The Liberal MP Julian Leeser says a voice to parliament is not about “special treatment or privileges” but about getting Indigenous Australians “to the same starting line that other Australians are at”.
Amid rising partisan rancour in the referendum debate, with his own side leading the charge for the no campaign, Leeser told parliament he supported the voice because it was a manifestation of “deeply Liberal and conservative ideas”.
Leeser resigned in April as the shadow attorney general and shadow minister for Indigenous Australians after the Coalition decided to oppose an Indigenous voice in the constitution.
He used the adjournment debate on Wednesday night to share an anecdote about a constituent querying why he was supporting the constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body “when the economy is so tight”.
The Liberal MP said the question was entirely legitimate, but he was supporting the voice to parliament because “my concern, as a Liberal, is that Indigenous Australians are not sharing in this country’s opportunities”.
Leeser said establishing a constitutionally enshrined advisory body was about “Indigenous children, their lives and their future; and trying to create the conditions so that Indigenous children can walk confidently in two worlds”.
It was also about “empowerment, respect and the strengthening of Indigenous civic infrastructure, all within our democratic system”.
He said the disconnect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia was “the root cause of the economic disconnection in Indigenous communities and lives”.
“In our country, the Indigenous employment rate is around 49% – this compares with 75% for non-Indigenous Australians,” he said. “In terms of household income, the latest data of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that 43% of Indigenous adults receive a total weekly pre-tax income of $500 a week or less. The poverty line in Australia is $489 a week for a single person. Almost one in two Indigenous adults live on the poverty line.”
He said closing the gap meant creating opportunity. It meant “jobs, not welfare. It’s about universities not prisons.”
Leeser said the referendum on 14 October offered Australians a moment of shared understanding. He said empathy was often defined as identifying with people “just like us” when the concept demanded something “bigger”.
Empathy was “not about accepting and embracing people because we can see ourselves in them – it is about standing with people and their right to dignity, freedom and self-expression when we can’t see the similarities”.
“I want to invite all Australians to lift up their eyes, and despite their own challenges, to see the gap that does not close,” he said.
“This is a moment of empathy – a moment of shared understanding – and a moment of consequence. I hope that we seize it.”
Leeser’s appeal follows intensifying confrontations between the Albanese government and the opposition about the voice. The current parliamentary sitting week is the last time the chambers will sit before the referendum vote.
On Wednesday, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, declared the Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s campaigning against the proposal was adding “more poison into the well”, which sparked uproar on the opposition benches.
Dutton accused the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney – the focal point of the Coalition’s parliamentary questions about the proposal – of “reading from a script”.
Burney characterised the looming referendum as a one-time chance to achieve appropriate recognition for First Nations people and to establish a new mechanism for listening at the national level. She said the opportunity for a voice would be “gone forever” if the no campaign prevailed.
