MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS:
It’s tremendous to be here this morning on this magnificent day on Murray Island. It is very exciting on a number of levels to be here with the Prime Minister today. This was the place where native title started. It has just been fantastic to be with Gail at Eddie’s grave. It has been tremendous, this is basically our tour around Torres Strait and what better place to start. It has been fantastic the engagement and hospitality from the Islands. So, it has just been a tremendous day so far. The feedback, the honest feedback we get about some of the challenges and the solutions from the people have been absolutely first rate.
Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thank you so much Nigel. It is an honour to be here on Mer. As Minister Scullion has pointed out, this is the traditional country of Eddie Koiki Mabo – a legendary name, the main litigant in the Mabo litigation which produced the first recognition of native title here in this country. So, it is a special place and while this was very contentious two decades back I think it is now something that has been absolutely accepted by all Australians and a sign of the fundamental justice in Australian society that we do recognise native title, that we not only recognise native title but we appreciate the fact that Indigenous people have rights to their land.
Obviously, it's one thing to have land, it's another thing to use it in the best possible way and it was interesting yesterday, talking to Pat Dodson about how native title land in Western Australia is now being used for the full benefit of the community. In some cases we've got communal title becoming individual title, in some cases you’ve got a native title becoming freehold title, so that the Indigenous people of Broome are able to take full advantage of the land that’s theirs, and are able to ensure that the land is an economic as well as a cultural and spiritual asset.
Look, this is really the start of my trip to the Torres Strait and the Northern Cape. This is honouring the commitment that I made that should I become Prime Minister, every year I’d spend a week in a remote Indigenous part of Australia. Indigenous people are about 3 per cent of our population. I think it’s fair enough that a Prime Minister should spend about 2 per cent of the year in a remote part of Australia, focusing mainly on Indigenous issues. It doesn’t mean I can’t handle other things as well while I’m here, but for this week, there will be a substantial focus by government on Indigenous issues.
In the course of the week I will be joined not only by Minister Scullion but by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, by the Health Minister, Sussan Ley, by the Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison, as well as a range of other ministers and a range of senior departmental officials. So, for a week, the focus of government is here in the Torres Strait. It’s important that we appreciate that this is a vast country and if we are to reach our potential, all of us have to reach our potential – people living in remote places as well as people living in the metropolitan areas where most of us actually live and work.
QUESTION:
This is your second time in an Aboriginal community.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
QUESTION:
And you've spoken to a lot of people on the ground. What have you learned from these visits?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s a very good question. Plainly, here in the Torres Strait, there is tremendous pride, tremendous pride that people have in their culture, in their way of life but it’s a pride that they take in their daily living as well. You only have to look around these communities to see that people are house proud, to see that people obviously have an enormous amount of self-respect, and this is, I think, something that we should note. We all know that there are high levels of dysfunction in some remote places but when it comes to things like sending the kids to school, trying to ensure that there is a strong sense of community spirit and community pride, the people of the Torres Strait really are an exemplar.
I was lucky enough this morning to go on a run with some local people as part of the Indigenous marathon project. It was terrific to talk to local people who have taken up running. It was great for their physical and mental health – great for their self-respect – but running around Thursday Island, which I had visited before, it was good to see just how obviously this was a community which took pride in itself and had a great deal of self-respect.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can I ask how you felt at Eddie Mabo’s grave site?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a very moving place to be because this was a warrior – not simply a strong man physically, but a strong man culturally and spiritually, who decided that he would take on the legal establishment, he would take on the previously settled view of Australian law. And good on him for having a go and ultimately good on our system for being able to accommodate Eddie Mabo and the other plaintiffs’ cry for justice.
QUESTION:
Does that experience make you more determined to achieve recognition?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thanks Michael. Look, this has been a long-term national project. It’s not just me, John Howard kicked it off. You might remember back in 1999 when Prime Minister Howard wanted to put a preamble into our constitution – or a more extensive preamble into our constitution – there was a form of Indigenous recognition in that preamble and then back in 2007, Prime Minister Howard first committed the Coalition to a more elaborate form of Indigenous recognition and that’s something that's been our policy ever since. It’s bipartisan policy. I think it's supported by the overwhelming majority of Australians, but we do have to get it right, and obviously there’s now a process in place that will be overseen by a Referendum Council to see if we can come to a reasonable consensus by the middle of next year on what the precise changes might be.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, when might we see that Council be announced and when are you hoping that those conventions will go forward?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am hoping that the Referendum Council can be announced in the next couple of weeks and I would like to think that within the next couple of months, the community conference process can begin. It was good to sit down again with a number of senior Indigenous leaders just the other day and reassure them that under the umbrella of the Referendum Council, there will be an opportunity for Indigenous people to have their own stream of consultations, because if it’s all about Indigenous people in the end, obviously they’ve got to spend plenty of time thinking about what’s right for them, but because our constitution ultimately belongs to everyone, all of the consultations should take place at more or less the same time and under the authority of a Referendum Council.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, what would you like to see as a practical result of recognition in communities such as this?
PRIME MINISTER:
In the end, what I hope will be the outcome of everything we do is people living better and people living prouder. Living better because the kids go to school, the adults go to work and communities are safe, but living prouder because for the first time in our history, Indigenous people are acknowledged to be absolutely front and centre, heart and soul of modern Australia. This was an oversight – a regrettable oversight – by our constitutional founders a little over a century ago. They were people of their time. They gave us a great Constitution, but in this respect, at least, it’s not perfect.
QUESTION:
A year ago you were promising concrete action within weeks, that was in Arnhem Land, and now we’re here and it still seems, some have said like the process has stalled or going backwards. How disappointed are you that that’s a view coming from some parts of the Indigenous community?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can understand why people are impatient, I really can. It’s a natural instinct when something needs to be done to want to do it today, but it’s more important to get it right. And if we were to rush this and get it wrong, if we were to rush this and come up with something that Indigenous people felt had been foisted on them, or rush it and come up with something that was defeated at a referendum – that would be tragic. So, the process is moving forward. Some would like it to be faster, I accept that, but the important thing is that we get it right and particularly after my discussions with some of the senior Indigenous leaders the other day, I’m confident that the process is on track.
QUESTION:
Do you worry that you won’t be around long enough as leader to make it happen and to see that progress given the Canning by-election? There's a lot of pressure there for the Coalition.
PRIME MINISTER:
This is obviously something which is supported by both sides of politics, which I believe is felt passionately by most of the senior leadership in our Parliament. I think that it probably helps to have a conservative leader taking this forward. Certainly, that’s one of the points that Noel Pearson has made over the years: that just as Nixon went to China and maybe only Nixon could’ve gone to China, it may well take a conservative leader to bring about the ultimate form of symbolic reconciliation.
QUESTION:
What sort of damage has been done to recognition by the toing and froing over the process and really the uncertainty? I mean, in that letter was released on the debate morning in Garma, you spoke of a log of claims that you were concerned about. Has that dissipated?
PRIME MINISTER:
Inevitably, because this is a subject about which people feel passionately, there is going to be some people who go off on this path, some people who go off on that path. The important thing is that eventually all the paths come together. That’s the important thing, that eventually all the paths come together, and I do think that the process is back on track thanks to the discussions that I’ve had with a number of senior Indigenous leaders over the last couple of weeks.
QUESTION:
Is that what the last couple of days have been about, going to see those leaders in person and try and remove some of those tensions?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, this week of focusing on Indigenous Australia and Indigenous issues is about trying to produce a better life overall and constitutional recognition is an important part of that because we should and must be a whole country – a whole nation, at last – and until we do succeed in recognising Indigenous people in our foundational document, we will be a bit torn and I want to end that, but there’s a lot of other things as well. As I said, in terms of people’s daily lives, kids have got to go to school, the adults have got to go to work, communities have got to be safe and here in the Torres Strait, we have high levels, very high levels of school attendance. In TI, not only do we have high levels of school attendance, but we have quite strong levels of academic performance, and of course, thanks to the influence of strong local leadership, they’re pretty good communities. They really are, and they are, in a sense, exemplary in many, many ways.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, can I just ask how you’re going to pay for the tax cuts that have been flagged by the Treasurer today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the important thing is that taxes are lower, simpler and fairer. In the marrow of our bones, we want taxes to be lower, simpler and fairer and the best way to simplify taxes is to get rid of some of them. So we’ve got rid of the carbon tax, we’ve got rid of the mining tax, we’re in the process of getting rid of Bill Shorten’s unique contribution to our tax system – the unused bank accounts tax. So, we've got to get taxes lower, simpler and fairer and to sustain lower, simpler, fairer taxes we’ve got to get spending down.
Now, this Government has a good record when it comes to spending reductions. We’ve already taken $45 billion of savings out of the forward estimates. So, it’s a good story to tell, but we’re always looking for sensible savings and we’re always looking to cut taxes further. The difference between us and the Labor Party is that we believe in cutting taxes, they believe in increasing spending. We believe in cutting taxes, they believe in increasing spending, so if you want a reduced burden of government in your life, there’s really only one choice and that’s the Liberal National Coalition.
Thank you.
[ends]