Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion to reaffirm Australia's bipartisan commitment to equality irrespective of race, creed, colour or origin, was moved by the Prime Minister on 10 October, just 47 days ago. It was another era because, on 10 October, Donald Trump was not the President-elect of the United States and Steve Bannon, a close ally of America's Neo-Nazi movement, was not the new Chief Strategist in the White House. When I put my name down to speak to this motion, I never intended to talk about America, but we must talk about it. There is a direct relevance to what is going on in America and the subject of this motion in Australia.

Before becoming Donald Trump's campaign chief of staff, Steve Bannon used to run a political website called Breitbart. Breitbart started out publishing news with a conservative viewpoint—somewhat like a hybrid of The Australian and TheDaily Telegraph newspapers. It was journalism but through a right-wing, wind-them-up prism with inflammatory headlines. Under Bannon, Breitbart became extreme, spreading the lies about Obama not being American. In July this year, Bannon bragged that he had transformed Breitbart into 'the platform for the alt-right movement'.

Because of Bannon, the alternative right and its leader, Richard Spencer, gained notoriety, influence and access to the political mainstream. Last week—in fact, just days ago—a video emerged of an alt-right conference held in a federal building in Washington DC. This is how TheNew York Times newspaper reported Spencer's address:

He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the "children of the sun," a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J Trump, were "awakening to their own identity."

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. When Mr Spencer, or perhaps another person standing near him at the front of the room—it was not clear who—shouted, "Heil the people! Heil victory," the room shouted it back.

You do not have to take TheNew York Times's word for it; there is a video—Nazi salutes and all. So let us be clear: the alternative right is an avowed movement of white supremacists—a group described by journalist Shaun King, who writes for the New York Daily News, as 'the KKK without the hoods, skinheads with suits and ties'. The alt-right has been enthusiastically supported by Steve Bannon, and Steve Bannon is now the chief strategist for the White House.

As journalist Shaun King reported earlier today:

When you build, fund, and promote the online home for the modern-day Neo-Nazi movement, and openly brag that you have done so, that makes you a supporter and enabler of Neo-Nazis. If someone built, funded, promoted, and openly admitted to creating the online home for the latest iteration of ISIS, you know what they'd be called? Terrorists.

So what does all of this have to do with Australia and the motion we are discussing today? We do not live in a vacuum. We cannot ignore what is happening in America, because it is happening across the Western world and it is starting to happen here—UKIP, Brexit, the deeply troubling rise of Le Pen's fascist National Front in France, far-right parties in governing coalitions across Europe and the re-emergence of One Nation in Australia.

In just the past week, the immigration minister made a deplorable comment that the government led by Malcolm Fraser 'did make mistakes in bringing some people in'. The minister went on to refer to Australians as 'second and third generation migrants' and sought to justify his comments by stating that the children and grandchildren of Muslim migrants from Lebanon were overrepresented as national security threats.

What the minister did not do was offer an explanation as to what mistake he believed the Fraser government had actually made. How, for example, would he have liked the government of the day to screen migrants? What was it about the screening process that was deficient? What magical device could have screened a migrant to check whether their child or grandchild growing up here might turn out to be a national security threat? I wonder whether the minister might make this wondrous device widely available so young couples can be screened now to see whether their children will end up being criminals. Perhaps he can screen me to tell me whether my future grandchildren will one day smoke pot—or worse, vote Liberal!

The code behind the minister's reprehensible comments was that the mistake made was that these migrants were Muslim or Lebanese, or both. If there is another way of reading it, I would like him to explain it to the parliament. So we have a minister this week criticising a decision to allow Lebanese Muslim migrants into Australia when, just 47 days ago, we had the Prime Minister move this motion to recommit to Australia's equality principle irrespective of race, colour, creed or origin. A lot sure has changed in 47 days.

This motion is proudly supported by Labor. My preference would have been to use this speech to talk in more detail about the many great things that immigration has provided Australia and how pleased I am that a commitment to equality continues to cross the political divide. After all, I am an immigrant. I arrived here in 1975, with my parents, at the age of seven. My brother was four. Our family became citizens. Of course, to run for election to this place, I was required to surrender my dual citizenship with the United Kingdom. But, apart from being called a pom at school and learning that you do not wear socks with sandals, I never really felt like an immigrant. I have always known in the back of my mind that, when we talk about immigrants in this country, we are not really talking about poms or kiwis; we are talking about people who are not white or whose first language is not English.

My parents left family behind when they brought us here, but the language, culture and religion were largely the same. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like for people from Lebanon, whether Christian or Muslim, or the refugees from Vietnam, who arrived with just the shirts on their backs. But the vast majority of immigrants to this nation forged bright futures here. The success of Australia's immigration is testament to both the commitment of immigrants to their new country and Australia's willingness and ability to provide a welcoming new home. In the fields of science, mathematics, business, politics, education, the arts and others, immigrants and the children and grandchildren of immigrants—Australians—have made wondrous contributions. They deserve better than to be lumped in with the pitiful handful who have turned traitor.

I have spent much of this speech talking about what is happening in America—because, to address a problem, you first have to acknowledge that there is one. And there is a problem in the White House when someone like Steve Bannon has the President's ear. As the Leader of the Opposition said in his statement in reply to the Prime Minister: 'We need to do more than mouth words of respect. We must thoroughly and publicly reject racism wherever it occurs and whoever says it. There is no place in Australia for extremism no matter the party, no matter the agenda, no matter the importance of their vote.' I too believe we must call out racism when we see it, even—or perhaps especially—when it is given a home, a voice and a platform at the highest political levels of our most important ally and good friend, the United States of America.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 16:00

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