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

It's all about facts. I do agree with the member for Dawson on that. History is about facts. But people are taught some facts and not others. What we need to do in the 21st century is look at history with a fresh filter. We need to look at Aboriginal history. What is the context of Aboriginal history in Australia? What is the context of Australia's history in terms of trade unions and their impact, and how things impact on trade unions? There are a whole range of things that we can learn from that. It's not just the white, colonial history.

Thompson Square is vitally important. It is only one element of Australia's history, but it's an element worth preserving. I'm not of the view that we should be tearing down statues or demolishing them. I think they are a part of our history, and we need to honour that history and learn from it. Sometimes we may need a new plaque on something to better explain part of that history. We owe it to our future to protect significant sites, like Thompson Square. And Thompson Square of course is remarkable in that Macquarie had the foresight to name it after an ordinary bloke. What better Australian story is there than to name a square after an ordinary bloke, right next to a street that is named after the King of England? It's a wonderful middle finger to the royalty of England and a great example of emerging Australian larrikinism. So, we owe it to our future to protect significant sites like Thompson Square, places where history was made, where people have gathered, and places that are important in our history.

I'm not a slavish devotee of colonial history. It is a very good thing that we are re-evaluating with fresh eyes what we have assumed to be our national history. It is a very good thing that we impose new filters on our history—through Indigenous eyes, through the experiences of women and of children who were brought out as little more than slave labour, through the experience of people who are LGBTIQ, or trade unionists, and of course through the experience of migrants. We need to learn from all these experiences and weave together a shared history of this land, a shared history of this nation that we all love, that we all want to see succeed. Thompson Square is part of that history, and what the New South Wales government is doing to it is a terrible shame and should be stopped.

Debate adjourned.

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