Kim Beazley wants Australians to vote Yes for an Indigenous voice to parliament to show respect

The former Labor leader, deputy PM, ambassador and governor recalls growing up aware of the injustices perpetrated on Indigenous Australians and his father’s advocacy for equality.

Former Labor leader Kim Beazley. Picture: Gary Ramage

Kim Beazley remembers Indigenous boys and girls forcibly separated from their parents coming to the family home in Perth for a meal in 1950s and 60s, and shaping his belief in the ­dignity, opportunities and rights that should be afforded to the First Australians.

His father, Kim Beazley Sr, had been an early advocate for land rights, for removing racially discriminatory provisions in the Constitution, and as education minister in the Whitlam government allowed for Indigenous children to be taught in their own language at school.

“We always had kids coming out to spend a bit of time with us,” Mr Beazley told The Weekend Australian. “What those kids were actually experiencing, who had been through our house, it shocked me absolutely, and did very much affect my response to the Stolen Generation.”

When the Bringing Them Home report on the separation of Indigenous children from their families was tabled in parliament in May 1997, Mr Beazley was opposition leader. His emotional response, calling for recognition of past wrongs and supporting reconciliation, had been evoked by reading the ­report coupled with his own memories of meeting survivors.

Beazley Sr, elected to federal parliament in 1945, was responsible for adding support for land rights to the Labor platform in 1951 and was the first to speak about it in the House of Representatives in 1952. He was involved in the Christian social justice movement, Moral Re-Armament.

Mr Beazley, who served as a senior minister in the Hawke-Keating government, as deputy prime minister, Labor leader, ambassador to the US and governor of Western Australia, said the voice referendum was about showing respect and courtesy for Indigenous Australians, and would elevate our international standing.

“It’s not some product of a woke agenda in Canberra,” he said. “It is a product of what Aboriginals actually asked for. And they weren’t actually asking for this to be the vehicle for land rights or to intervene routinely in the ­affairs of the nation. It was simply asking that their views be heard.”

The constitutional referendum to enshrine an Indigenous advisory body with limited remit and no legal or spending power posed no risk to parliamentary authority, does not require the government to follow its advice or risked litigation, Mr Beazley said.

“It is quite simply a recognition of the Aboriginals as a part of our community,” he said. “It would mean that we have shown the rest of the world and, and shown ourselves, that we regard the views of the Aboriginals as important, not for those views to direct us, but an opportunity for those views to be heard.”

Mr Beazley was Labor leader during the republic referendum in November 1999. He said the voice was very different to the that vote and monarchists should have no concern about this modest change to the Constitution.

“You could be a constitutional monarchist and take the view that this was fine, and you could be a republican and take the view that this was fine,” he said.

“Vote for courtesy. Vote for a position that shows we are ­listening.

“We are lucky to be cohabitating a continent with the oldest civilisation on Earth. It’s a good thing for us to let that play on our minds.”