Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Stirling, which was very ably supported by the member for Moncrieff. The member for Batman talks about wedge politics. The reality is that I know that the member for Batman, in his heart of hearts, is a decent man. He knows more than many in the Labor Party that there are social problems out there and that there are problems because we have failed to accept that there is one law for all Australians. But it is the lunatics in his own party who prevent him, a decent member of parliament, a decent man of decent Labor stock, from addressing the real problems. He knows that those latte sipping, middle-class members who have never got their fingers dirty working as traditional Labor members have in the past do not really understand these problems and he knows they are the ones preventing his party from truly removing the dregs of the middle class that represent the members opposite, as Kim Beazley Sr said. Let us get back to the cream of the working class, Member for Batman.

The first point of the member’s motion is very clear and emphatic. It is about endorsing the rule of law in Australia. The crowning sentiment of Federation was one people and one destiny—a noble and fine sentiment. A century on, we remain one of a handful of nations in the world where the flame of democracy has burned continuously and continues to burn brightly. The member for Stirling has suggested that cultural practices do not lessen an individual’s right to protection under Australian law. It is very hard for the cultural dieticians to accept this, but giving all cultural practices a green light is code for giving the go-ahead for the excesses of customary law. For some in Indigenous Australia, this means the sanctioned rape of women and young children. In some sections of the Islamic community, it means a degraded contempt for women, even perhaps the sanctioning of such barbaric acts as female genital mutilation.

The horrendous case of the 55-year-old Aboriginal elder who bashed and raped a 14-year-old girl because Indigenous customary law stated that she was his promised wife is and has been at the forefront of this debate in recent times. When the elder received one month’s jail for this offence, the Northern Territory Chief Justice, Brian Martin, who handed down the original sentence, admitted that judges and magistrates do get it wrong sometimes and that is what appeal courts are for. That is cold comfort for the 14-year-old girl in question, and that is why members of this fine and noble institution have a right and a responsibility to debate these issues and bring them out into the open. We should not leave it to the timidity of judges who are afraid of being accused of being racist because they uphold one law for all Australians. The left-leaning intelligentsia do not want to talk about these aspects of the debate; they find them rather confronting.

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