 That's not a strange language. It's an ancient language. It's the language of my people, the Aryan people, of the southern Kimberley in Buryman, West Australia. That part isn't what you'd call God's country, because God doesn't have it that good. I'd like to welcome you all here tonight, and I'd like to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on his ancestral lands we gather tonight. I'd like to pay my respects to their elders past and present. Tonight's lecture is being held to recognise the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, which was indeed a key event in our nation's history. We're holding this event here tonight as part of the ANU's celebration of this year's reconciliation week. Tonight's speaker, the Honourable Linda Booney MP, was elected as a federal member for Barton in 2016, following a 14-year career in the New South Wales Parliament as a member for Canterbury. Linda is a member of the Wiradjuri Nation. She was the first Aboriginal person to be elected to the New South Wales Parliament. And the first Aboriginal woman to serve in the Australian House of Representatives. She was appointed in 2016, the Shadow Minister of Human Services, in July 2016. Linda intends to talk to you this evening about tooth-telling and generosity, our progress so far and the road ahead. And in her speech, Linda will reflect on the significance of the 1967 referendum in terms of building the nation. What did it mean and what changes did it lead to? And she'll then look to the journey that has been taken since. Where are we now and talk about where we as a nation need to go from here? Linda, we welcome you to the ANU yet again. And I'm inviting you to come on and speak. Thank you so very much, Professor, for that acknowledgement of country and also that welcome. To your people, the Yarrou people, I also pay an enormous tribute. It was a very kind introduction and I want to also recognize Anne Martin, a dear comrade in the struggle for her role in making sure that I was here this evening, as well as her staff. I want to recognize Dr. Azmi Wood, whom I am getting to know through my connection with the Australian National University. And in particular, I'd like to recognize the Indigenous Student Association and the representatives of that association that are with us this evening. And very importantly, I know that the Vice Chancellor, Brian Smith, will join us in a little while at this particular lecture. It's also an enormous amount of gratitude I have for this invitation and an enormous amount of gratitude to all of you that have made the time to come this evening. I'm always astounded by people that come out after a long hard day's work or students that attend evening orations and lectures, and I want to thank you all very much for being here. But most significantly, as Professor Dodson said, to recognize the momentous event of 70 years ago come this Saturday and that, of course, was the 1967 referendum. It seems astounding that it's 50 years on since that referendum. And as I look around the room, there will be some of you that hadn't voted in that referendum, but some of you, of course, that did vote as well. It's wonderful to be here in Canberra on this... I thought it was going to be a freezing evening, but not so chilly. And it's also not a sitting week, which is kind of nice to come down to Canberra to this beautiful city in between sitting weeks. Can I join Professor Dodson in acknowledging the traditional owners of this land on which we gather and on which this university is built? I say Abba Lam Humble, the Nanawul and the Rambi people, Yerabang Marang, and that is in the language of the Waradjri. It says good evening and thank you for allowing me to be here. I pay my respects to the Nanawul and the Rambi, to their elders past and present, and to those First Peoples that are here this evening. This acknowledgement, everyone, is a reminder of the great truth of this nation, one that our maps and our control recently, our public discourse, has denied. Whatever the storied history of Canberra and our parliament and this place, it pales in comparison to the generation of lived human experience of the First Peoples of this part of the land, in fact across our whole country. This acknowledgement reminds us of a number of things which are too often lost in our observance of protocol, sometimes uttered as an afterthought, I am sometimes afraid. But in delivering this acknowledgement, we are reminded that this is a continent built of hundreds of individual nation-states, each with our own cultures, languages, stories and traditions. It reminds us that beneath the map of our arbitrary state and territory borders lays another, more ancient map of those many, many individual nation-states. That before the last 230 years of history, we have another which reaches back to the formation of this land and reaches back to the first sunrise. It also reminds us of the miracle and the strength of the survival of First Peoples, that a culture which predates the birth of Western civilization continues to live to grow and evolve as a living culture this day and into the future. But lastly, acknowledgement of country is an act in truth-telling and that's where I really want to focus many of my comments this evening. Truth-telling is one which recalls the fact of Aboriginal history, the fact of dispossession and the generosity of First Peoples in participating despite that history in the reconciliation process that continues to put out our hand to say, walk with us, stand with us and be in harmony with us as a nation, as a home. This theme, my friends, I will return to later. I suspect that many of the younger people here will not have voted in a referendum in your lifetime. Who fits into that category? Quite a few of you. If you have, you may remember the last time we had a national referendum and the steam defeat of that referendum. Of course, it was the late 90s and it was the Republic. I want you to hold on to that thought as I move through my lecture this evening. A referendum because of its importance in rewriting our constitution has an incredibly high standard for victory, particularly in Australia. In Australia, for a referendum to be successful, it must be achieved in a majority of the popular vote collectively and in a majority of states. Some of the words there has to be a majority of the states and a majority of people that vote for a referendum to be successful. Just the achievement of a yes vote, let alone the positive constitutional change in 1967, was absolutely remarkable in the story of referendum in Australia. Absolutely remarkable. There are a few points I want to make about that incredible campaign back in 1967. Firstly, in 1967 has been in some ways misunderstood as a singular victory rather than a step in a far longer and more complex journey. And that's really important. The 67 referendum in itself was astounding, but it was not the whole story and certainly not part, as I say, of a far more complex and longer journey. But secondly, the second is that 50 years since that momentous vote, it bears reflecting on the elements of our community which still refuse to recognise and remember our past. And thirdly and finally, as we approach the next referendum which will see first peoples recognised in our constitution, what lessons we should take from 1967. It's no small task, I know, but I will do my best and make sure that you do get home tonight for a sleep. The 1967 campaign and that victory has been misinterpreted in the modern imagination in some ways. The referendum was not just a gift to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, it was actually a challenge. Celebrating the anniversary of this event is not enough. It should be a call to action. In my view, the 67 referendum laid the foundation for the next 50 years of civil, social and political rights for Aboriginal people. I know that is in contrast to the views being expressed by some people today, but I truly do believe it laid that foundation. This was an era in which Australia was emerging from the stagnantation of the Menzies years. I was born in those years. Harold Holt was in the Lodge and after decades of negotiation and stalling, he had pushed the referendum firmly into the government's agenda. The remnants of the White Australia policy were still in part in effect back in 1967 in this country. The Seekers were the Australian of the year. The war in Vietnam was beginning to descend into bloody and fruitless conflict. The Guruji had just begun their decade-long walk-off of Wave Hill, bearing fruit to the establishment of the modern land rights movement and one of the most courageous union struggles this country has ever undertaken. Women's Liberation was on the march and we were there in the Vietnam moratoriums. And just a few years before that, Charles Perkins, Jim Spiegelman and their comrades had left Sydney University in those buses to undertake the freedom rides throughout New South Wales. They went to places like Walgood and challenged the orthodoxy of Aboriginal return servicemen not being able to access the RSL Club there in Walgood. They went to Maury and changed the face of that town where Aboriginal children could not use the public swimming pools prior to the freedom rides. Of course, they went on to Kempsey and other places where in those days Aboriginal people had to sit in front of a rope in the very front rows of the cinemas in those towns. These were the things that were happening around the 1967 referendum. For Australians, it was a time in which the whole world began to change. The ground was shifting below our feet. Our national identity and the very way we conceived ourselves was shifting. Australia is an outpost to the British Empire was beginning to face away. It was a time for constitutional change. For the first time in our history, the referendum looked winnable. Make no mistake, my friends, it is this year, as I stand here and share these words with you, 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. 25 years on from the Marbeau decision. 20 years from the Bring Them Home report, which of course Professor Dodson has such an important role in as commissioner. I remember well, Mick, this in the big room in 1997 in Melbourne, you and that old mate launching the Bring Them Home report. The Bring Them Home report, some 20 years ago, of course for me was a watershed in Australian history. It drew a line in the sand that said that none of us could pretend and look away. None of us could say that we didn't know any more. It's 20 years since that national reconciliation invention in Melbourne and friends almost 10 years since Kevin Rudd made the apology to the Solon Generations. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the campaigners for change of that era. They set the bar high and that bar is high, but it is high for a reason. It is high for us to challenge and to go through with this next referendum change. Without them, without those 67 campaigners, it is doubtful that these moments could have occurred. Each of those events was an answering call to the challenge of 1967, but none have been the complete response. Something is still missing. This project is far from over. There is still a truth which remains untold and acknowledged, and which leaves the question of the Australian identity unresolved. When I was four years old in 961, Sir Robert Menzies hosted a delegation of Aboriginal people from the mainland states to talk about the constitutional change of 67. They had already been fighting for years to see a referendum held which would grant Aboriginal people equal rights. There was considerable excitement among the attendees. A meeting with the Prime Minister was in itself a victory for a community almost completely excluded from the political process at that point. Menzies served the guest alcoholic drinks. Menzies served the guest alcoholic drinks. Our Prime Minister at the time was shocked when informed by one of the delegates. I think he was from Queensland that said that it was illegal under state law. In other words, alcohol could not be served to Aboriginal people. The Prime Minister did not know that and was very shocked when informed by the attendees that his act of serving alcohol was illegal under particular state laws. Such was the denial of truth and the refusal to see discrimination in our country at that time. The sitting Prime Minister was himself unaware of this discrimination. This 67 referendum brought Aboriginal people into the broader consciousness. The significance of that vote was not so much in the mechanical constitutional change by the embrace of a yes vote. The referendum did not create an equal playing field for Aboriginal people. We still see that today. It did not end discrimination. Discrimination which we still see today just think Michael O'Loughlin just in the last year as one example. But there is no question friends that it was a high watermark for the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Our victory was a double-edged sword however. Even once we were allowed into that room our voices remained muted. That limited progress also came with a kind of forgetfulness. The view that 67 was the end of the discrimination story is if not consciously held certainly self-consciously pervasive. Increasingly the community cannot imagine a world in which discrimination is socially accepted and so they started to believe it never really was of that it was ancient history. And of course you know and I know it is not ancient history. I was recently just the other night a guest on the Andrew Bolt TV show. It's not something I usually rush home to watch but it was important because I have always and continue to hold the view that we must engage with voices which do not agree with us. In that interview Mr Bolt repeatedly made reference to a new apartheid in Australia. This apartheid was purportedly being imposed on the Australian community by the National Rugby League Indigenous Round. In artwork Mr Bolt found offensive in Melbourne and a push for a new referendum on constitutional change. The question was it was creating a apartheid in Australia and it was divisive and it was also obviously very wrong. The idea behind that allegation doesn't bear examination. It is patently observed. Andrew Bolt's football induced discomfort does not quite compare to Mandela's 27 years in prison to the ban to education system to the ban on mixed marriages in South Africa to the ghettos in Soweto certainly not the deaths in Sharpeville. So what does but what does require exploration is the terminology. The use of that word doesn't just imply hostility towards Indigenous issues. It belies a willful blindness about our past. A apartheid did exist in this country for much of its history though we didn't call it that in Australia. It existed when the first people's children were removed from their families simply because they were Aboriginal. It existed when those for us on reserves had to ask permission just to marry and to move in on and off those reserves. We were denied education beyond the standard required for most menial jobs. We could serve in the military but not drink in the same pubs as our fellow soldiers or enjoy the same benefits on returning back from the wars. We're denied entry to public bails and cinemas and for long hard days spent in the saddle paid with tobacco, salt and rancid meat where our mothers and grandmothers were denied the right to even try on their wedding dresses because if they didn't buy them no one else would buy them. When we who had been custodians of this place for eternity were denied the right to own it or even vote on how it was governed but conservative voices feel free to throw around this term lightly nonetheless precisely because they do not remember this history although I refuse to know it. This view isn't uncommon. I was told by a conservative senator when filming a documentary early in 2016 that the constitution has stood the test of time. It has allowed you to become elected to the parliament. I partly reminded Cory Bernardi that he had and had to remind him that the 1967 referendum and constitutional reform ended some of the discrimination which would have kept me out of the parliament. And I have routinely received correspondence in my office arguing that the 1967 referendum was enough. You've already had one vote to get another. It is troubling how quickly these memories have slipped away from the collective consciousness. I make this point because all these decades on from that vote we need to remind the community that this discrimination is not ancient history. That this discrimination is still permitted by our constitution and that this fight is not over. Section 51 of our national constitution does not just implicitly allow racial discrimination it explicitly condones it. In 1957 was the year I was born in Country New South Wales. Yes, I have just turned 60. For 10 years I lived under for the first 10 years of my life I lived it as an invisible person to the New South Wales government and to everyone else as did many of my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters here tonight. We lived it as invisible people up until the change in 67. I was 10 years old. 90.88% 90.88% in fact we may as well say 91% of the Australian population voted yes in the 67 referendum. It was as close a moment to the national unity as anyone could hope for. In no state did the yes vote fall below 80%. I don't remember the referendum explicitly but I do remember there was something exciting going on at that time as a small child. But I know that before I was 10 I was in some way a non-citizen or at best a second class one. When I gave my first speech in Parliament I said that as a young Aboriginal person looking into the mirror of our country was difficult. Your reflection was at best ugly and distorted and at worst non-existent. The referendum did help to change that for so many. In every sense this was a true nation building moment. The entire community Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal voted together to make our constitution a less discriminatory document. Counting Aboriginal people in the census could hardly be described as the most compelling discussion. As far as functions of government go it is one that is the least exciting unless you had the computer said no last year. Remember the census debacle and the question posed to the people was not a rhetorically emotive one. This was the question posed to the people in 1967 but I want you to think what it meant for Aboriginal people but what it also did to help us walk taller. It said this Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the constitution entitled an act to alter the constitution so as to admit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in the constitution. That was the question. Taken at face value that proposal struggles to capture the public imagination and so the campaigners were smart for the referendum. They framed it differently. They framed it as a debate about the citizenship and franchise of Aboriginal people. The question stopped being about the mechanics of government and became one about the fundamental dignity and rights of citizens. The campaigners of the 67 referendum knew what they were doing. They crafted it as a referendum on fundamental issues of equality and the proposal was in many ways a modest one. There is now a famous photo of my friend the late Faith Bandler, her daughter Lillon and Bishop Garnsey campaigning in 1967 their hand made posters said count us together make us one people. It was a simple but deeply powerful message one which stripped away the bureaucratic reality of the proposed changes and transformed them into something more profound. There can be no doubt that the question which went to the people on May 27 in 1967 all those years ago was not one favored by all Aboriginal people. Treaty, a separate sovereign state and parallel parliaments for all ideas proposed at various times along the path but the leaders of the movement back in 67 saw that the price of purity was defeat. They compromised. They proposed positive constitutional change and a vote on equality which they knew they could win. The community finally after prodding campaigning and advocacy recognized the rights of Aboriginal people to exist in this country as equals. They knew that their victory on that day would pave the way for more in the future. It was what Faith Bandler called the long game. From the steps of the Australian Hall in 1938 where a group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal activists protested their day of mourning for the first time to the referendum to Mabo and Native title. This was all part of a very long game. So we came from that day of protest in 1938 through which where we are now sitting in this hall looking at the prospect, looking at the possibility of another constitutional change and my friends it is a long game. My old Aunt Esther who is now 83 a little girl in the front row of that famous photo from 1938. The work of so many great greats went into this project. Jesse Street, William Cooper, Pearl Gibbs, Bruce McGinnis, Alan Duncan and the list is endless and goes on. We will soon vote again my friends and I hope to see Australia's first people recognized in our national birth certificate. If we succeed it will be a momentous moment of truth telling and will be crucial in achieving change because we cannot do without a national healing. We will all walk taller if there is that national healing. In the 1967 referendum it was about having the status of Aboriginal people formally recognize as much as it was about having the Australian community vote on it. We are approaching our next referendum on first people's issues and it is imperative that it succeeds. If it does we will finally have a national compact which recognizes and acknowledges our true history and tells the truth and depending on the proposal which is put forward one which no longer implicitly endorses racial discrimination within the constitution of this country. But to do this we have to learn the lessons of the 1967 referendum as Professor Dodson said. We must accept that no matter how just and well crafted the proposal put forward is it will mean not if it is not winnable and that is no small task. When it comes to rewriting our constitution the community is conservative only 8 out of the 44 referendums that have been put to the Australian people have passed successfully. Indeed in 1937 Sir Robert Menzies put forward a proposal to make aviation a federal government responsibility on the basis that planes didn't really recognize state boundaries and it was defeated. Referendums are inherently political. We must do our best to win not only the policy but the political one as well. That means engaging with the opponents just as the 1967 referendum people did. It means recognizing that some people will be afraid of change they might even insensitly call it a part time. These attempts to engender fear in the community are fundamentally dishonest and cowardly but they are part of the debate. It could mean for many people that the changes proposed don't go far enough we have to understand those feelings. It means compromising and as I said it means being political. A small community can be won over by a huge margin but it means nothing if they cannot convince the broader one. Recognition will need to be owned by all of us it will be an opportunity for all of us to take ownership of the very real history of discrimination but also the incredible story that is the oldest living culture on earth. Those who seek to amend our constitution to recognize Aboriginal people also need to recognize that every citizen has a stake in that document and that's really important. It is not just Aboriginal people that will vote on this country and there must be ownership. They must recognize that parliaments will not subjugate their authority without very compelling reasons. Constitutional reform is not the business for the naive it is not the business for the faint-hearted. At least one lesson from the 67 referendum and the campaign which came before it more than any other the imperative for pragmatism. Another must surely be the need for political leadership. I am troubled by reports that while a plebiscite of same-sex marriage receipts funding in the latest federal budget there is no money allocated for this forthcoming referendum which will happen next year. For all of us best efforts over the past few years we have seen a lot of progress and progress for all of us best efforts over the last 50 years first peoples remained distinctly separate from the broader community and there is no question about the social justice imperative in identity and the outcomes. This fight for social justice which Professor Dodson so eloquently explained so many years ago when he was the social justice commissioner said this what focus what focuses you in the morning a house with adequate water supply cooking facilities an ability to nourish your children and send them to school it is a prospect of a life of choices and that is a major and important imperative but the truth is but the truth is is that is to treat the malaise like the aboriginal communities until the broader community can accept the truth of our history what is taking place in our communities from a social justice perspective must be understood and must be factored in to the feelings of aboriginal people but of course it has to be about truth in accepting our history aboriginal affairs policy is today more than it has been in the late 1970s deeply, deeply paternalistic a new referendum will not only reform our constitution it will renew the compact made 50 years ago this year it will be a signal that all Australians have to stay in this and like our acknowledgement earlier this evening on a far grander scale a signal of openness to the reconciliation project I've talked often about the power of truth telling inspired by Dr. Alex Bahrain the deputy chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the reconciliation convention as I said 20 years ago back in 97 Dr. Alex Bahrain outlined the imperatives the planks, the anchors of reconciliation they are reciprocity restitution and the most difficult of all the craft of truth telling as a nation will not end the patronising paternalism of government policy for aboriginal people until this truth is told and we can reconcile our past with our present our next referendum will be an opportunity friends to do that but it will not be painless the 67ers knew that they made some progress but that it wasn't the end they understood the value of pragmatism and the necessity of politics they understood that progress is always slow painfully so but they understood the long game and they also saw the opportunity that could not be wasted I will not waste this opportunity and I say to you importantly, neither must you thank you I've got some fans here Linda's kindly agreed to take a few questions and we wind up this evening so anybody's got a question or maybe even a comment yes wait for the microphone please Andrew and I know each other very well we spent a month together travelling through New Zealand and Australia constitutional reform clearly clearly we had different views about that I understand his argument to be that if there is a recognition of Aboriginal people the Aboriginal story and the Australian constitution is somehow or rather divides us as a nation and creates two separate systems of rights we're one group that being the Aboriginal people have more rights than the rest of the population clearly that's an argument that is not correct and it seems to me that that is going to be I suspect one of the main arguments that those that will put forward a no-case to constitutional reform in the non-Aboriginal community in particular will run it will be based on fear it will be based on a different set of rights when in fact those two things are not legitimate in the way in which we're moving forward in terms of framing the referendum yes just have to wait for the microphone I think I think that's going to be a very important part of the debate did everyone hear that question there's a number of points that I'd like to make in relation to that it is certainly true that there is a very a very alive debate within the Aboriginal community about the value of constitutional reform how it sits with treaty is it instead of treaty and of course the issues around sovereignty are very important as well the way that I approach that and I'm clearly someone that is going to argue strongly and has argued strongly that constitutional reform is important and as I made my point in the paper it's not everything it's not meant to be everything and in many ways when you look at the issue of treaty and sovereignty which have been very important issues that people like Ann myself and others have have heard and been part of and been supporters of for a very long time I don't believe and I think it's spurious that the argument being promoted that you can either have treaty or constitutional reform and not both I think that is a a mischievous argument the South Australian Government and the Victorian Government and I understand the Northern Territory Government are very much looking at beginning treaty discussions with the Aboriginal peoples within those states and territories and I suspect that they will be a flow on in other states and territories as well the question is well what do we mean when we say treaty is it about fiscal arrangements, is it about things like places, is it about handbags, is it compensation is it changing names so there needs to be an understanding of what we're talking about there and I would also argue that Aboriginal people have never negotiated our sovereignty and for me that exists there was never a negotiation with Aboriginal people when King George or whoever it was decided that Australia should belong to Great Britain and in many ways the notion of treaty depending on how you want to describe it there are many treaty like arrangements already in existence across this country they're called Indigenous land use agreements they exist between governments and individual Aboriginal nations or individual Aboriginal groups whether it's through native title determinations whether it's through use of resources in the mining industry you look at the Noongar agreement in Western Australia there are many of those agreements that exist across the country and in many ways they could be seen as treaty like arrangements but what is very clear and politically we would be naive not to understand that there is a great desire within the Aboriginal community about a proper discussion and a proper a proper progression of agreement making processes and discussions within this country that is not instead of that is not in place of that should happen alongside my view of constitutional recognition I get that question a lot I'm sorry I've been looking over that way you know a lot of non-Aboriginal people say oh we feel like we really like to do something what is it we can do how can I get involved and my response is always this and it's been something that I have tried to live my life by is that governments can make great proclamations you know very famous people can make decisions and do things in various arenas but it is the humble acts it's the personal acts of individuals like yourselves that make the big difference so don't ever feel that I am just one person swirling around in a very difficult situation or whether it's social justice issues or Aboriginal people and what I do doesn't make a difference because it does it's what you have read what you watch what you believe in what you understand what you talk to your friends about the very fact that you've attended this forum tonight is exactly what what you're asking me the question about you come to listen to the views of Aboriginal people and those humble acts those small acts put them all together you can change a nation and that's how it's done I can't hardly see you but I can hear you in 1901 the states have been responsible for the welfare of and making the laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in those states and I'm wondering if the suggested change the constitution would mean that states are no longer responsible for making laws for Aboriginal people in those states because I've known for example that in some states today Aboriginal people aren't committed to Professor Dodson is probably in a much better position to answer that question than any I don't know if you want to have a crack at that the answer is no, the short answer is no it won't affect the capacity well it depends on what you do I guess but if you're seeking to take out discriminatory parts of the existing constitution that's not going to affect jurisdiction in this area of states and really Cornwall has never been without jurisdiction the 67 referendum actually included us in something we're previously excluded from and from a legal point of being a very negative way because it allows discrimination but not one depending on what the wording is but it won't affect the capacity of someone that will be next will that be the next next section to change discriminatory laws within states you know if you took out some of the provisions of the Commonwealth Commonwealth power makes special laws the Commonwealth still left with a lot of power particularly with the constitutional override power Commonwealth law override state law statutory law and also the racial discrimination act would have to be have to do a bit of work I just take two more questions and then I think there's some refreshments on the side come on this side I'm an old school teacher what's wrong with you fellas there's one here first this lady here hello this can be very difficult particularly with such historical and painful topics and as you said the truth telling in our country has not been so strong and as things of your interactions with other politicians and how you maintain your dignity and integrity on such meaningful I'm pleased you think I retain my dignity so similar to the other question about sort of in day to day and how you sort of it I just think sure I'm not quite sure I think that's just the way you decide how you want to live your life I've and you know as you get a bit older you get a bit more decisive I suppose about what you're going to put up with and what you're not going to put up with the most important thing is to understand that not everyone thinks the same there will be people that will have absolutely diametrically opposing views to you and will believe as strongly as you do in the things that you believe in and I have always had I was raised by my great aunt and uncle who remarkably were born in the late 1890s so you figure out the sums there in the 1960s when they took me on as a little baby you're raised with lots of homilies a stitch in time saves nine and all that kind of stuff but I was always raised to understand that the best way to convince people is by respectful discussion and I was also raised to understand that you get more flies with honey than vinegar and I've kind of used that a fair bit we've got we've had a lot of questions on your left an interest of balance we'll have some on the right one here and one there not that I normally lead that way the girl I wasn't making any a legal statement there the lady there and the gent I think up there on the other side of the someone put their hand up over here but you first and then that that last person you're the second last do you mean the cash dress welfare car? no not so much that I've consulted it's been trialled in communities that are a majority religious so what's your name? Lynn what Lynn is speaking about is the two trials that are being undertaken at the moment by the federal government in relation to what's being called the cashless welfare card now that is a card that quarantines 80% of your Centrelink payment and you have discretion with 20% of it and it is in Seduna and in Kananara in Western Australia I spent some time in Kananara recently with Jenny Macklin and the government has in its budget allocated money for two more trial sites and my understanding is that they're having difficulty finding any other communities that have been up for those trial sites the position of the Labour Party and I will speak carefully about this is that we do not support the roll out of the cashless welfare card across the country and we also are very skeptical about the interim report that's been produced that is being said that this has been a great success because when you actually read those reports properly it is clear it has not been a great success there are people who passionately believe in the card there are people that diametrically oppose it and there are some people in the middle that just say things are so bad in our community we're willing to give it a go but our position is very clear is that we don't support the roll out of the card and we are going to wait for the next six months where there will be a final report and we are also very very clear on the fact that unless there is a unanimous support from the community that this card is wanted in the community it's not just the Shire council or the mayor or the police or whoever saying this is what's needed or the politicians in fact it has to be absolutely agreed on by the whole community unless that's the case and that's up to the community then but the Labour Party is yet to be convinced that it is such a great idea okay we did have one last one there but they seem to didn't want to be identified as being on Linda's right I know that person yes that's a very complex question and your answer will be depend who you are my response on the surface is no but it is interesting that the states are moving towards that negotiation most states and territories have their own constitution and most of those constitutions recognise Aboriginal people that's really important to understand now would there be the capacity for a national treaty I think there's a long way to go with that discussion there's certainly been a proposal in the past but as I said it would have to be clear about what that is around at a national level you would have to think it would be around fiscal arrangements and self-governance so the answer is no it wouldn't impede it but there is a huge discussion to be had in relation to what a treaty or treaties in that context would look like and what they would embrace okay folks that brings an end to these proceedings would you mind joining us for some refreshments in the foyer but before we do could you join me in once again thanking Linda for her presence