Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all the other speakers that have talked about this incredibly important issue. There are so many people in this community who are going to ask: what is the point of this legislation if it doesn't protect people from one of the most commonly used forms of abuse, one of the most commonly experienced instances of discrimination that is vilification? It happens every day on the street, all around us. We witness it. Maybe those opposite aren't quite sure what we're talking about. Let me give you some examples: speaking about a person's race or religion in a way that could make other people hate or ridicule them—we see that often enough; publishing claims that a racial or religious group is involved in serious crimes, without any proof—we see that plenty of times; repeated and serious spoken or physical abuse about the religion of another person; encouraging violence against people who belong to a particular religion, or damaging their property; encouraging people to hate a religious group using flyers, stickers, posters, speech, a publication, a T-shirt—we see plenty of that right around this building as we sit here; well, maybe not now, but during the day. Which one of those do you think is okay? Which one of those do you think does not warrant legislating against?

I have a very large mosque in my electorate. A Muslim man was talking to me the other day when I was visiting it. He'd bought a large car—he has a large family; it's a bit of a people mover. He said he parks it in his driveway. He also uses it as a taxi, an Uber—it is his income. Nearly every morning he has to get up before work and wash awful slogans off it. He wouldn't tell me what they said, but he said, 'Ged, they're awful. I can't tell you.'

Another woman came into my office the other day in tears because she had observed a young woman getting on a bus. She was abused so awfully, so vilely, by someone because she had a hijab on. She was in tears and couldn't get on the bus. Someone ushered her away from the bus to comfort her, and the woman said to me, 'Ged, I didn't do anything. I walked past that. I saw it. I didn't know what I could do, where I could turn.' Perhaps if that person knew there was a law against it, something could've been done.

We've heard stories. We heard the member for Dunkley talk about someone in her electorate: a man who was too frightened to let his wife drive their children to sport on the weekend. There might be some people that listen to the Prime Minister, listen to the hubris around this bill, and think: I'm sure there are protections there. I can tell you: we're going to tell those people loudly and clearly that protections against vilification are not there. This bill is not what they think. We will have to tell them that you simply do not care that this happens to them day in, day out. Why don't you care about this? Why don't you? We don't get it. You could make a stand today. The Prime Minister could live up to his hubris and fix this now and support this amendment.

Don't turn your back again, Prime Minister. We've seen you do that before. This is an opportunity to do something decent. This is an opportunity to outlaw vilification—something that people experience everyday, something that will actually make a big difference to people of religion in this country: people in your electorates, people in our electorates and children in schools everywhere, every day. I ask you: support this amendment; do the right thing.

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