Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) today to questions without notice I asked today relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Today it was admitted by the Labor Party that we had an historic day in introducing the third reading on the Voice to Parliament and, hence, we'll have a referendum at the end of this year. The fact is that it is an historic day but that when it comes to telling people the truth, the Labor Party are short on that. They're not interested. They're interested in patting themselves on the back to get this legislation up.

Why I raise this is that today I asked important questions of Senator Wong, on behalf of the Prime Minister, with regard to Thomas Mayo. He made some comments about the Voice, that its power was its ability to punish elected members of this parliament that ignored its advice. There was no true answer to that—there was no answer whatsoever. I asked, 'Does the Prime Minister endorse Mr Mayo's comments?' And, again, another one, about ruling out establishing seats in the parliament. Senator Wong clarified that later on, and said: 'No, it's not part of our policy.' It's got nothing to do with the Labor Party's policy; it's if they endorse the fact, if the referendum is successful, that if the Voice were to push for seats in parliament for Indigenous people, as has been done in New Zealand, will the government look at it? I'm not asking for their policy point of view now at all. And my third question was about whether they will rule out the establishment of an independent, sovereign Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander state in Australia. There was no response to that whatsoever. There was no direct 'no' whatsoever.

This is what is so annoying to the Australian people, who are terribly confused about this. The Labor Party and everyone else want to play on emotions without being upfront and honest with people. They talk about the makarrata. The makarrata is basically a treaty. That's what it stands for: a treaty. The whole thing that they're pushing for is a treaty. What we need is truth and honesty. When I spoke this morning on the floor of parliament, a journalist took that and said Senator Hanson made some comments about the Stolen Generations—that type of thing. The Prime Minister said, 'I have no intentions of answering that question.' He said, 'I'm not going to respond to Senator Hanson.' I represent millions of people in Australia who have concerns over this, so if he can't respond to that, regardless of whether it's me, then respond to the Australian people—because if he can't then he should get out of the job. The Prime Minister is pathetic when he wants to sidestep an issue because he can't answer it, or won't answer it, and be truthful with the Australian people. That's what they want, and they want these direct answers.

One of the most important issues facing our country is this referendum and the government just whitewash everything. They play on the emotions of people that we owe it to the Aboriginal Indigenous. No; we're all Australians equally.

Question agreed to.