PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks everyone. I think this has been an important and historic day. It is, as I understand it, the first time that a Prime Minister and a Leader of the Opposition have sat down together to chart a way forward on a very important subject with the significant indigenous leadership – with many of the significant Indigenous leaders of our country.
It was a great discussion, it was conducted in the spirit of generosity, collegiality and a strong desire on the part of everyone to chart a way forward that will bring our nation together that will enable all of us – regardless of our race, our colour, our background – to walk forward together.
We are a great country and we have established a nation which is in so many respects the envy of the earth.
We have an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character. We are a nation that has freedom and fairness for all, subject to the laws of our Parliament. This is a terrific thing that we have built here in this country. What we now need to do is to end that echoing silence in our constitution, the echoing silence, the omission of Indigenous people from the constitution.
Today wasn’t a day to rule particular things in or out. It was a day to establish a process for taking this whole issue forward and the leader of the Opposition and I have a joint statement which you will all receive shortly but the essence of it is this: that there will be a series of community conferences which will consider what we hope to get out of recognition as a nation – precisely what form recognition could take. It will be overseen by a Referendum Council which will be broadly representative of the whole Australian people and these conferences will be informed by a discussion paper that will be prepared with the advice of my Department by the Select Committee on Indigenous Recognition chaired by Ken Wyatt and deputy chaired by Nova Peris.
Again, I want to stress this is about all of us going forward together. What I think we have done today is laid out a process which will enable all Australians to have a deeper, better informed and much more structured conversation about what this constitutional change could look like.
I am confident that the time is right to move down this path. I think that there is an abundance of good will. I think we are good enough, big enough and brave enough to do this but it is important that we get it right and that is what today’s process is all about.
Again, I want to thank Bill Shorten, I want to thank all of my Parliamentary colleagues who were there today but I particularly want to thank the Indigenous leadership for the generosity of spirit that they have shown.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, you have spoken about wanting to make sure things are achievable; I know you are not ruling anything in or out today but ‘achievable’, will that be including a non [inaudible] clause in the constitution and possibly setting up an Indigenous body to advise the Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
These are certainly issues which a lot of the participants in today’s meeting would like to see. These are the sorts of things that now need to be considered by these community conferences that will shortly be entrained.
QUESTION:
How long will the community conferencing process take, Prime Minister? There have been calls for wording of the question to be settled by the end of this year – can you commit to that timeframe?
PRIME MINISTER:
The point that I think was really general right around the room is that we have got to get this right and we have got it right when we have come up with a proposition which is worth going forward with and we are confident will succeed. The worst thing here would be to put something to the people on a subject as important and as potentially sensitive as this and have it fail. We want to start these community conferences as soon as possible and subject to a Party Room process – both on the Government’s side and on the Opposition’s side. I think from September we can have these community conferences and my hope would be that by the middle of next year we might be able to crystallise a consensus about how our constitution could change.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, you speak about being big enough and brave enough – are you big enough and brave enough to meet Aboriginal leaders’ demands for substantive recognition and would you be able to get that through your Party Room over and above minimalism?
PRIME MINISTER:
The important thing now is to have the kind of deep and broad conversation with the Australian people that is necessary if we are to go from good will to an actual constitutional recognition. If we are to go from where we are now, which is 85 per cent – more or less – supporting the idea of recognition in the constitution, to a specific change. That is what we have agreed upon today – a process to take us forward. Let’s see what emerges from that process but I think this is a very significant step forward today. It’s not the final step but it is certainly a big further step.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, given that is a question won’t be finalised till the middle of next year, as you have flagged, is the 2017 referendum date really viable in that case?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it is, I think it is, and I would be very disappointed if we aren’t able to proceed to a recognition referendum sometime in the next term of parliament. I’ve previous said that it would apt if we could do it on the 27th of May 2017, which is the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum. That’s a tight deadline I’ve got to say, but I would be very disappointed, I would feel that we had not lived up to our high expectations and we had not quite been our best selves if we weren’t able to do this in the next term of parliament.
QUESTION:
Will these conferences culminate in a kind of formal constitutional convention?
And can I ask you a second question if I may. Of the two substantial recommendations that are out there – one for racial discrimination, prohibition and another for an alternate body – don’t you have an obligation if either of those are unacceptable to you to help guide the debate by stating if [inaudible] acceptable to you to say so?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s not all about me and there are a lot of people who need to be involved in this. You see, all the people in the room today – myself, the Leader of the Opposition, Noel Pearson, Pat Dodson – all of them have been thinking about this issue for – in some cases – a lifetime, in other cases, years. But while there is an abundance of goodwill in the general public, they’re at the beginning of this process, they’re not halfway through it. That’s why we’ve got to have a process and I don’t think it would be fitting for me or other authority figures to be saying at this point in time it’s got to be this or it can’t be that. There are all sorts of questions that do need to be considered as part of this process, but let’s see where the consideration goes rather than rule things in or out now.
QUESTION:
But do you agree with Pat Dodson’s sentiment this morning? As he entered this meeting, Prime Minister, he said that he thought that the constitution was appallingly racist – do you agree with him?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is a successful constitutional of a very successful country, but it can and I believe, should be improved. The question is getting a referendum proposal that can leave us a more united nation at the end of it. And I think that the whole objective here, if I may say so, is not to be them and us but to be one people at the end of this process. Now, that’s what we’re looking for and I think that was overwhelmingly the mood of the room.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, just on the community meetings – how will they work? And you spoke about a cross-section of Australian society, so not just Indigenous groups – how will that work?
PRIME MINISTER:
There certainly should be an opportunity, as part of these community conferences, for Indigenous people to crystallise their thoughts, as far as can be on this. But in the end of the constitution belongs to every Australia. Yes, what we want to do is recognise Indigenous Australians, so there is a sense in which this is for Indigenous Australians, but the result has got to be something that belongs to all Australians, not just to any particular group.
QUESTION:
Will this culminate in one meeting that will finalise the question? And just to interpret your last answer, you’ve got an open mind on what emerges from this process?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I absolutely understand the desire of all Australians to live in a discrimination-free country. None of us want to live in a discriminatory society. We all want to live in a society which is free and fair for everyone. The question is: how do we best do that in ways that don’t have unintended consequences? And that’s something that we’ll be carefully considering both as a people and I suppose as experts in the weeks and months ahead.
Now, let’s see where these community conferences lead. I’m certainly very open to a formal constitutional convention – perhaps in the second half of next year, perhaps early in 2017. I’m very much open to that but the steps that we have put in place now – a series of community conferences, the establishment of a referendum council, a discussion paper under the auspices of the select committee to guide this further discussion, an absolute determination to get it right, not to put something forward that will fail and an absolute determination to treat all reasonable points of view with respect and to have – if I may say so – a generous conversation amongst our people.
We are a great people; we are sometimes inclined to let ourselves down a bit by being unnecessarily rancorous. I’ve got to say that the spirit in which today’s conversation was held was great and let’s hope we can reproduce that in the months to come.
[ends]