Dr THEOPHANOUS (11:34 AM) —I want to refer to a number of issues which do come out of the report of the Joint Select Committee on the Republic Referendum but which also have a broader basis in relation to the whole question of the republic referendum. Recommendation 2 of the committee, in paragraph 3.19, reads:

The Committee recommends that cl.11 of the Nominations Committee Bill be amended to require the Prime Minister to, as far as practicable, have regard to the diversity of the Australian people when appointing community members of the Nominations Committee.

As far as I am aware, that amendment has not taken place.

This actually goes to the heart of the concerns that I have about this whole referendum process. A number of members have expressed their concern that the community has not been allowed to really participate in this process. I think this is one of the issues which have led a number of people to go for a no vote in this referendum. I do not agree with that approach but I can see where they are coming from because they feel that the process that has been put down is not really reflective of the true nature of the Australian nation as it is today.

The emphasis that I want to talk about is the multicultural nature of the Australian nation. That clause which refers to the diversity of the Australian people specifically came out of a discussion as to whether, first of all, there was going to be a sufficient number of women represented on bodies such as the nominations committee, and also whether there was going to be representation from people of ethnic and indigenous or Aboriginal background. What has happened is that this proposition has been ignored on the basis that the government feels that it can do the right thing and it does not need to have any legislative requirement.

You would not want to be relying on the recent experience of what has happened in the area of multicultural affairs and the ethnic communities as a basis for great confidence in the Prime Minister taking this matter into account. The fact of the matter is that we have been going backwards in the whole area of multicultural affairs in the last few years. We have been going backwards in the area of consultation with the ethnic communities in the last few years and, of course, we have not made progress in the area of indigenous reconciliation or indigenous affairs in the last few years.

I think it has been estimated that about 40 per cent of the population of Australia is either of non-English speaking background or has at least one parent that is of non-English speaking background. You would not know it looking at the representation, for example, in the federal parliament, in the state parliaments or in other bodies in this society at the top levels. You would not know that. Never mind looking at our general mainstream media where they seem to make a major point of trying to represent Australia as a monocultural society, rather than as a multicultural society.

But this is a matter for another debate. What is important at this point, however, is how we are going to ensure that the nominations committee actually takes into account the multicultural nature of Australia. How are we going to ensure that there are enough people on the nominations committee from non-English speaking backgrounds and from indigenous backgrounds? How are we going to ensure, in other words, that the nominations committee reflects the actual nature and multicultural character of the Australian society?

This is a question and maybe if we had a minister responding to this debate, we might get some answers, but unfortunately we do not have a minister responding to all the important issues which members are bringing up in relation to this matter.

The attitude is reflected in, for example, what has happened in the preamble debate. The Prime Minister has moved away from certain aspects of his original preamble, which was so old-fashioned and ancient you would think it might have been written 50 years ago instead of today. He moved away from that to some degree.

There is still not in the preamble any reference to a commitment to Australia being a multicultural society and to the values, philosophy and ideas of multiculturalism. There is no such commitment given, even though we still have the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs and we still have a minister, supposedly, with responsibility for immigration and multicultural affairs. The Prime Minister has a lot of difficulty even using the word `multiculturalism'. He does not like it at all. We know that; that has been his history for the last 20 years.

Nevertheless, you would think, given that it was a government position, that there might be some attempt to include reference to the fact that Australia is a multicultural society, or supporting our multicultural society, or supporting and affirming the fact that the Australian people believe in multiculturalism—which, by the way, they do. Notwithstanding the propaganda of some of our mainstream journalists who keep attacking multiculturalism, the fact is that the majority of Australian people have shown in various ways that they support multiculturalism.

Given all of that, it was of concern that there was no reference to it in the preamble. It was particularly of concern to me that the Democrats, who have a very strong policy on multiculturalism, appeared to make no effort to include reference to multiculturalism in the proposed preamble. This concern has been expressed by a newly formed group with which I am associated, called the National Multicultural Support Group. The Victorian convenors of that group are Councillor John So, Professor Tasos Tamis and Mr Bill Cope—all prominent activists in multicultural affairs in Victoria. They issued a statement on the day on which the preamble suggestion came out, in which they stated as follows:

"The Prime Ministers new Constitutional preamble not only fails Australia's indigenous people, it also fails to positively affirm the values of multiculturalism. There is no acknowledgment of the positive features of our multicultural society or the need to respect our cultural diversity."

. . . . . . . . .

We believe that the reference to the role of immigrants in building the Australian nation is welcome, but it does not go far enough. The preamble should have referred to the often-expressed desire of the Australian people to live in a multicultural nation, one that respects and fosters the diversity of our cultural traditions.

We call upon the Senate to reconsider this issue by adding to the first clause to the Preamble. This first clause states: "proud that our national unity has been forged by the Australians of many ancestries."

We ask that the following words, or an equivalent, be added: "and, on this basis, affirming our support for our multicultural society."

We call upon all parties to show their commitment to our multicultural society by supporting an addendum of this kind.

We also wish in this statement to support the indigenous people of Australia in their request that their custodianship of the land of Australia be recognised. The preamble should be changed to accommodate this request.

Only through the recognition of our multicultural society, and the rights of our indigenous people, can we hope to unify the nation.

This important statement reflects, from what I have been able to determine in discussions with representatives of ethnic communities' councils and other multicultural groups around the nation, the view of many people in ethnic communities that there should be greater recognition of those communities—the role that they are playing in Australia and multiculturalism in general in this constitutional process—in the preamble and, as I have mentioned, in the nominations process.

If we do not have sufficient people of these backgrounds on the nominations committee, how are we going to ensure that the short list for the position of President will at least include people from a diversity of backgrounds—an Aboriginal background, an ethnic background, as well as people of an Anglo-Saxon background? Unless we have a committee which is going to be fair in its determination of this process and in which Australians have confidence as reflecting the whole of the Australian nation, then obviously we are not going to be in a situation in which there will be confidence in the process.

I hope that, in the run-up to the referendum and when it is passed—and I will have some concluding remarks about that—we will be assuring people from the ethnic and Aboriginal communities that they are going to have equal access to the rights given under these new provisions for the determination of the President.

That leads me to another point about the actual argument in terms of the constitutional referendum. Obviously, we have a large number of people from our ethnic communities who do not speak or read sufficient English. In the constitutional referendum debate, are we going to have material provided to them in the various key ethnic languages? If we are not, then I think it will be a serious gap in a genuine debate amongst the people with respect to the referendum, because there will be significant numbers of people who will be confused.

I think the majority of the ethnic communities are going to vote yes in the referendum because they do want a change, they do want progress. Nevertheless, just like every other Australian, they are entitled to hear the points of view in their own languages. What provisions are being made by the government to ensure that the various parties are going to be putting out material in the ethnic languages so that people understand the arguments in their particular language? I have not heard much about this. I do not know what provisions are going to be made. I am just saying, `Let's hope that, because there's a short period of time and translations and the production of material take time, people are already actively putting their minds to this.' And I would say that this is a responsibility which the Prime Minister himself ought to be taking up—not pushing it off to other bodies, not pushing it off to some subsection of a subsection of the department of immigration, but actually making it a responsibility of his own department.

If we are, as I say, going to have a debate which is going to be informed and in which all of the Australian people are going to participate, then those people who have come from other countries—who have become Australian citizens, who love Australia and who want to participate in the society, but whose English may not yet be sufficient to understand the full complexities of the debate—need to be able to be informed in their own language.

Notwithstanding the deficiencies that have been mentioned about this referendum, even the fact that the committee's recommendation has been rejected by the government—the actual recommendation—I still think that much progress can be made with a positive yes vote in this referendum. It is only progress; it is not the final answer to all of our constitutional problems. Far from it. Big changes need to be made to the Constitution in the future, including the guarantee of people's rights—a bill of rights, for example. But we do need to do more, and I would urge everyone to vote yes in the referendum. (Time expired)