Bills

Aboriginal Representative Body Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (10:31): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to give Aboriginal people a voice that will be heard by the Parliament of South Australia, the cabinet, state authorities and other persons and bodies; to establish the Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement; to establish the Aboriginal Representative Body; to repeal the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee Act 2003; to make a related amendment to the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991; and for other purposes. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (10:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

In bringing this bill before the Fifty-Fifth Parliament, I am quick to acknowledge the former Premier, the member for Dunstan, and his work to bring a bill in almost identical form to the Fifty-Fourth Parliament—a bill to establish a Voice to Parliament—and the work that was done for years in the lead-up to that. I pay tribute to the member for Dunstan and recognise that this is really a reintroduction of what represented work that was done over the course of years and, in many ways, was led by the Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement, Dr Roger Thomas. I will say a bit more about that in a moment.

Having referred to and paid tribute to the work of the former Premier, the member for Dunstan, I draw members' attention to his second reading speech, as Premier, on 13 October last year. My contribution this morning, in the short time that is available to me, will very much draw upon, reiterate and amplify the contribution that the member for Dunstan made on that occasion.

In doing so, it is timely to remind the house that as recently as the course of the estimates process and the estimates debate that has just been undertaken, on 21 June this year, when, as it happened and as a result of the estimates schedule I was otherwise engaged in a parallel committee, the member for Dunstan was kind to take on that responsibility to analyse the budget and ask the minister, the Hon. Kyam Maher from another place, to address specifically what the new government's attitude was towards a Voice and, indeed, to steps to be taken in relation to reconciliation generally.

I think it is fair to say that much has been made by this new government of a process of consideration towards just what a Voice might constitute. What we have heard from the new minister is as much as to indicate that the new government considers that, yes, indeed, a Voice is a necessary precursor to any further step that might be taken. That is a shift from the position the last Labor government took in the Fifty-Third Parliament when, in the final days of the parliament, we saw a bill relating to Treaty presented to the parliament which quickly foundered when confronted by the challenges of the real world engagement necessary in order to establish what a Voice really means.

I go back over that history and to the 2017 bill that the now Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the Hon. Kyam Maher, once again introduced in the Fifty-Third Parliament right up to 21 June this year, when once again the questions were put to the now Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, 'What do you plan? What thought have you put into this process ahead of coming back into government?'

One might reasonably expect that a body of work—indeed thought, a philosophical approach, a series of principles—might have been developed to identify any alternative to the approach that is laid out in this bill, which was brought to the parliament by the then Premier, the member for Dunstan. The member for Dunstan put the question directly to Minister Maher on 21 June, and for members and those following this debate, and for the purposes of the medium term, that may be found at page 153 of the Hansard for 21 June.

The member for Dunstan put it directly to Minister Maher, asking him whether he was aware of legislation that was introduced into the parliament in October last year—that is this bill, and that is this topic, as I have referred to, addressed by the then Premier on 13 October—and observing that it followed more than two years' consultation on a Voice to Parliament, adverting to the fact that this bill remained a thoroughgoing body of work and remained the means by which the now opposition proposes to progress in this regard and foreshadowing its introduction, which I am doing today.

Relevantly, for the purposes of this new government's agenda, the member for Dunstan asked the minister whether or not the new government would now support this bill, or was there a process of further work or consultation that the new government had in mind. The answer that was given was that, no, this government will do its own work.

Again, I want to make this very clear on this occasion to the house: the member for Dunstan put the minister on notice that he thereby recognises that if that were to happen, and again against the background of no indication of any particular alternative work that has been done in parallel, that he realises that this will be a very significant hiatus in the establishment of the Voice. The minister again indicated that the government would do its own work.

The member for Dunstan—again, I compare where we were at in October last year to as recently as the estimates of this year—adverted to a consideration of the extent of consultation and notice around this bill as opposed to the work and consultation that led up to its introduction. He adverted to some criticism that was made at the time about the extent of consultation on the bill itself. Again, he put it very directly to the minister: was he aware of anything specific in the time between October and June—which the now government had identified as a failure of that original model—having been put forward?

The minister adverted in the broad, I think it is fair to say, to two matters. One is there might have been a concern that, because this Aboriginal representative body would have a direct line to a parliamentary committee, which is to be reformed specifically for the purposes of its engagement and terms of reference to interact with, not to mention the direct interaction with cabinet and the direct interaction with senior levels of the bureaucracy, somehow the nature of that interaction with the parliament might be a criticism of the bill.

The other issue—I think more of a temporal issue—rising no higher than the nature of the initial model, is the extent to which individuals be appointed to the representative body prior to elections. The point being that criticism of this bill, and the years of work that led to it, was very much limited to what I would describe as matters about which one could navigate in transition or have reasonable argument in respect of the particular detail. But what we are told, as recently as the estimates, is that in fact we basically have a blank sheet of paper from this government.

Again, against criticism about the extent of consultation on the specific bill prior to October and the years of work leading up to it, against the background of all of that and what has been really trumpeted as a key aspect of the agenda of this new government, we have seen nothing resembling a coherent or credible body of work that provides some alternative to the structure and process set out in this bill.

I have taken some time to emphasise that this bill constitutes the result of work over a sustained period of time, and the government, in coming along now and talking a lot about the topic, has not yet said anything about how it will proceed. I think we have a concession that if the government is not interested in supporting this bill we are in for a long wait indeed before we see anything in practice. That is just so we are clear about all of that.

I commend once again the contribution of the former Premier, the member for Dunstan, in his second reading speech on 13 October. It is there on the record and will remain so. In doing so, I particularly want to commend the work and the broad consultation that has been conducted by Dr Roger Thomas. Dr Roger Thomas—I will always be proud to say it, and whenever I see him I think we share that experience; it will be the memory of a lifetime—came and addressed this parliament, from the floor of parliament, in December 2020.

As Speaker, I was proud to ask him to address this place. It was then that he reported on the results of his work, challenged as it was, of course, by COVID but nonetheless concluded and brought to the parliament. It is the work of Dr Roger Thomas and the communities he consulted and the work led in government by the Premier that I wish to recognise and celebrate in bringing this bill back to the parliament today. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.