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

It seems that activists on the Prime Minister's Referendum Working Group just can't help themselves. For months the Prime Minister has been telling Australians that the Voice would be 'a modest change' for a strictly advisory body, for which parliament would determine powers and functions. Activists on his hand-picked working group keep on contradicting him. They're drunk with power that they have not yet taken. They've said the High Court will play a prominent role in the Voice's powers and functions. They've said they eagerly anticipate constitutional changes. They've said they're looking to destroy the fabric of the Constitution, and, as revealed in the Australian newspaper this morning, one of them said that the power of the Voice will be to 'punish' elected representatives who ignore it. Thomas Mayo, an acknowledged socialist and unionist—and current board member of the Yes 23 campaign—has also been exposed as saying that the Voice is a 'vital step' to implement a race based rent tax. With half of Australia already under native title—and another 10 per cent pending—what's to stop Indigenous elites from doing this if we get a voice to parliament?

This is most definitely not about unity but about division based on race. That's what the Voice is all about. There is no acknowledgment of the 97 per cent of Australians who share this land and call it home. There is no acknowledgment of the contributions, sacrifices and achievements of Australians who built and defended this land at great personal cost. It's all about what the radical activists want: racism, socialism and lots and lots of Australian taxpayers' money. As I keep saying, why are we allowing only three per cent of population—if that—to have an extra voice in this parliament, when everyone elected to this parliament has the right and the ability to represent all Australians equally and in the same way?