Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, like most of us in this House, hope that this morning's response to the bloke in the Senate's comments last night is a watershed moment. I hope this from the bottom of my heart. As a resident on my social media said this morning, the vision of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition shaking hands brought tears to her eyes in the hope for a better future. I say this because my community is at the forefront of what has been happening with the criticisms around race. I want to know that, in this chamber, we'll do more than make speeches today. I want to know that we will take action going forward to ensure that we put the race genie, the hate genie, back in the bottle for the sake of my community.

Those who use racism and fear for craven political gain do so because they lack the ideas and the policies to address the economic inequality that is hurting people and their families in my community. I call on this chamber to respond together. I call on my community to say that the way to beat this division, the way to push down your fear when it is raised, is to have an open, warm smile and say 'hello' to your neighbours and to the people you meet in the street. There is one way past this, and that is to join together and agree with this parliament that racism has no place in Australia.

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