Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. On 21 March 1960, dozens of people died in Sharpeville in South Africa when police fired at a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid ‘pass laws’. In 1966 the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the day to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre. Only a year later, in 1967, Australia had its own watershed moment: more than 90 per cent of Australians voted in a referendum to acknowledge Indigenous Australians as citizens and to give the Commonwealth government power to make laws regarding Indigenous people.

It was a monumental step towards reconciliation with our first Australians; as a nation we acknowledged almost 200 years of troubled history, and that is why Harmony Day, which is also today, is so important. It is a celebration of the strong and diverse society that we have built together, and an acknowledgement that more must be done. For me, our Indigenous people cannot be on an equal footing without meaningful employment and a decent education. If you do not have a good education, you cannot get a decent job; if you do not have a decent job, you cannot get ahead in life, you cannot give your children the best start in life—and so it goes on until disadvantage becomes the only thing passed down the generations.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to respect yourself if you live like a second-class citizen. Mutual respect and recognition are not possible without self-respect. My focus is on real results for Indigenous Australians and I will certainly focus on the things that are working to deliver Indigenous people from disadvantage. I have just returned from an extraordinary road trip around Australia looking at the things that are working in Aboriginal communities. I believe that we have a continuing national responsibility—and have had since 1967—to do our best by Indigenous people. Today is yet another opportunity for us to recognise our mutual responsibilities to keep up hope and to work for real and lasting equality.

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