First Nations Voice to Parliament – Motion

Wednesday 16 November 2022 

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (11:25): I move the following amendments: 

Amend paragraph (a): delete 'and' 

Delete (b) and insert new (b): 

Notes that extensive consultation undertaken by the Commissioner for First Nations Voice overwhelmingly supports a fully elected First Nations Voice, that is able to speak directly to the South Australian parliament; and 

Insert new (c): 

Congratulates the Malinauskas Labor government for listening to the hopes and aspirations of First Nations South Australians in developing a First Nations Voice to the South Australian parliament. 

This motion rightly recognises that this state is home to the oldest continuing culture in the world. For more than 60,000 years, Aboriginal people have called this continent home. We cannot right the wrongs of colonisation, of assimilation or of the stolen generations, but we can commit to reconciliation and take meaningful action to get there. The Malinauskas Labor government is committed to doing just that. It is significant that the very first thing the now Premier did in his victory speech on election night was restate our government's commitment to delivering on the Uluru Statement from the Heart: Voice, Treaty, Truth. 

In July this year, our state's inaugural Commissioner for First Nations Voice, Mr Dale Agius, was appointed. A Kaurna, Narungga, Ngadjuri and Ngarrindjeri man, Commissioner Agius immediately embarked on stage 1 of his consultations with Aboriginal communities across the state. This included more than 30 engagement sessions with communities, listening directly to Aboriginal South Australians about what they want the Voice to achieve, how it should work and how it should be built. 

Just last week, on 9 November 2022, the government released the report of Commissioner Agius' stage 1 consultation. The report details the commissioner's engagement with over 400 people across the state, across seven metropolitan and 17 regional and remote communities. It was an enormous effort and shows just how dedicated this government is to ensuring the Voice reflects the views and aspirations of Aboriginal communities right across the state. 

The report, and the extensive feedback it contains from Aboriginal South Australians, forms the basis of the draft First Nations Voice Bill 2022 released by Minister Kyam Maher last week. The bill proposes a fully elected Voice to Parliament at two levels: a local First Nations Voice bringing together people from a particular region, and a state First Nations Voice bringing together the presiding members of each local Voice. This reflects the feedback we heard from the community. 

People want a say on the issues that matter in their local community. There is no homogenous Aboriginal South Australia, and we should not just have one Aboriginal Voice. But, equally, Aboriginal people want a say on the issues affecting them at the state level, and so the state Voice is a critical component and will have a powerful say on issues affecting Aboriginal people. This includes the right to speak on bills in the House of Assembly, the right to present reports and the right to make an annual address to the parliament. Similarly, the state Voice will have an annual ability to hold engagement hearings, to question ministers on issues affecting Aboriginal communities, and it will have a direct ability to communicate with departmental chief executives through chief executives' briefings at least twice a year. 

Importantly, though, this is not the final bill. Commissioner Agius is now embarking on a stage 2 consultation with Aboriginal communities. Having heard the views of Aboriginal South Australians and used them to shape the draft legislation, we are now going back to them. We want to make sure this bill reflects the vision Aboriginal people have for their Voice to Parliament and we want their feedback on the further details needed to make this work. That consultation is now underway, with a view to having a final version of the bill introduced to parliament early next year. 

I acknowledge the enormous efforts of the Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement, Dr Roger Thomas, and all those who worked on the former Liberal government's Aboriginal Representative Body Bill 2021. Unfortunately, the former government did a significant disservice to Dr Thomas and to the Aboriginal community in South Australia by leaving the development of their model so late that there were only 11 days of consultation on their legislation before it was introduced to parliament. 

The new Labor government has made some deliberate decisions to differ from the previous government's process, which is why we are seeking to amend this motion today. The previous government's bill proposed a representative body that would communicate with a new committee of the parliament, rather than the parliament itself. The body would have been appointed by government at first and was designed to have some appointed seats throughout. Only five of 13 members would have been directly elected by Aboriginal people, and Aboriginal people were only given 11 days to comment on the draft bill before it was introduced to parliament. 

All these were concerns held by Labor in opposition, as we expressed when the former bill was presented to parliament, and are things we wanted to consult on having come to government. The feedback that we have heard from Aboriginal people, as detailed in Commissioner Dale Agius' report, is that they wanted a different approach from the one proposed by the former Liberal government. 

The Malinauskas Labor government is committed to delivering on the Uluru Statement from the Heart at the state level—Voice, Treaty, Truth. We are consulting closely with Aboriginal people on what they want the Voice to Parliament to look like, how it should be built and how it should operate, and we look forward to introducing a bill resulting from that consultation to parliament in the new year.