PM: Thank you very much to Mark and Patrick for presenting this report to me.
Can I start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and in a spirit of reconciliation, paying my respects to elders past and present, Matilda thank you for the welcome to country. Ron, thank you for once again having us in this wonderful institution.
Can I also acknowledge my ministerial colleague Jenny Macklin and every member of the panel who has worked so hard on this report.
I'd like to say a few words to the panel firstly - I know we did not send you on an easy journey.
We drew people from all different walks of life, we added to you people from across the political spectrum and of course Rachel and Rob are here today, Ken couldn't be with us, and we asked you to work together to prepare this report.
We were very specific about what we wanted done. We wanted you to bring forward a proposal that could contribute to a more unified and reconciled nation, that could be of benefit to and accord with the wishes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, be capable of being supported by an overwhelming majority of Australians from across the political and social spectrums and be technically and legally sound.
It was a pretty big mission.
So thank you very much for your labours right around the country and having done it in such a consultative way and having found the unity to give this report to me today, I genuinely do thank you for that work.
Today this report goes from being the property of the panel, to the property of the nation and that is appropriate, because for constitutional change Australians have to understand and be persuaded of the case for change. It's our nation's Constitution, out people's Constitution, not our Constitution.
And we know that Australians have been slow to change their Constitution, that out of the 44 referendum proposals put, only eight have succeeded. But we should take hope from the fact that of the referendum most successful when presented to the Australian people, it was the 1967 referendum, when people decided that they wanted to say yes to change.
And I acknowledge the young Freedom Riders here today, who are out there once again living that journey and getting people to say yes to change. Thank you for what you're doing.
And of course we learned when Kevin Rudd delivered the apology on behalf of the Stolen Generations, that that moment had meaning; it had great meaning, because around the nation Australians said yes to that moment.
They wanted the apology said, they wanted it said for them and Kevin Rudd delivered those beautiful words.
So now we are looking to the Australian people again, to get involved and to find it in themselves to say yes to change.
So I'm here today to say to all Australians they should get on the You Me Unity website, they should familiarise themselves with the contents of this report, they should start discussing in their homes, with their neighbours, in their community meetings, in their workplaces, in their trade unions, in their churches, this case for change.
They should consider it deeply, because it's so important to the Australian nation. And as the Australian community considers it deeply, it falls to us, to the political leaders of the nation to make sure that we consider it and respond well too.
It is going to take the deepest and strongest sword of bipartisanship, it is going to require each and every one of us involved in politics, whether it be in the Federal Parliament just down the road, whether it be in State Parliaments, indeed whether it be as local government members or other sorts of community leaders, to find it in ourselves to be our best selves, to advocate this case for change, with the maximum degree of unity.
But I am an optimist. I'm taking it as a good open that as I walked in today I met a small girl and she told me her name was Hope. I think that's a good thing and having met that small girl called Hope I think we are joined here today in a hope for the future.
So, as Prime Minister, I am here to receive the report and I am here to say that as a nation we are big enough and it is the right time to say yes to an understanding of our past, to say yes to constitutional change and to say yes
to a future more united and more reconciled than we have ever been before.
Thank you very much.