Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

No-one in this House condones violence and everybody in this House would say clearly that under our legal system lawyers will plead and judges and juries will rule. But, hearing the member for Stirling speak to the motion, I am still not quite sure why this motion has been brought into the House. That the House reaffirms ‘that every Australian is entitled to the full protection of the law’ is unexceptional. Indeed, who could disagree? That is why I invite the member to consider that the Senate last week voted to hold an inquiry into the practice of state and territory governments withholding the wages of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers—and I am assuming the member includes those actions within the contemplation of this motion. Is the member referring to the provision of sufficient police resources in communities that are under stress—

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