Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

In making my remarks here in the chamber this afternoon, I want to specifically focus on the answers from the government in relation to questions about the Voice and this government's failure to be honest with the Australian people about what they plan and what they are trying to quietly implement without telling Australians. We've seen yet again today the Labor government's inability to answer very straightforward, simple questions about what the Voice will mean for Australians. Time after time, they have chosen to dodge scrutiny when the Australian people are asking for the government to be honest and upfront. Over the past few months, we've seen the Albanese Labor government repeatedly and falsely try to claim that the Voice will not be having a say on issues which many of its supporters have claimed that it clearly would be expressing a view about. These questions asked today go directly to this issue of the government saying one thing to Voice supporters and an entirely different thing to the Australian public.

In the last few weeks, we've seen the Minister for Indigenous Australians claim that the Voice will apparently not express a view on changing the date of Australia Day. I don't think anybody in this country believes that statement to be true. We've also heard the government claim that the Voice won't be expressing a view on monetary policy or on defence, yet the government's own proposed amendment makes it clear that it certainly can. Now we have the Prime Minister telling us that the Voice isn't about a treaty, when clearly many of the supporters of the Voice—indeed, the Indigenous affairs minister herself—see it playing a central role in exactly that proposal. In fact, the government poured millions of dollars in funding into the new body funded in last year's budget which the coalition was asking questions about today, the Makarrata Commission. We know that this funding and this body must have been envisaged by the government to have been working with the Voice. Why do we know that? Because a media article from earlier this month says:

Anthony Albanese has branded it "dumb" to suggest outcomes for Indigenous Australians can improve without a voice to parliament in the constitution …

In the Prime Minister's own words, it's apparently 'dumb' to expect this new body and this $6 million in new taxpayer money to achieve anything unless we also change the Constitution. If that's the case, what was this money doing in last year's budget? What is it being spent on now if the Prime Minister now says that it's dumb to expect it to achieve anything?

This government and the Labor Party are dodging every question and hiding every detail about their plans for the future of Australia. They know what they intend this body to look like, they know how it will be elected and they know the breadth of everything that can be captured by this proposal. But they are deliberately not telling Australians the truth about what it will involve, because they know that if Australians were told the truth they simply wouldn't vote for it. Senator Nampijinpa Price is absolutely right to be asking the questions she asked in this chamber today, just as she is right to be using her voice here in this parliament and out in the community to raise the wide breadth of concerns that Australians from all walks of life have with this divisive proposal. But we've seen the Prime Minister and the Labor government responding to every question by saying that Senator Nampijinpa Price and all those other Australians with genuine questions about the operation of the Voice shouldn't be asking those questions; all they should be doing is listening to this government's slogans.

It was this government's choice to ask Australians to place a new bureaucratic advisory body in Australia's Constitution. It was their choice. The onus is on this government to explain exactly how that body will operate and exactly how it will work with all of the other pre-existing bodies, committees and agencies that we have in this country that are seeking to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. The government needs to explain all of this in advance of the referendum, whenever it is going to be held this year, and they need to stop dismissively and arrogantly telling Australians that it's none of their business to ask questions about this because, apparently, the government will sort it all out afterwards.