Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that the tenor of political debate undertaken within this place has deteriorated from the standards expected by the Australian people;

(2) recognises that this place has a responsibility to elevate the national political debate to enhance and encourage social cohesion within Australian communities;

(3) commits to the eradication of the exploitation of race and ethnicity as a political tool within this place; and

(4) agrees to eliminate the use of language corrosive of national unity and cohesion.

Australia is a country of immigrants, forged from the very first Australians who came to this ancient land more than 65,000 years ago. Since that time we have unfortunately wrestled with racial tensions. Those of us alive now are not responsible for white dispossession, but we live with its consequences. Despite many governments' efforts, we have not yet managed to right the wrongs inflicted on First Nations people at colonisation. Most recently, the Voice referendum was associated with a dramatic spike in racism and discrimination against First Nations Australians, resulting in an increase in Indigenous suicide rates across the country. In recent decades, our generosity to people seeking asylum in this country has also waned. We have falsely claimed that refugees have thrown their children into seas and that they've lied about rape and violence visited upon them. We have abandoned them on foreign soil. We have detained them to the point where they suicide because we have robbed them of hope.

The horror wrought by Hamas on 7 October 2023 resonated around the world. It forced Israel to defend itself from those attacks and to fight to retrieve its hostages. It left the Jewish diaspora shocked and traumatised by the unspeakable physical and sexual violence inflicted by Hamas. But the extent and the nature of the Israeli response in Gaza has been utterly heartbreaking. There have been many, many thousands of innocent lives lost—children, women, men, journalists, nurses, doctors, teachers, aid workers—with millions of desperate people repeatedly uprooted from their homes without safety, without medicine, without food and without water. Gaza has been razed before a disbelieving and grieving world's eyes.

Sadly, antisemitism has been a well-documented and increasing concern in Australia for many years, but things have recently worsened, and it to our great shame that in recent months Jewish citizens have, in many cases for the first time in their lives, felt discriminated against and targeted on the streets, in schools and on our university campuses. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that Australians feel safe. All Australians must feel safe, respected and free to profess their faith in their workplaces and in the streets. We have to all stand together against antisemitism.

We also need to recognise and respect the great sadness and anger felt by so many people about the terrible destruction and loss of life visited upon the people of Gaza. Those emotions have been amplified by feelings of helplessness in the face of an Israeli administration which seems intransigent to the urgings of governments, the UN and the International Court of Justice to halt the killing of innocents, to respect international law and to work for a sustained peace.

In Australia, our democratic and human rights based values have to include respect for artistic and academic freedom and the right to peaceful protest. Two things can be true at the same time. We can be horrified by the actions of Hamas but also devastated by the terrible tragedy of the devastation of Gaza. Like the hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who demonstrated against their government last week, we can support the State of Israel but not its government's actions against the civilian population of Gaza.

It is to this country's shame that the distress felt by so many Australians about this terrible war has in many cases been stoked by rhetoric and wedge politics in this place. Politicians from the Left and from the Right have deliberately fomented dissent and anger at a time when we need reason and respect. Most Australians are generous and accepting. We want our leaders to watch their words and their actions, to provide a means of acknowledging differences and to acknowledge that both Indigenous and white Australians need to be able to feel that this wonderful island home is our home; that both Jewish and Muslim Australians can fairly and reasonably feel great grief and anxiety about the war in the Middle East; and that we must continue to offer refuge to the dispossessed and the homeless. Our nation looks to our leaders to show compassion and mercy. We owe Australians nothing less. We are and will always be a country of immigrants, and we are better because of that.

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