Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (09:57): Firstly, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. This parliament stands on what is, was and always will be Aboriginal land. It is important and right, as more Aboriginal people come to stand here as members and senators. I want to thank our friends from the Torres Strait for that welcome ceremony. It is always astonishing to see the world's oldest culture brought to life right in front of you. On behalf of the opposition I want to give a special welcome to the original warriors for change and their proud family members. Your presence here today enriches this day. It puts a human face on our history. In fighting to be part of the Australian identity, you in fact gifted a larger identity to all Australians. You and your guests simply make us more proud to be Australian. Today we commemorate and celebrate two signal moments in the Australian story, and we honour the heroes who made it possible. The 1967 referendum and the High Court's Mabo decision were triumphs for truth-telling and decency. Both were platforms for further progress. And, overwhelmingly, both were victories authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; people who for so long had been relegated to silent roles and written out of the script altogether finally took centre stage. In 1967 they looked non-Indigenous Australia in the eye and said: 'Count us together. Make us one people.' And, in 1992, the insulting, discriminatory fiction of terra nullius was overturned. While, tragically, he did not live long enough to see justice done, Eddie Mabo kept the promise he made to his darling daughter Gail, who is here today, and he said: 'One day, my girl, all of Australia is going to know my name.' Our country is bigger and better for the courage and endeavour that we remember today. But we should never forget that neither of these acts that we commemorate today sprang from a spontaneous act of national generosity. None of these changes happened by accident. Nor were they given from the gifts of the table. These were earned. They were battles against ignorance, fought in the face of indifference. They were the result of struggle, the culmination of years of campaigning, of grassroots advocacy, of rallies and freedom rides; lobbying and legal wrangling, setbacks and sacrifice. Like all true acts of progress, they were hard fought, hard work and hard won. Victory did not just change our Constitution or our laws; it changed our country for the better. Fifty years is not so long ago. It is not so long ago that fans could cheer the brilliance of a great 'Polly' Farmer, a man who overcame polio to transform the role of ruckman forever. But, at the same time, when he was selected three times as an all-Australian, his Aboriginality meant that he could not be counted as an Australian. It was not so long ago, that Buddy Lea, a section commander in 10 platoon, at the battle of Long Tan, could be shot three times while trying to carry a comrade to safety. He returned home a hero to his brothers in arms. He could have the chance to die for Australia but he could not be counted in the census as an Australian. It is not so long ago that Australian mothers lived with the perpetual chronic anxiety that their child could be taken from them, stolen away from culture, country and connection. And you only have to talk to members of the stolen generation—as the Prime Minister and I did yesterday—to know that that shadow has still not departed. Exclusion from the census was a disgraceful insult, a bitter legacy of the political bickering of Federation and its obsession with 'race'. But far more harm was done by the provision which prevented the Commonwealth from making laws with regard to Aboriginal Australians. This gave successive federal Commonwealth governments an alibi for failure. It left our First Australians at the mercy of a patchwork of arbitrary state policies. They were struggling against institutionalised prejudice which cemented inequality, and denied basic freedoms. It was a racist system which broke families and shattered connections with country; where men, women and children lived with the fear that, on a policeman's whim or an administrator's paternalism, they could be deported from their communities to hellholes hundreds of miles away. We do honour to the people of 1967 and the plaintiffs in Mabo to use today as time to think about the cost of institutionalised prejudice, to generations and to our nation. On the weekend, Michael Gordon wrote movingly of what Indigenous Queenslanders called 'life under the Act'. He spoke with the remarkable Iris Paulson, one of 11 children sent to Brisbane from the Cherbourg mission to work as a servant for pocket money. Iris still carries her 'exemption card', which allowed her to travel and to marry without permission from the authorities. She still carries the memory of Aunty Celia's inspiration—a proud Aboriginal woman who said what she thought at a time when a lot of people were too scared to speak for fear of being pushed back onto the reserves. The Prime Minister has mentioned some of the names but Aunty Celia, Pearl Gibbs, Charles Perkins, Jessie Street, Faith Bandler, Pastor Doug Nicholls, Stan Davey, Bert Groves, Joe McGinness, Chicka Dixon and many others, some of whom we are privileged to have here today, deserve recognition for making the 1967 referendum possible. All had witnessed, and lived with, inequality. Faith Bandler used to talk about her time in Young picking cherries for the Land Army during the Second World War. Chatting with Aboriginal people working on the adjoining property she learnt that they were picking the same fruit, at the same pace, with the same purpose, for less money. Doug Nicholls speed and skill took him all the way from the Goulburn Valley league to train with the famous Carlton Football Club. One night he went into the rooms for a rub-down and the trainer refused point blank to touch him; he would not put his white hands on Doug's black skin. Carlton's loss became Fitzroy's success; Doug went on to become a Fitzroy champion. But he never forgot that night. I welcome his daughter Pam Petersen here today. It is perhaps easy to forget that this world existed, but this is the world that the people we honour today lived in. These were the attitudes and the practices they were up against. Their task was far bigger than one campaign for one vote. It meant breaking the great Australian silence that cheapened and diminished our history. It meant opening the eyes of this country to inequality and poverty and finding new ways to tell a story as old as Australia's European history. In May 1957, a full 10 years before the vote, Pastor Doug Nicholls screened a film in the Sydney Town Hall showing the hardship experienced by Aboriginal people living in the Warburton ranges. It captured hunger and disease. It showed children too weak to brush the flies from their face. One newspaper reported that there were cries of discussed and horror and people openly wept. The meeting, attended by 1,500 or so and supported by the Australian Workers Union, launched the first petition to parliament for constitutional change. It was tabled by the Labor member for Parkes, Les Haylen. In the years that followed, folding tables and clipboards were set up in church halls and shopping strips in country towns and big cities. By 1963, campaigners for change had collected 103,000 names—before the internet, before social media, before smartphones. It was human commitment—face-to-face meetings, persuasive argument. Soon, members of the House started referring to the petitions as 'the morning prayer' because it was the first item of business every day. This was all hard graft—eroding resistance, tackling self-interest, refusing to rest until the issue was at the centre of the political debate. And everything was done on a shoestring budget of small coin donations. And then finally to the referendum, the highest hurdle in Australian politics, asking Australians to vote yes for Aboriginal people. As we acknowledge the champions and heroes here, I want to acknowledge the 90.8 per cent of Australians—perhaps some people here and our parents and grandparents. They too deserve credit for writing a long overdue wrong. The overwhelming verdict speaks of a country that came late to the need for institutional change. But our families did get there in the end. It speaks for a people who refused to take no for an answer. As the celebrated poet Oodgeroo put it: 'The real victory was the spirit of hope and optimism. We had won something. We were visible, hopeful and vocal. We were fringe dwellers no more.' The same spirit lived in Eddie Mabo. He knew who he was and where he belonged. He said that sticking a Union Jack in the sand did not wipe out 16 generations. He took that essential truth all the way to the highest court in the land. And, for once, a justice system which had so often failed and disappointed our first Australians came through. Native title became part of the inherited common law, not dependent on the largesse of government nor taking second place to business deals. Eddie Mabo's victory stretched far beyond the sand and the waters of the island that he loved. It reached back two centuries to eliminate the ignorant lie of terra nullius, and it is enshrined in our laws the bond between the world's oldest living culture and this ancient continent. It also proved that one man with a love for his country and his culture in his soul can change the world. Mabo was a historic decision, and the Keating government made it a historic turning point. Without regard to politics or polls, Paul Keating took the opportunity to ensure that justice was done. He brought Indigenous leaders to the cabinet table itself to negotiate the Native Title Act, including our friend now Senator Patrick Dodson. In the Senate itself, Gareth Evans spent more than 48 hours of the debate on his feet taking questions and fending off an attempted opposition filibuster. And today, we are all the beneficiaries of and the witnesses to the legacy of Paul Keating's courage. But in remembering these historic achievements, we are reminded of that tension—the balance between celebrating success, honouring our past and recognising unfinished business. Reconciliation will always depend upon truth-telling. We love to say that Australia punches above its weight. And it does. Nowhere is this more true than in the brilliant accomplishments of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: scientists making breakthroughs; authors winning acclaim; artists; architects; the rangers on country; Olympians; senators; ministers; Australians of the year; champions in every footy code. This is all true. But what is also true is that the inequality which brought tears to the eyes of that crowd in that Sydney Town Hall in 1957—that inequality, in different forms—still lives with us, stubbornly, obstinately, not yet eradicated. In different guises, paternalism and neglect still afflict our policy-making. 'Empowerment' is said a lot more than it is delivered. In too many ways, not enough has changed in 50 years. Too many young Aboriginal men are more likely to go to jail than to university. Forty per cent of Aboriginal children are in out-of-home care. Children are growing up away from country and from kin, away from their culture, struggling at school during the day and battling the trauma at night. Too many mothers still lose their babies, their precious babies, through preventable disease. Too many of our first peoples grow up with lesser opportunity for good jobs, decent housing, happy family and long life. Changing this means tackling the nitty-gritty of practical disadvantage. It means understanding that what works in Yirrkala might not work in Palm Island, and that what succeeds for the Murri might not succeed exactly for the Pitjantjatjara. It means recognising that every community, whilst linked by their Australianness, has its own culture and its own particular circumstances. But, regardless of the community, every community of our First Australians has the right to participate in the Australian story, and we should do whatever it takes to give them that chance. As a parliament of people, we should come to this task with humility as well as hope. It is why constitutional recognition is hard. It is most hard, but it is most important. Securing a place of honour for the First Australians on our national birth certificate is not the final word or the end of the road. We understand that, but it does say that we are serious—serious about justice, both historical and real. It says that we are prepared to help write a new chapter with Aboriginal people—our first Australians—a chapter which is a story of belonging. It is why the recognition should not be empty poetry authored by white people. It has to be as real as Australia can make it, as meaningful as we are capable, collectively, of achieving. In that spirit we await the conclusion of the gathering at Uluru and the advice that will be presented to the Prime Minister and me and all of us privileged to serve in this parliament. Fifty years ago, to the Holt government's great credit, it did not fund the case against constitutional change. Remarkable, really, that a parliament full of white men, many born at the turn of the 20th century, approved a straightforward statement of the yes case. I quote: Our personal sense of justice, our common sense, and our international reputation in a world in which racial issues are being highlighted every day, require that we get rid of this outmoded provision. If that parliament, in those days, could find common ground on the elimination of discrimination from the Constitution, if they could summon the humility to acknowledge that however firmly they had clung to their old attitudes those attitudes were wrong, then, surely, 50 years on, in a more reconciled, a more confident and a more diverse modern Australia, surely we can find it in our abilities, in our intellect and in our heart to achieve constitutional recognition. In celebrating these old anniversaries and looking back, it does fall to this parliament to ask ourselves the question: what will be our contribution, going forward? The words and the sentiment of everyone here are admirable and excellent, but we will not have the ability to shirk the question that will be asked of us. It is our turn to step up, not to find fault but to find common ground, not to look for the lowest common denominator but to find change, and, hopefully, in 10 or 20 years time, we can say, 'Do you remember when we answered up, when we measured up, when we spoke to the better angels of the Australian nature, and when we actually said that this constitution can afford to recognise our first Australians?' I am grateful for the presence of so many of those who campaigned in 1967, of those who campaigned in 1992—the plaintiffs—and of the family members. You give us inspiration. You do this place honour, and I sincerely hope and promise that we will do our very best to carry that spirit and your courage for the questions we must answer, and we must answer affirmatively for constitutional recognition of our First Australians.