Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, we were again unfortunately reminded of the need to protect against racial discrimination in Australia following the very public attack on the 2014 Australian of the Year and AFL legend, Adam Goodes. Goodes is a proud Indigenous man but was subject to online racial abuse following his appointment as a brand ambassador for retailer David Jones. This was just one month after Goodes knocked back the opportunity to take part in the traditional retiring players parade at the AFL Grand Final, knowing that if he did take part he would be booed by thousands of people. Instead, his last public appearance as an AFL player was at the Sydney Swans best and fairest event, an event he preferred to leave the game from as he described it as a 'very safe environment'. Every environment in Australia should be safe for anyone to be free from racial discrimination and hate speech.

The toxic and racially motivated campaign of hatred against Adam Goodes is proof that we must do much more to guard all Australians from discrimination, not water down one of our most important protections, as was proposed by Liberal senators last week. The new Prime Minister faces a serious split in his government with coalition MPs and senators openly endorsing an attack on the race hate speech protections in the RDA. The new Prime Minister talks a lot about mutual respect, so now it is time for him to step up to the task, show some national leadership, distance himself from the comments he made to Andrew Bolt about the watering down of the RDA and the Tea Party ideology of his own party— (Time expired)