government, no faith in the Voice proposal and no faith in those who advocate for it. I speak on behalf of the Aboriginal Australians being robbed of their rights by land councils and other so-called advocacy groups while this Labor government watches on in silence. I'm here to amplify the voices this Labor government is already failing to notice, actively silencing or simply ignoring. Those voices know that this proposal is little more than a power grab, a Trojan horse of nice-sounding ideas that threaten to undermine the values of equality and fairness that Australians hold so dear; a proposal that is dangerous, divisive and costly; it's full of unknowns and, worst of all, it will be permanent. It's dangerous because it undermines our 'one person, one vote' system, giving the privilege of an extra say to one group of people.

There are those who, incredibly, claim that a constitutionally enshrined mandate for a race based body to be heard on any issue it wants, with the possibility of High Court legal challenges if it feels it isn't heard, is somehow not a special right for people of that race. But it is an extra say. It is an additional opportunity to be heard and listened to by the government that no other group has. Some claim that this is simply an advisory body, the same as many industries, businesses and organisations have, but there is no constitutional mandate for the government to listen to any other lobby group. All of them can be ignored, but the Voice can't be. As one advocate for the Voice said, 'You won't be able to shut the Voice up.' The government should not be obliged to listen to any one group—only to the people who have the opportunity to vote for a new representative every three years.

The Voice is a costly mistake at a time when Australians are hurting financially because of this government's failures. They now want to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a referendum—not even the Voice body itself, which will come with another price tag. Right now, they're spending $360 million on a referendum to divide Australians. No-one can deny that the Voice is divisive. From the moment the suggestion was put forward and from the moment the Prime Minister announced his intention to hold a referendum, the process of division was underway. Make no mistake, this Voice has already divided Australians, and it is still dividing Australians every day. Without a single vote cast, this referendum has done more damage to the fabric of our nation than any other, and it will get worse.

It has to be one of the most audacious claims in the history of this place for Labor to say that creating a body to represent people of just one racial heritage is somehow 'unifying' for all Australians. It's absurd to give one racial group a right held by no others and then claim that this is actually bringing us all together. This proposal is so divisive that even the 'yes' campaigners are divided against themselves. Australians do not want to be split, segregated and categorised by race. They want to be one together, not two divided.

Of course, this Labor government and 'yes' campaigners say we need to take race out of this debate. Yes—after suggesting a race based constitutional amendment, they are now demanding that those who oppose it don't make it about race. They tell us to keep the debate about the proposal itself. But what is the proposal? What do we actually know? We know that it would make an advisory body for one racial group. We know that it would have the power to make representations to government. We know that experts, even many who were in favour of the Voice, have warned that the wording this Labor government is moving forward with could lead to legal challenges and hold-ups that could bring government to a grinding halt.

We also know that this government refuses to give any details about how the Voice would be implemented. They won't tell us how it would work, who would serve on it or how they would be selected. 'They're going to pick people from their own communities in their own cultural way.' Okay. How many people would be on it and how much more would it cost the taxpayer? Time and time again, Australians have asked in good faith for more detail, and each time we're told to blindly trust this government. We're being asked to sign a blank cheque and trust them to spend it right, but, between their lies and inaction, this government has given us absolutely no reason to in fact trust them. If Australians decide to trust this government and agree to their Voice, it will be a permanent change. It will be a mistake, and it cannot be undone.

We must remember that governments have gotten things wrong before. We have created and shut down bodies and organisations that were unable to do what they promised to do. Now they're asking us to put one with no detail in the Constitution forever. The Constitution is our nation's rule book. It should not be messed with. It should not be permanently altered without serious consideration or a detailed proposal. But that's what Australians are being asked to do. The Voice is built on lies, and the worst lie is that marginalised Aboriginal Australians have no agency and that they can only succeed, can only move on from our nation's historical injustices, through a transfer of power to the elite of an industry that has thrived on their disadvantage.

The Voice is just the first step in forever altering our nation. The Labor government has committed to the Uluru statement in full, which means truth telling and treaty. Truth telling—an attempt to rewrite Australia's history. Treaties—deals being made with Indigenous groups to hand over resources and hundreds of millions of dollars or more. The Voice is just the beginning. The Voice is the trojan horse to usher in even more radical changes to our country, and we can't allow that to happen. We can't allow our democracy to be undermined, we can't allow Australians to be divided and we can't allow this government to continue its multiyear-long distraction from the real issues that are going on unaddressed.

That's why I'll be voting no to the Voice and urging all Australians to say no too. We have real issues, real problems that need real solutions, and we need them now. The Voice is no way to it. That's why I'm voting no.