Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Thorpe today relating to the government proposal for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

My colleague Senator Thorpe asked a very, very simple question about how Labor proposed the voice to parliament, which will impact on First Nations sovereignty. Unfortunately, Minister Wong refused to answer that question in a straightforward way. Instead, Minister Wong said that the government is taking a pragmatic approach when it comes to the voice to parliament. We as First Nations people of this country cannot risk our sovereignty because the government thinks it's pragmatic. That is completely unreasonable. Sovereignty is the underpinning principle that we cannot afford, and should not afford, to risk in the history-making changes through Truth, Treaty, Voice when we are talking about the Constitution.

When we talk about sovereignty, we're talking about the relationship of being a sovereign First Nations people, and that is linked to our connection to our water, our skies, our totems and all of our systems—our kinship, our lore, our language and our culture. It is all embedded in them. First Nations sovereignty is about putting First Nations people in the driver's seat when it comes to making decisions about our community; it's not about selling that out. Our culture, our country and our sovereignty are important and should be the primary aspects of what drives all of this change. It's about being in charge of our own destiny, because that is, in fact, what truly represents self-determination. First Nations peoples have an inherent right to protect our lands, our waters and our skies as well as our totems, because we can't survive without these things. We care for country and it will care for us. We cannot survive without that, and it's an assertion of our rights to our lands that all First Nations people have. This is what led to the Mabo decision; it reasserted that this land was never terra nullius.

I'll quote Bundjalung and Worimi saltwater woman Phoebe McIlwraith, who writes:

My sovereignty predates the creation of the English language, it does not come from a crown or a throne, but the sea and soil. No parliamentary oath could ever take that away from me.

This is, in fact, true. We saw this being enacted right here in the chamber this morning by Senator Thorpe.

I'll read another quote, from Aileen Moreton-Robinson, a Goenpul woman, who says: 'Their sovereignty is immeasurable to ours. They cannot see nor understand our sovereignty and therefore can never recognise it.' These are all true paths. Unfortunately, the incoming government don't understand that, have not been able to articulate that and certainly didn't answer the question today on behalf of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

Author Amy McQuire, a Darumbal woman, a South Sea Islander woman, notes the extent to which First Nations dissenters feel that 'a great cloak has been put over sovereignty and treaty, which has been rendered almost invisible in the waves of positive coverage' of what was Labor's first attempt, the Recognise campaign, and now constitutional recognition. Amy McQuire also suggests that despite efforts to repress these views: 'There are still calls for a treaty or sovereignty. They are not white noise.'

I also want to touch on the second question Senator Thorpe asked today, which was about how the government's proposal honours the principles of free, prior and informed consent. Of course, Senator Wong thought that we needed consent to actually make sure we were moving forward with the Uluru statement. That's in fact not what it means. Free, prior and informed consent actually has to be at the heart of decision-making. It's at the heart of everything that impacts on First Nations people and their issues. So how can we pretend giving First Nations people a voice, when they aren't even deciding the voice to parliament themselves, is about self-determination? In the current proposal, the colonising parliament would have the powers to decide on the vote's propositions, functions, procedures. It's definitely not self-determination; nor is it free, prior and informed consent.

When it comes to treaty, Minister Burney has said that the truth and treaty processes can be undertaken simultaneously with the voice and that truth and treaty will take time and they need to be started now. So it's time for the federal government to show some leadership and back the makarrata commission and put it back on the federal agenda. We need to see a clearer commitment on all the elements of the Uluru statement, and I urge the government to act on that.

Question agreed to.