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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-11 Daily Xml
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NAIDOC

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:47): This year's NAIDOC theme is, 'Voice. Truth. Treaty. Let's work together for a shared future.' It represents, simply stated, the wishes and aspirations of many Aboriginal Australians. It represents, distilled, the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The Uluru statement was a product of 13 regional dialogues held around the country. The dialogues comprise 60 per cent of the positions reserved for first nations and traditional owner groups, 20 per cent for community organisations and 20 per cent for key individuals. As a result, we saw 250 Aboriginal people from every corner of this country come together in September 2017 and say, in a unified voice, 'We want voice, we want treaty and we want truth.'

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a profound document and presented a unique opportunity for our nation. These reforms, the wishes and aspirations, are one of the most unified positions and voices of Aboriginal Australians, and the federal government just said no. It is not good enough, it is not good enough to ignore the wishes and aspirations of Aboriginal people, but it is even worse to go out and ask and then immediately and bluntly reject the answer.

I think it was a huge step backwards to have Malcolm Turnbull, and then Scott Morrison, display an arrogant lack of respect towards a statement from the heart and those who worked so hard to put it together. In the same way, I think in South Australia Aboriginal people were asked about treaty and were overwhelmingly in favour, only to be crushed when the new Premier, who did not even have the decency to appoint an Aboriginal affairs minister, arrogantly scrapped the treaty process.

It is interesting to note that at the National Press Club of Australia on 10 July the federal minister, Ken Wyatt, referred to states moving on treaties, and I will quote him:

With respect to treaty, it is important that states and territories take the lead. When you consider the constitution, they are better placed to undertake the work.

The federal Liberal minister for Indigenous Australians thinks states should be acting on treaties. The comparison I made between our Liberal Premier and former Liberal prime ministers does not just stop when looking at the scrapping of things that Aboriginal people say are the next steps forwards; there are further comparisons. In 1997, the then prime minister, John Howard, infamously had many in the audience at the Reconciliation Convention turn their backs. The then PM said he was not into symbolism and wanted what he called 'practical reconciliation'. It is eerily similar to Premier Marshall dismissing treaty as a mere symbolic measure and issuing a glossy brochure action plan that, to be frank, is not much more than a grab bag of initiatives the departments were already doing anyway, with most started under the former Labor government.

I was proud that the federal Labor Party in the lead-up to the last federal election supported what came out of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It was not a question of when they were going to do it, but how and when they will implement it. Labor did not, however, win the federal election, but we should not let the hopes and aspirations of Aboriginal Australia languish at the last federal election. As Yawuru man and Labor senator Patrick Dodson said, 'we will work with the Government, but we will not wait for them'. In South Australia, that is the approach we are taking.

I am very proud that SA Labor will implement a state-based version of the Uluru Statement from the Heart if we form government in 2022. This year's NAIDOC theme will come to fruition in a state-based regime—at long last, a voice to parliament, truly allowing Aboriginal South Australians to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives: treaty, reinstating the treaty process with Aboriginal nations across South Australia, finally addressing one of the biggest unfinished pieces of business for this country; and truth, establishing a process so that our full shared history is more truthfully and widely understood.

It will not be a simple task and it will not be a quick task, but in some ways those things that are not simple and cannot be done quickly are the things that are worth doing the most. It is high time politicians stopped doing things to Aboriginal people but, rather, started working with Aboriginal people. It is a remarkable thing that we share this land with their oldest living culture in the world. Unfortunately, Aboriginal people have all too often been forgotten in the decisions that affect their lives. It is time, as those who gathered at Uluru said, not only to count Aboriginal people but to include them and to listen to them. That is what Labor has done in the past, and I am proud that is what we will do in the future.

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