NSW Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm has questioned the historical roots of Indigenous Australians as Australia’s first inhabitants, calling for a historic Constitutional reformation—currently gaining increasing support—to be delayed until Indigenous Australians can be officially confirmed as Australia’s first peoples, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Leyonhjelm’s comments have come on the same day as LNP MP Ken Wyatt, Australia’s first Indigenous Member of the House Of Representatives, introduced the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples report to Parliament – a bipartisan call for the removal of discriminatory language of Indigenous Australians in Australia’s Constitution, as well as for their recognition – through landmark Constitutional reform.
Leyonhjelm told reporters in Canberra of his opposition to the constitutional reform. Strap in for this one.
“There is a serious debate in anthropological circles, as to whether or not the Aborigines were the first culture in Australia. It’s not something on which I’m taking sides, all I’m pointing out is that ifthere is any doubt at all, then you have to say, ‘well, why would you put history into the constitution under those circumstances?’. It’s not been done before, we don’t put history about other things into our constitution, why would you go there?”
What Leyonhjelm fails to address is that even if “anthropological circles” do have questions about the first peoples of Australia, shouldn’t we be recognising the peoples who have suffered from a sordid history of abuse, discrimination and neglect at the hands of their Colonisers and subsequent Governments, for hundreds of years, regardless?
David Leyonhjelm added that time for thorough research into the timeline of Indigenous Australians arriving on the land mass that was Australia, tens of thousands of years ago, is needed. Just give anthropologists a hundred years or so to figure it out, Leyonhjelm says, then we’ll talk.
“Let historians and anthropologists fight it out, and perhaps in a hundred years’ time there will be more evidence to suggest one was right and one was wrong.”
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon promptly swooped in to bluntly criticise Leyonhjelm’s comments as “fanciful” and “insulting” to the plight of Indigenous Australians, and the effort to introduce historic Constitutional reform and recognition.
Opposing the constitutional reform, Leyonhjelm claimed that shelving the issue of “race” altogether could be a solution, arguing that Australians would be overall happier if “all race references were removed from the constitution.”
In his introduction of the report to Parliament today, Ken Wyatt urged Parliament to “deliver a positive outcome” over the issue. Wyatt claimed that the “contextual silence” in the Constitution was “deafening” for Indigenous Australians. “Engage, inform yourself, participate. This is a time to walk together. Let us complete our constitution, let us recognise,” Ken Wyatt said.
The committee proposes for Parliament to debate the Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples report on July 6 this year.
via SMH, Herald Sun.
Lead image by Stefan Postles via Getty.
