This Parliament always has great work to do: to secure our borders, to balance our budget, to strengthen our economy, to the relief of families and for the protection of jobs.
But if we are to do great things, we must begin them well. We must begin them well.
We must acknowledge the extended family of the Australian nation.
We must acknowledge and celebrate the essential unity of the Australian people.
It’s Noel Pearson, a great indigenous leader and a prophet for our times, who has observed that Australia is the product of a British and an indigenous heritage. This Parliament is redolent of our British heritage. But only recently has this Parliament acknowledged our indigenous heritage.
The first Parliament to meet here in this city 86 years ago was opened by the Duke of York. There was one indigenous person present that day. Matilda has already recalled the presence on that day of a local man, Jimmy Clements. And that man on the side of the ceremony was every bit as much a symbol of unity as the representative of the Crown, because Jimmy Clements, although unacknowledged that day, carried with him an Australian flag.
Haven’t we changed over 86 years? Haven't we come a long way? This city has come a long way. Our country has come a long way. And this Parliament has come a very long way indeed.
We have had indigenous members of this Parliament.
We have in Ken Wyatt, the first indigenous member of the House of Representatives.
In this term of Parliament we have in Nova Peris the first female indigenous member of this Parliament.
Two indigenous members of this Parliament, in this, the 44th Parliament of our country.
May that number increase. May we one day, not too far off, have an indigenous Prime Minister.
Who would have thought that the Northern Territory would have an indigenous Chief Minister?
But if we can have our first female Senator, indigenous Senator, our first indigenous Member of the House of Representatives, if we can have an indigenous Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, we certainly can have an indigenous Prime Minister of this country and we certainly can have in this Parliament, or the next, full recognition of indigenous people in the Constitution of our country.
There is much that I dispute with my predecessor as Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, but I honour him for the historic apology to indigenous people that took place at the opening of this Parliament in 2008 and I honour him for including this indigenous element in the rituals of our Parliament, which is so fittingly now a part of the opening of a new parliamentary term.
[ends]