Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do have a present, Member for Fremantle! I appreciate that.

Earlier this week, the ASIO director-general, Mike Burgess, delivered a pointed warning to Australians about the threats that we face. In particular, he acknowledged the increasing threat that far-Right extremism poses to our nation. In my first months in this place—and before I was elected—I spoke out on several occasions about the threat that far-Right extremism poses and the dangers that some of our nation's leaders have caused in stoking it. We have not yet seen the prevalent right-wing terror attacks that have swept through Europe and the United States, but we must be vigilant and we must stand tall against all forms of prejudice. It is alarming that this threat is on the rise 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz.

We are almost at the one-year anniversary of the horrific Christchurch attack which occurred just across the Tasman in which a right-wing terrorist murdered 51 people and injured 49 when he opened fire on a mosque and an Islamic centre during afternoon prayers. That attack has inspired others—on a supermarket in El Paso, synagogues in California and Halle, and shisha bars last week in Hanau. But the Christchurch terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, was from Australia, and his manifesto, which was entitled 'The Great Replacement', made clear that he'd been radicalised by the ideas and tropes of figures of the far Right. He deeply admired a man called Blair Cottrell, a convicted felon known for advocating that Hitler photos be hung in Australian classrooms. Cottrell also helped organise a far-Right rally on St Kilda Beach, in the heart of my electorate—the rally that saw the attendance of disgraced former senator Fraser Anning. The rally, where swastikas and Nazi salutes were commonplace, was advertised as being to discuss the so-called crisis of African gang crime in Melbourne. That was not a campaign confected by the alt-Right in dark corners on the internet. That was a campaign written and authorised by the Victorian Liberal Party which became a cornerstone of their election campaign in 2018 to unseat the Andrews Labor government. Backing them were members of this House, including members of the government—including the Minister for Home Affairs, who made the preposterous claim that Melburnians were too afraid to go out at night because of rampaging African gangs.

Our words and our actions as members of parliament matter. The leadership we show or fail to show matters. The far Right is an extremist ideology that breeds, and feeds off, hatred of Jews, Muslims and others of all sorts of racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. It is an often interconnected community that, as Director-General Burgess pointed out, meets in person and connects in dark corners of the web. I mentioned 'The Great Replacement', the title of Tarrant's manifesto, because this is a direct reference to the far-Right conspiracy theory that globalist elites have a sinister plot to breed out whiteness from Europe, America and Australia, and to flood them with immigrants to make Western civilisation collapse. This 'replacement' theory was even given credence by the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, at an event Tony Abbott attended. What was his response to Orban's comments? He said Orban had 'the political courage to defy political correctness'. The standards we as leaders set in this place and outside it matter. We need to be vigilant against the rise of racism and extremism in our nation and around the world, and we need to call it out for what it is.

I want to also acknowledge that there have been some strong words from the Treasurer this week, who I know understands this problem as well as anyone. While the Minister for Home Affairs has often tried to downplay the threat of the far Right, the Treasurer has stood tall, and he is to be commended for that. We need to call it out for what it is, we need to heed the lessons and the warnings issued by the director-general this week, and we need to realise that education is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against hate.

Finally, I want to commend Victoria's Premier, Daniel Andrews, and Deputy Premier, James Merlino, who announced yesterday that Victoria will make Holocaust education a compulsory part of state school curriculum. All young Australians should grow up with an appreciation of the greatest horrors that racism and anti-Semitism have caused. We must remain united, we must remain vigilant and we must call out the far Right whenever we see it.

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