We need to fix the Constitution, says Social Justice Commissioner

Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the nation’s Constitution is a waste of time, 2UE Drive host Justin Smith recently argued.

There are many things the Constitution doesn’t recognise, he said, the document is dull, and we would be better off if we paid attention instead to the words we use every day.

I agree with Mr Smith on one point: the Constitution isn’t a page-turner and you won’t see copies of it strewn about the beach or left behind in holiday homes.

To be fair to Henry Parkes and his friends, we shouldn’t judge our Constitution by its readability. I’m sure there are plenty of eloquent ones around the world that have allowed despotic regimes and all manner of human rights abuses.

So let’s judge our constitution by its content not its clobber.

While we can all be proud that our constitution has been one of the most successful at fostering a stable, peaceful democracy it still needs fixing (or completing, as our Prime Minister says).

That fixing requires two, inseparable, repairs – ending the exclusion of Australia’s ancient pre-1788 history from the Constitution and removing the provisions that still allow for discrimination based on race.

Our Constitution was written more than a century ago. By then, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had lived in this land for more than 40,000 years, keeping alive the world’s oldest continuous cultures.

But Australia’s founding document did not recognise the first chapter of our national story. Quite the opposite, the whole experience around the establishment of our Constitution was one of exclusion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

We were excluded from the discussions and debates around the drafting of the document and most of us were excluded from the vote to adopt it. Finally, the only mention of us in the Constitution was to exclude us from being counted in the Australian Census and to prevent the Commonwealth Government from making laws for us. These two provisions were rectified in the 1967 Referendum.

Today, Australia prides itself on being a place of fairness. But our Constitution still does not recognise the first Australians. And it still says in Section 25 that the States can ban people from voting based on their race.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were excluded from the drafting of the Constitution and we were excluded from the end result. If you think about the Constitution as being the birth certificate of our nation, it’s as if one side of the family is entirely missing.

We need to fix this.

We need to bring the country together after so many chapters apart. It is the next step in reconciling our past. There have been a number of Social Justice Commissioners before me, and each of them has consistently argued that reform of our Constitution has the potential to reset the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the rest of the Australian population.

Once this reform occurs, our relationships with each other will change forever, for the better. A Constitution that recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will signal to the world that this nation has come to terms with its past.

When we fix the Constitution, it will formally become part of the shared story of every Australian. So all of us will be connected with tens of thousands of years of history that is the long story of Australia.

These changes can only happen if a majority of electors in a majority of states vote for it in a referendum.

Community awareness and support is crucial to success. Over 175,000 Australians have already joined the Recognise campaign. A nationwide Journey to Recognition is snaking its way around the nation, having walked, driven and cycled for over 15,000 kilometres meeting with more than 90 communities.

This is also one of the few issues on which our political leaders agree and this year the Parliament will finalise the words to be put to the people.

Most importantly, I’m confident this is something most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want.

I heard it as a member of the Expert Panel as we visited communities throughout Australia. I heard it on the Journey to Recognition. I heard it again this Australia Day. I hear it wherever I go as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

It’s now time to crack on and complete the task.

Mick Gooda is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. This opinion piece also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.