Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'It is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die,' said South African activist Steve Biko. We'll take it: the repetitive questions, the relentless negativity, the spin, the outright lies. Why? Because we are fighting for an idea whose time has come! If the Uluru Statement from the Heart was in invitation, then the referendum is a call to arms. It is time to raise our voice for those without a voice.

The fiction of equality means precious little to Indigenous mothers have lost their kids too young, to communities without clean water, to teens robbed of hope. I care. So do the people of Higgins, of Kooyong, of Goldstein—communities those opposite have abandoned! The low road leads to a dead-end town called 'More of the same'. The low road does not lead to Higgins, but the high road does. A great leader said:

This is our moment. … to … reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Yes, yes, yes, we will.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for member statements has concluded.