Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

The motion is seconded. This is extraordinary in this House. The Liberal government, the government members, want to deny this House the opportunity to reject, in no uncertain terms, the extraordinary racism that was on display in the Senate of Australia last night. The Attorney-General of Australia must explain to this House why he supported a white supremacist battle cry being endorsed by the Senate last night. No-one should be in any doubt about the motion that was passed in the Senate with the support of 27 coalition senators and 10 ministers. Think about that: 10 ministers in the government supported that white supremacist battle cry, which, as the Manager of Opposition Business has pointed out, is supported by the KKK in the United States. That's what happened in the Senate last night. The motion was on the Notice Paper for 25 days. The government had 25 days to think about it. The minister who's got responsibility for matters to do with racism in the government, the Attorney-General of Australia, who's responsible for administering the Racial Discrimination Act, had 25 days on which to reflect and work out that this was, in fact, a battle cry of the white supremacist grubs in our country—that this was a battle cry, a slogan, a catchcry that they like to use. If he is the Attorney-General responsible for anti-discrimination, for fighting discrimination in our country, then it's his job to work it out.

There might have been a little bit of warning to him, because this was a motion about racism coming from, of all people, Pauline Hanson. Now he's asking the people of Australia to believe that this was some kind of administrative error. How pathetic. He's pointing to administrative error. Think about what happened in the Senate last night. Government senator after government senator filed in to cast their votes for a racist motion moved by Pauline Hanson, and the Attorney-General and Senator Cormann are now asking the people of Australia to believe that those 27 government senators are just dumb automatons, doing what they were told by the Attorney-General. Maybe they are dumb automatons, as that's what he's saying, but, in fact, this is meant to be the party—the Liberal Party—that boasts all the time about conscience votes and boasts all the time about how they think about the way they vote in this place and how they wouldn't dream of voting against their conscience. Well, they didn't think very much last night.

I think what's actually happened is that the true values of the Liberal Party of Australia have been put on display. I hope that the voters of Wentworth take a close look at what the Liberal Party of Australia did last night in voting for white supremacist slogans. This is a motion from Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. That should have been a little bit of an alert to the government to think a little bit.

Now they want to deny this House the opportunity to vote—the opportunity to vote to reject the Senate's motion passed last night. This, in fact, is the current Attorney-General's 'people have a right to be bigots' moment. The last Attorney-General said that ridiculous thing. This Attorney-General tweeted support. Last night at a quarter to eight, hours after the vote in the Senate, this Attorney-General tweeted support for the motion that he had instructed the dumb automaton senators to vote for in the Senate, because apparently that's what he's expecting the people of Australia to believe—that, because of an administrative error, the wrong instruction went out to 27 coalition senators, and they filed in one after the other to vote in favour of this white supremacist motion.

What happened, we're entitled to ask, to support for multiculturalism in this country? What happened to the rejection of racism? Not so long ago, under Prime Minister Turnbull, this House was prepared to unite to reject the disgraceful things said by Senator Anning in his first speech. What happened to that? What, indeed, has happened to the Liberal Party of Australia, which used to turn its face on racism, which used to say, 'We are a party that supports multiculturalism'? We've had silence from the government. The government have twice attempted to repeal section 18C. They should be ashamed of themselves for that, and they should be ashamed of themselves for their performance in the Senate last night. (Time expired)

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