Constituency questions
Eastern Victoria Region
Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (12:41): (365) My question is for the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples in the other place. Reconciliation with Australia’s First People is at the forefront of the whole country’s mind right now. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is the largest consensus of First Peoples on the proposal for substantive recognition in Australian history, and it is the result of a long road of consultation and research, without even mentioning the decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism that came before it. My question for the minister is: how is Victoria implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart? The Uluru statement calls for recognising the true 65,000-year history of our country and listening to First Nations people on issues that affect them. It will help to close the gap between First Peoples and other Australians on key quality-of-life measures, including the fact that Australia’s First People die earlier and, despite their long history on these lands, are significantly less likely to own their own home. I am proud to support the Uluru statement, including the upcoming referendum, and I call on everyone in this chamber to support it too.
Melina Bath: On a point of order, President, a constituency question relates to somebody in your constituency. That was a general, broad-ranging question and did not relate to a constituent in Eastern Victoria Region.
The PRESIDENT: I was distracted. I will review that. I would warn that there has been a bit of that going on, which I have not really been too fussed about, in other constituency questions in previous weeks. I will review it, and if people want us to tighten up, we will tighten up across the board.