Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for the question. The Multicultural Framework Review is an important document that follows a long period of consultation—and I pay tribute to the Minister for Skills for all the work that he did in making sure we have that available for Australia. It starts with a simple view that we are better together—that's the simplicity of it. The fact that we need, quite properly, to have rules around making sure that everybody is safe does not disqualify us from also making sure people feel welcome. We have a series of issues. One is the messages that the government sends—simply having the Multicultural Framework Review at all is an important thing. Secondly, some of the funding measures that have been decided on that flow from that and give some of the emerging communities in particular a better capacity is important work as well. Effectively, you end up with three sorts of events: some events where people get to celebrate their heritage; other events where it's one big celebration and we all celebrate it together; and other opportunities to learn from each other and to understand each other's stories. You need to thread through all of those.

But there's another part of it. We've spoken about the way we talk—and you have referred to racism—very much in the context of the recommendations of the Director-General of Security at ASIO. That's important. It's also a conversation that really did begin long before that. If there is one thing I hope we have now resolved, I hope we have put away the arguments that we had to deal with for nine long years of being told that we needed to lower our protections against racial hate speech. Those comments were made by some people who are now very senior critics. It was the Leader of the Opposition who wanted those protections lowered, and said the Australian people 'don't want to have … officials out of Canberra jamming some sort of language code down their throat'. That was the response to hate speech.

Senator Paterson said, 'If it was up to me we'd put an 18C repeal bill every day of the week until it passes.' The now shadow minister for Defence said, 'That's why we have defamation law, we don't need 18C to sort these issues out.' I put to those who are in a similar position to me and to the member for Warringah: neither the member nor I will experience racism at any point in our lives in Australia, but our neighbours will and our friends will, and words can be bullets. While it might seem like a great way for some people to get a headline, none of us should underestimate the harm it does not just to those individuals but to the fabric of the nation.

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