…. a walking shadow, a poor
player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more…
Macbeth,
Act five, Scene 5
In Permission to speak: Who controls Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander language use in Australia's Parliaments?, a recent article by Alexandra Grey in the University
of New South Wales Law Journal (vol49(2):489 – 523), Grey provides a comprehensive
overview of the history and use of Indigenous languages in Australian Parliaments.
She usefully compares the various approaches of each Parliament to allowing and
/ or constraining its use, thereby raising deeper questions about the reasons
for the differing approaches. Unfortunately, the article is not available
without a subscription and thus exists behind a paywall.
At my request, Claude Sonnet 5 summarised Grey’s article,
as follows:
Alexandra Grey's article,
published in the UNSW Law Journal, examines a policy question that has received
little scholarly attention: who controls the use of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander languages in Australia's nine parliaments, and on what legal
basis? Drawing on a systematic Hansard review from 1981 to 2023 (86 instances
of language use identified), Grey maps how each parliament's Standing Orders —
the formal procedural rules governing debate — either restrict, tolerate, or
actively encourage the use of these languages, and argues that restrictive regimes
represent an ongoing form of colonial control that should be reformed.
The central finding is that no
parliament has a Standing Order explicitly banning Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander languages, but several achieve the same effect through general rules
against "unparliamentary" or "inappropriate" language,
interpreted by the Speaker or President as requiring prior leave before a
language other than English can be used. Western Australia is identified as the
most controlling jurisdiction: its Speaker has repeatedly required individual
MPs to seek permission each time they wish to speak in language, even within
the same debate, and even after permission had ostensibly already been granted
— a pattern Grey reads as reinforcing rather than equalising power relations in
the chamber.
The Northern Territory
presents a case study in regulatory drift. Aboriginal language use was
unregulated there from 1981 into the 2000s, but by 2015 the Speaker began
ruling interjections in language "disorderly" under the general
unparliamentary-language rule. This prompted a formal Standing Order (23A) in
2016 requiring advance written translation before language could be used — a
rule MPs and advocates argued suppressed spontaneous, reactive use of language
in debate. Sustained advocacy led to that order's repeal in 2019, replaced by a
Continuing Order that still requires notice but allows for funded interpreting.
Grey notes the underlying general order against unparliamentary language
remains on the books and could still be invoked.
Victoria and NSW take a
different approach: they don't directly police language choice, but achieve a
similar gatekeeping effect by bundling permission to speak a language with the
separate requirement that non-member guests obtain leave simply to address the
chamber at all. NSW is highlighted as a positive outlier, having developed a
proactive "message stick" protocol since 2018 that formally invites
First Nations language use into ceremonial parliamentary occasions.
By contrast, the Commonwealth
and Queensland parliaments emerge as the most permissive: neither has ever
applied its general unparliamentary-language rule to Indigenous language use,
and Queensland's rule is narrower still, applying only to the language used in
formal questions. Grey documents a substantial and growing record of Aboriginal
language use in the Commonwealth Parliament under this permissive regime,
alongside the first-ever parliamentary use of a Torres Strait Islander
language, in Queensland in 2018.
The article closes with three
concrete Standing Order reforms: removing NT's advance-notice requirement;
clarifying across all jurisdictions that using an Indigenous language is not
itself "unparliamentary"; and mandating that Hansard always transcribe
language use rather than recording it elliptically as "the member spoke in
language." Grey also raises, without fully endorsing, the question of a
stronger legislated right to use these languages in parliament — modelled on
New Zealand's 1985 reform for te reo Māori — while explicitly cautioning
against reviving 2012-era proposals to constitutionally recognise English as
Australia's official language, which she argues would entrench the very
monolingual hierarchy the article critiques.
Grey’s article is quite long, thorough in its analysis, and
replete with examples that bring the narrative to life. It is clearly the
product of an extraordinary amount of research and consideration and deserves substantial
credit for both identifying and thinking through the issues raised when Indigenous
members of parliament seek to use their own languages to make or reinforce
deeply held views and perspectives. It provides the first comprehensive account
of the extent to which Indigenous languages have been used across Australian parliaments.
In doing so, it provides further evidence (not that we need it) that First Nations
citizens have not lost their unique cultures and ways of seeing and being in
modern Australia.
There is useful discussion in the article of the inter-relationship
between Indigenous languages and policy more generally. I recommend it to
interested readers.
My reservations, which are subsidiary to the vicarious pleasure
and gratitude that I feel in seeing Indigenous MPs speak up for their country
and culture, relate to a more general concern that too much of Australia’s
mainstream culture revolves around performative positioning rather than
substantive action and commitment.
While I do not underestimate the challenges facing any
member of parliament, let alone Indigenous members (who must simultaneously represent
their entire electorate while reassuring their Indigenous supporters that they
are speaking up for their concerns too), the deeper and more challenging issue
facing Indigenous parliamentarians revolves around navigating the lowest common
denominator approaches that are structurally built into our parliamentary democracy
through the dominance of political parties that increasingly exercise ironclad
controls over individual MPs’ actions and stated views. In such a world, the temptation
for an MP is to demonstrate (and perform) their underlying identity to their
core constituencies (whether that identity is an environmentalist, a unionist,
a commercial innovator, or an Indigenous person) while avoiding the hard-hitting
issues and actions that drive substantive reform.
Cynics might observe that this is essentially how all politics
works; I prefer to take the view that most MPs enter parliament seeking to
drive change for the better but are progressively worn down by the exigencies of
political life.
My takeout then is that the use of Indigenous languages in
parliamentary contexts can be an assertion of strength, resilience and independence,
but can also be a performative tactic designed to provide cover for a lack of
substantive action. The use of Indigenous languages in Australian parliaments deserves
to be supported and encouraged; but it is not an end in itself. It is a tool to
break down structural or systemic exclusion but does not replace the responsibilities
that fall on all members of parliament to pursue the public interest (not merely
more limited partisan or vested interests) so as to benefit their constituents
and the nation generally. That is a much harder ask than using language merely
as a performative tool.
The issue of language usage within parliaments also provides
a narrow chink through which to observe and consider the wider questions about
the ongoing performance and effectiveness of our representative democracy (which
is broader than just our parliaments and extends to the nature of our institutional
frameworks). These are questions that are increasingly bubbling to the surface,
only to evaporate into thin air before they can be ascertained let alone
analysed and acted upon. In such a world, parliaments and their members have an
increasingly important responsibility to focus on and protect the public
interest, if necessary, over and above the narrow partisan interests of
political parties and the machine apparatchiks that control them.
4 August 2026
