Work Text:
Hello everyone, a good day to all and to many. I am here before you to ask a question that should have been answered years before today.
"Should the Australian Constitution recognize the unique status of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander as a way to address historical injustices, promote social justice, and foster a more inclusive and reconciled nation?"
The answer to the question before us is a clear and resounding ‘yes.’ The Australian Constitution should recognise the unique status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and not as a gesture of charity, but as an act of justice. This is not an abstract legal point. It is about the kind of country we want to be, and whether we are brave enough to confront the truth about our past and build a fairer future.
Our Constitution is the rulebook for the nation, and right now, it is a rulebook that begins in 1901, as if nothing and no one existed before that year. That silence is not neutral. It is a deliberate omission, and it tells a story, a story of erasure.
When the Constitution was drafted at the turn of the 20th century, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were excluded from the discussions entirely. The delegates in those rooms were not thinking about recognition or partnership, they were thinking about uniting colonies under a federal system designed by and for white Australia.
Sourced from the Constitution itself:
1- Aboriginal people were not counted in the population (Section 127).
2- The federal government had no power to make laws for them (Section 51 explicitly excluded them).
And lastly, something that we don't need to look at the Constitution to see this:
3- They were denied the vote in most states.
In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution, removing those explicit exclusions. It was a moment of hope. But let’s be honest, it was also incomplete. We removed discriminatory text, but we didn’t replace it with anything that acknowledged the truth: that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been here for over 60,000 years, with cultures, laws, and knowledge systems that are the oldest living traditions on Earth.
So here we are, more than half a century later, still with a Constitution that makes no mention of the First Peoples of this land.
Constitutional recognition is about telling the truth at the highest legal level. The truth that this country was not empty when the British arrived. The truth that sovereignty was never ceded. The truth that the dispossession, massacres, stolen children, and systemic discrimination were not accidents, they were enabled by laws and policies born of a constitutional silence.
Without recognition, we maintain a founding document that perpetuates a fiction: that Australian history began with the Federation of six colonies. Recognition is the first step in rewriting that national story so it reflects reality.
Recognition is not just symbolic. In constitutional law, symbols matter, they guide interpretation. Courts look to the text and its purpose when deciding cases. Embedding recognition could influence how laws affecting Indigenous communities are interpreted and enforced, pushing the legal system toward fairness and respect for cultural rights.
It also sends a clear message to governments: policies must be designed with Indigenous peoples, not just for them. It’s about shifting from paternalism to partnership.
Imagine a future where every Australian child learns a civics lesson that begins not in 1901, but 60,000 years earlier. Where the Constitution itself reflects that our national identity is built on two intertwined truths, the oldest continuous cultures on Earth, and a shared democratic project. That’s not just inclusive, that’s nation-building.
This is a misunderstanding of constitutional law. Yes, recognition has symbolic power, but that symbolism has legal consequences. The High Court has drawn on the symbolic text of the Constitution before, for example, in interpreting implied freedoms. Symbolic text shapes legal reasoning. So, this is not empty symbolism, it is a structural change in the nation’s legal DNA.
This confuses formal equality with substantive equality. Formal equality says, ‘Everyone has the same rules,’ even if those rules are designed for one group’s advantage. Substantive equality recognises that history and power imbalances matter, and that fairness sometimes requires different treatment to achieve real justice. Without constitutional recognition, Indigenous Australians are starting from a structurally disadvantaged position.
What the people voted on in 2023 was one specific model: the Voice to Parliament. It was a complex proposal, poorly explained to many Australians, and targeted by misinformation. The principle of recognition itself remains supported by millions, over 6.2 million Australians voted Yes. A failed design is not the same as a failed idea.
Recognition alone won’t solve every problem. But it is a foundation on which other reforms can stand, truth-telling, treaties, real partnerships in policy-making. Without that foundation, we keep building on the same shaky ground that has produced decade after decade of failed ‘Indigenous affairs’ programs.
We can learn from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, it called for Voice, Treaty, and Truth, in that order. Recognition is part of that first step. It is not the end point, but it’s the doorway through which we must walk.
True reconciliation cannot exist if our founding legal document ignores the First Peoples. Recognition is about honesty, justice, and the courage to write our whole history into our highest law. We owe it to the generations before us, and the generations to come, to finally put truth in the Constitution. And until we do, the Australian nation will remain incomplete.
That closes my research statement, and with that, I bid the people farewell.