Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

During the winter break I was fortunate enough to visit my sister at Jigalong remote Aboriginal community during NAIDOC week in Western Australia. Jigalong, for those who have seen Rabbit-Proof Fence, is on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, about 200 kilometres south-east of Newman. I went there for two reasons: firstly, to see my little sister and see how she is going. She works for a corporation called KJ, which has a number of rangers and early childhood coordinators working in that community. The second reason was that I remembered the debate in here about the Voice that we had in the weeks prior to the break. I remember it being said in here several times by the LNP senators that, if you visited a remote Aboriginal community and you understand the problems there, you would never support the Voice. I have to say, having visited Jigalong and met the KJ workers, that KJ officially supports the Voice—in fact, I took some T-shirts from Senator Pratt's office in Perth when I visited the community—and I don't get it.

I totally accept that there are many, many problems in these communities and they get to take a long time to fix. The Voice won't fix them overnight, and I think that goes without saying. But, crikey, I don't know how it could do any harm supporting a voice and giving Aboriginal people a voice to have a say in matters that affect them and for them to have a role in advising parliament on what we could do better. I really for the life of me can't see how that would be a reason to oppose the Voice.

I enjoyed my time up there. It was eye-opening, and I learnt a lot. But I genuinely feel that this is a very important first step, giving First Nations communities a voice to advise parliament on matters that affect them. Hopefully, we can go further than that. I understand that's not enough for some Aboriginal people, but it was a great experience, and I want to give a shout-out to my sister for her great work and the great work all the other KJ workers are doing out there in the desert right now. It really does feel like another country when you're visiting some of these places.