Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise in support of the motion moved by the member for Scullin. Today is the final day of Harmony Week and yesterday was International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The day was first proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, commemorating, in part, the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. 1966 was 55 years ago, and in many ways the progress we've made over these decades is remarkable, but, in a larger sense, it is also true to say that it seems that very little has changed. Many of the same acts and structures which underpinned racial discrimination in 1966 remain unchanged. You just have to look at what is happening around the world at the moment: the ongoing struggle against police brutality and for full civil rights in the United States, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing in many corners of the globe and the rise of racial supremacist movements and their infiltration of the political mainstream. While the world may no longer look and feel the same as it did in the 1960s, we are still fighting the same battles for equality and justice.

We are lucky to live in one of the most diverse and multicultural nations in the world. I represent a particularly diverse corner of Australia. Darwin and Palmerston, the capital of northern Australia, are microcosms of Australia, and this diversity is our strength. It's the experience of millions of Australians to live in a diverse and multicultural community. Diversity and multiculturalism are ingrained and in the woven parts our national fabric. This reality is an everyday part of Australian life and it's this fact that makes the ongoing racially based attacks on our communities particularly heinous. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that attacks against many of our ethnic communities have seen an increase. We are already dealing with economic dislocation and a global pandemic and some of our multicultural communities increasingly feel under siege and as though they have to justify what none of us should have to defend: our rightful place in our own country.

It is an iron rule of politics that words matter. Political discourse and the rhetoric of our leaders have a real effect on shaping attitudes and driving behaviour. We have seen this with the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose dangerous and divisive rhetoric will be his longest lasting legacy. Even in this parliament, we have seen similarly divisive rhetoric. The government, those opposite, for their part have abandoned their responsibilities to protect our multicultural communities. Not only have they failed to hold to account those within their ranks who sow division; they have made things worse with their own behaviour. This is the same government which keep people and families in detention indefinitely.

In my electorate of Solomon, nine people are still being held in inhumane conditions. One couple from Iran, Afsaneh Ghodsi and Mojtaba Hagthighat, have been in detention for eight years. One year of that was spent in Darwin, in my electorate, in a cramped small cabin. They are genuine refugees. The toll this has taken on their mental health has been significant. They have family here in Australia, including Afsaneh's elderly parents. Those family members have been trapped in an unbearable limbo, waiting in the hope that government may show some humanity and compassion. This situation is completely unacceptable and it is untenable. We have seen people held in similar circumstances in other parts of Australia being released, including in Brisbane and Melbourne, so why not Darwin? The government should take its Harmony Week commitments seriously and immediately free these people to community detention.

I would like to thank the member for Scullin for his excellent motion and for joining the people of Darwin and Palmerston in protesting these inhumane policies and calling for the release of the nine people still in detention. I remind those opposite and I remind the minister, who I've written to several times, that these people are genuine refugees and are not a security threat to our nation. In the spirit of Harmony Week, they should be released to community detention so that the ongoing effects on their mental and physical health stop.

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