Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Right now, more than ever, our parliament needs to promote social cohesion and confront prejudice, ignorance, sectarianism and fear, because, right now, we have asked our skilled and brave men and women of the Defence Force to confront prejudice and ignorance and sectarianism and fear in the Middle East. So today I shall ask the parliament that we, too, measure up to do our part at home to match the efforts of our defence forces, who, as we speak, are preparing to engage an enemy of humanity committing crimes against humanity.

For ISIL and the like, the enemy is not one nation, one faith or one people. Their enemy is the presence of peace. Their enemy is the presence of justice. Their enemy is the presence of religious tolerance. Their target is freedom of worship, freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom itself. We cannot negotiate with this hateful, poisonous ideology, just as we cannot ignore their crimes. So Australian forces are joining an international coalition going to the aid of the vulnerable.

Labor has always put the security of our nation above politics. At a time when we face renewed threats of terrorism in our own streets, our No. 1 priority is and always will be the safety of the people of Australia. We should listen to the experts and be guided by them as to how we best protect this country, our people and our way of life. But, in confronting the threat of fanaticism and extremism on the other side of the world and here at home, we cannot ignore the dangers of prejudice and racism. We must guard against dangerous division. We must recognise that we are stronger and better and safer when we stand together.

On Monday evening in Melbourne, a 26-year-old woman on the Upfield train line was subjected to a stream of racial abuse from another passenger. The young woman was grabbed by the hair and the neck and her head was smashed into the wall of the carriage multiple times. As the train was approaching Batman station, the attacker forced the carriage doors open and pushed the woman out onto the platform. Somehow, miraculously, the young woman walked away on Monday with only grazes and bruises. But how did she board that train on Tuesday? How did she face the world knowing that the way she looks makes her less safe? How does she cope with the fear, the terrifying anxiety and the sense that, everywhere she goes, she is a target for ignorant bullies?

Every manifestation of prejudice does damage. It dents confidence. It undermines our great, inclusive Australian social democracy. It jeopardises our safety; it threatens our security. This exclusion, this denigration, can radicalise the isolated, the vulnerable and the unwell into the hands of extremism. This is the danger that we must confront and act against. As leaders in this parliament, we owe no less to our people; we owe no less to our troops going into harm's way on our behalf. The tiny handful of our citizens who have been drawn to the radical circle of ISIL and their like were not born full of hatred and rage; they were not born for a life of death. But now they are manipulated into the arms of a radical cause that some would die for.

We must ask ourselves in this parliament whether we as a nation, as a people and as a parliament can do more to moderate the angry and engage the disaffected; to temper the prejudice that feeds radicalisation; to display the courage to jealously guard the safety, cohesion and harmony that has long been a cherished part of our society; to shepherd those shunted to the margins and to bring them to the centre. This is an obligation that we as parliamentarians owe all our citizens. It is a duty that we as parliamentarians owe Australia. It is the social contract of our unique and modern Australia—our multicultural nation, enriched, emboldened and enlightened by mass immigration.

People who come to Australia should leave their old conflicts behind. People who come to Australia should obey the one set of laws that governs us all. But, for those who have come across the seas, from every country on earth, they should not have to abandon their religious and cultural practices. Australia's greatness comes from learning that, the greater contact and respect we have with people of different faiths and cultures, the more we learn that our similarities are greater than our differences, the more that we learn that what we have been told to fear is a lie.

We know our differences are not mysterious or fundamental. They are differences in clothing, experience, custom, language and culture. I beseech those—especially those fortunate enough to be parliamentarians in the Australian parliament—who are engaged in strident and offensive language. If we surrender to intolerance, if we submit to prejudice then we betray the very Australian values and liberties that we seek to safeguard and protect. That is why I am disappointed at Senator Bernardi and Senator Smith's attempt to water down legal protections against hate speech. It could not have come at a more ill advised time for our nation. Repealing section 18C creates a foothold for divisive and hateful abuse. It sends an insidious signal that somehow the need to guard against discrimination is reduced. It tips a wing to the purveyors of prejudice. For these reasons Labor joined with hundreds of community groups of all cultures, ethnicities and faiths to fight and defeat these backward-looking, divisive changes, and we will do so again if required.

On behalf of the people of Australia let me give Senator Bernardi, Senator Smith and their supporters the message I believe the Prime Minister should have delivered them: no-one has the right to be a bigot. Bigotry and racism have no place in modern Australia. The security of our nation and our citizens is above politics, and attempting to use national security to justify intolerance—to advocate banning the burqa—is beneath contempt. Let's be clear: when Senator Bernardi describes the burqa as 'a flag of fundamentalism', that is not a security argument. Wrapping a call to ban the burqa in national security is an attempt to make ignorance sound truthful and intolerance respectable, an attempt to give the appearance of solidity to prejudice. Diminishing the real and important security debate to a conversation about an article of clothing diminishes us all, and it makes Australian women who also happen to be Muslim a target for bullying and intimidation.

Today I urged our Prime Minister to follow the example of the Foreign Minister and the member for Bowman and stand up to this ignorance. Martin Luther King once said:

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

For weeks a noisy few have been fanning the flames of this prejudice. Our Prime Minister was silent. Yesterday Labor called upon the Prime Minister to finally show some leadership on both 18C and the ill-informed, hurtful, harmful ban-the-burqa debate. We ask the Prime Minister to lead his party room, not to follow his party room. Instead he said 'the private members bill in question is something that is highly unlikely to proceed'. Sadly, it emerged in the Senate this morning. On the journalists' questioning of the Prime Minister about banning the burqa, he could only dismiss concerns before going on to say:

I find it a fairly confronting form of attire. Frankly, I wish it was not worn.

The Prime Minister—our leader—cannot afford the luxury of discomfort about what some women of religious custom wear. Leadership requires different actions. The Prime Minister cannot preach tolerance while allowing a few of his colleagues to practise intolerance. A true leader cannot unite our nation while urging division. The Prime Minister owes our nation better than this.

A true leader has a responsibility to govern for all Australians of all faiths. Leadership requires the encouragement of the majority to respect the minorities in our democracy. A true leader has the responsibility to build unity and cohesion, not division and exclusion. A true leader leads by example, not with empty rhetoric. The leaders of our nation—not just the Prime Minister, not just me but all of us in this parliament—have a responsibility, I submit, to tackle the fearmongering of the few.

These are indeed times that try nations' souls, but we will never overcome hatred with hatred. We will never overcome intolerance by being intolerant. Australia cannot face the challenges of this moment divided. How on earth do we ask our defence forces to confront intolerance and prejudice, fear and sectarianism if we too do not do the same where we have the opportunity to do so? We are a stronger nation, we are a better nation, we are a safer nation, we are a more noble nation when we stand together, not apart.

See this speech in context