Radio Interview - Abc Perth - Mornings with Nadia Mitsopoulos

Subjects: Voice Referendum Results, the future for First Nations policy in Australia, Mr Dutton’s backtrack on his promise of a second referendum.

NADIA MISTOPOULOS, HOST: I want to go to Patrick Gorman, who is the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister. He's the Member for Perth, as I mentioned, one of two electorates in WA that voted Yes. And Patrick, good morning to you. You've had some time to reflect on the result. You knew this referendum would be hard to get up. Did you expect such a landslide defeat?

PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE: Look, we did know it was going to be difficult and it wasn't just the Government that knew it was going to be difficult. Indeed, I'm sure those delegates, when they gathered at Uluru back in 2017 and asked for this form of constitutional recognition, knew that they were asking for something

That with the history of referendums, only eight out of 44 being successful, and the last one that Labor successfully took to Australian people being way back in 1946, of course it was going to be difficult. And then that difficulty only compounded when we lost bipartisan support earlier this year in April.

So, it was always going to be tough. But sometimes in politics you have to do tough things and sometimes you have to actually keep your commitments. And that's what I'm really proud that our government has done, which was: we made a commitment to the First Nations people of Australia, in response to their request, we kept that commitment, and we will continue to be committed to the values that were behind that. That value of saying we want to listen more deeply, that value of saying we want to get better outcomes.

And what I'd say to your listeners, whether they voted Yes or No, the Government's commitment to getting better outcomes for First Nations people here in WA is just as firm as it was before the referendum.

MISTOPOULOS: I want to talk more about that in a moment, but do you think this referendum has left the country divided?

GORMAN: Well, we've had one side of the referendum debate talking about division. That was, I found that a bit hard to understand as to how this could divide people. This was actually about bringing people together. But what we know is that this is how Australia in a democracy, resolves disagreements and makes decisions. Our constitutional process is a long process, we've all just lived through that. But this is how we make our decisions.

And if I look again at previous referendums where there have been things where people have disagreed, what we all agree is that we live in this fantastic democracy. We have good ways of making these decisions. And once they're made, it's everyone's job to get on with respecting that decision. And say, well, given that decision to the Australian people, what do we do? And what the Australian people have said to us is, ‘you work within the existing powers you have in the Constitution, work within the existing framework.’ And I completely respect that.

We've been working within that framework for 122 years, but we will look for new ways to use that framework to get better outcomes for First Nations.

MISTOPOULOS: If we just look at the Yes campaign, No voters wanted more detail on what they're actually voting for. Did they deserve, in hindsight, to know more about how a Voice would work, who would be on it, and what the issues were that the Voice would deal with? In hindsight, was that fair enough that that information should have been provided to people?

GORMAN: Well, my experience was that when you would actually sit down with people who would have some of those questions, and I did that at mobile offices, at community forums, out doorknocking, when you'd actually have that conversation, people would be quite satisfied there was enough information to help them make an informed decision. Look, I think we've all got to reflect if we want to have the healthy sort of democracy that has made Australia thrive, whether boiling things down to overly simplistic slogans of ‘if you don't know, vote No.’ I mean -

MISTOPOULOS: But people legitimately were struggling to understand how a Voice would operate. And the difference, I think that was a legitimate concern from both sides. Again, and maybe the Prime Minister, was he too stubborn in not giving more detail?

GORMAN: I would say there was plenty of information out there. And again, I can only go on what I picked up when I was standing on pre-poll and booths, which was I had very respectful conversations with people who are voting No, which were not. By the time we got to the referendum, there'd been so much in people's letter boxes, social media feeds, on the news, in the papers. I think people had read enough and come to a conclusion. I didn't have a lot of people coming up to me. They might have been undecided, but they weren't saying they were undecided because of a lack of information I'm sure there'll be some posts, there will be many, many post referendum bits of analysis and research done. But ultimately, we have to respect that our Constitution is a principles-based document. And any referendum that would happen in the future, and that's probably quite a way off, will still be a principles-based question, because that's the nature of the Constitution we have. It's not a legislated Constitution, it's not an overly prescriptive Constitution, it's a principles-based Constitution. And one thing that I'll always do is seek to engage with people in educating them about how our democracy works, how our Constitution works. And obviously that is the Constitution we have and there's no proposal to change that

MISTOPOULOS: So, what do you do now? What does the government do now? I mean, do you revisit the voice through legislation? I know the Prime Minister's ruled that out, but is that something maybe he needs to look at? I mean, what do you do now?

GORMAN: Well, the Voice concept came out of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and it came to us asking that it be a constitutionally-enshrined Voice. We had a previous government that went through sort of the legislative path and it never sort of came to be. I think I'd also note for your listeners that I know there are some people who voted No on the weekend on the understanding that Mr Dutton, if he was ever Prime Minister, would hold a second referendum. And I note that today he has backtracked on that commitment and some would say broken that promise. But for what we will do, and what I will do as the Member for Perth is I will go in first, go and talk to many of the people who engaged both on the Yes and the No side of this discussion to talk about what are those options going forward.

MISTOPOULOS: Peter Dutton and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price want an audit of Aboriginal funding to work out where all the money goes. Why not have one?

GORMAN: I mean, it's funny, Mr Dutton, who was happy to sit in Cabinet as they racked up a trillion dollars of debt, and the only thing that he actually wants to have an audit on is on Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander programmes. I mean, I think your listeners will see through that. Mr Dutton and the Liberal Party in particular were not particularly careful with money when they were last in government just 18 months ago. To single out one section of programmes really does to me, and I think to your listeners, seem like a lot of politics at a time where actually we need more solutions. Now, that has been the one thing that I take responsibility as a member of the Government to look for. What are those solutions, given the decision the Australian people have made? They gave us their answer on Saturday. I accept that answer, I completely respect it and I accept that we now need to go and look at, well, what can we do? But I'm not going to be able to give you every single one of those answers today. We'll continue to work through it, but it will start with listening, because that is still something that myself and the Government are very strongly committed to.

MISTOPOULOS: I'll leave it there. Appreciate your time. Patrick Gorman there. He's the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Member for Perth.

ENDS