Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Picking up on the theme at the end of the member for Melbourne's speech, we did all come from somewhere else. In fact, even the very first Australians came from somewhere else, maybe 65,000 years ago when they made their way to the place we now call Australia. More recently, in 1788, the First Fleet—11 little, tiny boats—sailed into Port Jackson with over 1,000 people on board, including my great, great, great, great grandfather, was, to that point in time, the largest mass migration in world history. And, of course, since then there have been waves of all sorts of people—the Chinese in the gold diggings; many Europeans, including southern Europeans, central Europeans and others, in the postwar era; and, after the terrible wars in Indochina, the Vietnamese and the Cambodians. More recently, waves of people have made their way to our shores from South Asia and the Middle East. The result is that we are indeed one of the world's most remarkable and successful multicultural countries. I would challenge anyone to identify any other country in the world that has been so successful as a multicultural nation.

The result is what I'd describe as being not unlike a mosaic. When you see a mosaic on a wall when you're out and about—and it's a beautiful mosaic with countless colours and hundreds of tiles—it forms a beautiful picture. But, as you walk towards the mosaic, you see that it's actually made up of many individual tiles, each of their own colour. That's how I would characterise multiculturalism in this country. It's not just a big melting pot where everyone's thrown in the pot and someone stirs it up and we get a grey mush. Instead, it's actually a beautiful mosaic, where we celebrate all of the people who have come to our shores and allow them to be what they are and to reflect on where they came from. When you look at all those little tiles in the mosaic and you see all of the different races and all of the different religions and all of the different cultures, I think it's self-evident that not one of those races or ethnic groups or cultures or mainstream religions is inherently bad. They are all inherently good. Whether it be people from Africa, from Europe, from North America, from South America or from New Zealand—from all over the world—they are all inherently good and all of the religions they practice are inherently good, whether it be the forms of Christianity, forms of Islam or anything else.

The problem arises when a very small number of those people act in an extreme way. That's the problem. It's extremism. In fact, when I reflect on my life and the terrible conflicts around the world that I've paid particular attention to, I think of Northern Ireland—Christians killing Christians. When I think of the second worst terrorist attack in US history, I think of Timothy McVeigh, the white supremacist Christian who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. No one race and no one religion has a monopoly on violence. It goes on all over the place from all sorts of people practising all sorts of faith. The problem is extremism. I don't know if Senator Fraser Anning understands the irony that he's the one standing in the other place acting like an extremist. He's the extremist—not the people he criticises, not the people he wants to keep out of this country. He's the extremist. He's the dangerous one.

To pick up on the points made by the member for Melbourne so eloquently, comments like that from someone in a position like that will get people killed. They will inflame hatred in the community, when that hatred is unwarranted. I think it is unforgivable when members of the federal parliament, who first and foremost should be leaders who unite our country, so deliberately tap into the fault lines in our society for their own political gain. If that senator wants to act like that to get himself re-elected next year, then that's unconscionable behaviour. It's unconscionable behaviour that will get people killed, and he is being a really good example of what he criticises: a downright extremist. He should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. I thank the House.

Question agreed to.

See this speech in context