Indigenous just want a seat at table, says Ken Wyatt

Ken Wyatt says an analysis proves a range of ­interest groups are routinely ­invited to influence legislation while Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander people are not heard.

Former Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Former Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt says an analysis of bills that went to the partyroom proves a range of ­interest groups are routinely ­invited to influence legislation while Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander people are not heard before laws affecting them are made.

Mr Wyatt told the parliamentary inquiry into the Indigenous voice on Friday that he was ­reminded of how many groups – other than Aboriginal people – were given an audience with ministers or their departments when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton recently expressed concerns about a voice with the power to speak to executive government.

“Let me say executive government is influenced by external people at all times,” Mr Wyatt told a sitting of the inquiry in Perth on Friday.

“And when you draft legislation, not only is your agency involved, but also external groups.”

Mr Wyatt, the first Indigenous Australian in a federal cabinet, ­offered the inquiry his own analysis of partyroom papers, reading out the names of Morrison government bills that he said had been shaped by early consultation with outside groups. He also ­argued this showed that a voice that was able to advise only parliament would not be effective.

“The notion of influencing legislation once it is tabled in the chamber is erroneous because it is far too late to influence it unless the opposition with the crossbenchers are able to make that amendment,” he said.

Mr Wyatt said he looked at how many Indigenous organisations or communities were consulted on legislation that was valid and important to them in the first half of last year when the Coalition was in power. At the time, Mr Wyatt was Indigenous Australians minister trying to implement a proposed model for the voice.

On amendments to social services laws, carers were consulted but no Indigenous people or groups. Amendments to the Religious Discrimination Bill had input from “many many groups, but not Indigenous people whose Dreaming is their religion and their faith and their belief of our country and our nation and our origins”.

Mr Wyatt said 20 groups were able to offer their views on the Morrison government’s amendments to Centrelink rules affecting families before those amendments went to cabinet but, again, no ­Aboriginal people were consulted.

He said no Aboriginal groups were consulted before the ­Coalition made changes to the bill on subsidised prescription medicine “and yet everybody else was able to provide input to the minister at the time before it went to the partyroom”.

Mr Wyatt said that when the government considered a family violence bill last year, no Aboriginal group or community or individual was listed as having been consulted. “No Aboriginal organisations (were consulted) and yet we know that violence in Aboriginal communities is substantial in some ­locations in particular, and we’ve seen the coverage of Alice Springs. And I could go on,” Mr Wyatt said.

“What we are asking for as ­Indigenous Australians is to be able to sit at the table and say ‘this legislation has merit but we would like to raise some points thar will have an impact’.”

Mr Wyatt, who was born on a West Australian mission, told the inquiry that a constitutionally ­enshrined voice was necessary because past advisory bodies had been abolished when they gave advice that was too challenging or too difficult. He quit the Liberal Party in March over Mr Dutton’s decision to campaign against an enshrined voice.