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Noel Pearson makes case for constitutional reform on Q&A – video

Q&A: Indigenous panel fears politicians setting up Uluru reforms to fail

This article is more than 6 years old

Panel including Noel Pearson, Stan Grant and Nakkiah Lui says reforms are already being misrepresented

Politicians are framing proposed reforms that would give Indigenous Australians a greater say in parliament as “impossible” in order to set them up to fail, the Indigenous writer and actor Nakkiah Lui has said.

Speaking on an all-Indigenous panel of Q&A for Reconciliation Week on Ngunnawal land in Parliament House in Canberra on Monday night, Lui said that any criticism of the changes proposed by Indigenous people that began by presupposing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had equal footing under the Australian constitution was incorrect.

These are some of our biggest and best brains. Cultural authority, knowledge, detail and expertise are important. #qanda

— Lou (@MsLou27) May 29, 2017

“What my fear is that the government is setting up a narrative that say that we are asking for the impossible and, therefore, we are dooming ourselves,” she said. “You know ... because we asked for the impossible, that is why we didn’t succeed. And that is incorrect. Because we are ready to commit and I think that’s what the Uluru statement was saying: we are coming to the table, you come and meet us halfway.”

Lui was gently dismissive of a question from Michael Nguyen-Kim, who said, in a room full of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, that he was one of the six in 10 Australians that had apparently never met an Indigenous person.

“How can we, therefore, expect the general public to fully empathise with the importance of these changes to Indigenous people if they don’t have this understanding?” he asked.

“You know, you could have met a lot of Aboriginal people – like the mafia we’re sneaking around everywhere,” Lui said. “It might be what you think an Aboriginal person is.”

We're only 3 out of every hundred, that's a lot of white ppl each we need to meet... *sigh* can we do a group Skype or something? #qanda

— IndigenousX Pty Ltd (@IndigenousXLtd) May 29, 2017

The Uluru statement was delivered at the Anangu community of Mutitjulu on Friday after a three-day meeting of more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from around the country. Anangu woman Sally Scales read the statement to the Q&A audience after the panel.

The statement was a unanimous endorsement by that group of delegates of two key reforms: a new body providing an Indigenous voice to parliament, enshrined in the constitution; and the establishment of a treaty commission to both examine options for a treaty and function as a truth and reconciliation commission.

Within hours the proposed reforms had been described as “controversial” or risky by a number of politicians, with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, warning of the difficulty of persuading a “constitutionally conservative nation” that the changes would “benefit all Australians”.

Mere minimalism would have led to many of #OurMob saying NO on the day. Australia is ready. #Indigenousau #TreatyYeah #QandA

— Blackvine Media (@BlackvineMedia) May 29, 2017

No cosmetic changers - real substance is wanted but have to get over the hurdles in Parliament #QandA

— Lynore K. Geia (@LynoreGeia) May 29, 2017

On Monday, the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, described the proposal as “self-defeating” and said Australian people would say no to a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, which he interpreted as third chamber of parliament.

Prof Megan Davis, a human rights lawyer and one of the architects of the Referendum Council process that led to the Uluru statement, said on Q&A that Joyce had not read the Referendum Council’s final report expanding on statement – which in fact has not been written yet and is not due until 30 June – and that his comments were “inaccurate”.

“It’s not a third chamber of parliament,” she said.

Davis said the measures being sought were “quite modest” and should not be described as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people overreaching on what could be sold to the public.

An elected Indigenous body to advise Parliament was a policy of the Aborigines Progressive Association in 1938. Its not revolutionary #qanda

— Marriiiii (@pmarrii) May 29, 2017

Pat Anderson, co-chair of the Referendum Council, said on Q&A that Indigenous people were seeking to replace what was lost with the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, which was shut down following corruption allegations but never replaced as a representative body for Indigenous peoples.

“There is no structure that will allow us to have some power and authority [and it] must be enshrined in the constitution, so it doesn’t get dismissed by stroke of a pen by some current minister,” Anderson said.

The Cape York leader Noel Pearson, who began pushing the idea of a voice to parliament in 2011, said the body would be “a voice to the parliament rather than the voice in the parliament”, the design of which would be determined by parliament.

“In many ways, it will be the tent embassy in stone,” Pearson said. “We’re going to formalise the Indigenous voice in this country, going to get out from under the fringes, out of the fringes and the shadows, and be put in the centre of action, the democratic action in this country, and its primary function will be to provide political and policy advice to this parliament and to the government of the day.”

The comparison to the tent embassy was an awkward one, given the tent embassy delegation, including members from Victoria and New South Wales, walked out of the Uluru talks last week because they did not support any form of recognition in the constitution, whether symbolic or a parliamentary body.

Both Pearson and Davis sat on the expert panel on constitutional recognition, which proposed a different model of reform including a specific paragraph acknowledging Indigenous people as the first people; modifying the race power that allows the federal government to make laws specifically affecting Indigenous people; and introducing a constitutional protection against racial discrimination.

#IndigenousX people understand constitutional law - don't misunderstand rejection of Recognise as not understanding #qanda

— Natalie Cromb (@NatalieCromb) May 29, 2017

Of the three, Pearson said, the first was categorically dismissed at the Uluru dialogue, the second gained “very little resonance,” and the third was clearly not going to get through parliament.

The ABC’s Indigenous affairs editor, Stan Grant, said the proposal was not a way to give Indigenous people more power but “an acknowledgment that the power vacuum already exists”.

Anderson criticised the lack of leadership from politicians so far in response to the statement, saying that, under the current barrage of negativity, “we’re going to blow this out of the water before we even begin the trek”.

“I’m just urging everybody just to relax, enjoy and savour the moment at least until the Referendum Council can do its report which is due at the end of June,” she said.

The #IndigenousX women on this panel were deadly tonight & we need to hear more from our Aunties & sisters on the national stage #qanda

— Azza Nagas (@azzanagas7) May 29, 2017

Once parliament has the report, Pearson said, it should hold a referendum within a year.

“We have been 10 years into this, we’ll be into year 11 if we put it off too much longer,” he said. “I think there’s ... tremendous goodwill in the Australian community for a successful referendum.

“The challenge for us is to get through the first hurdle, which is this parliament. We can only do that if Australians with goodwill help us persuade these guys in relation to what is a set of modest but profoundly important proposals.”

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