Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Speaking about the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam said:

The main sufferers in Australian society—the main victims of social deprivation and restricted opportunity—have been the oldest Australians on the one hand and the newest Australians on the other. We stand in their debt. By this Act we shall be doing our best to redress past injustice and build a more just and tolerant future.

Gough Whitlam's words are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

The Racial Discrimination Act was given assent on 11 June 1975. It was then, and remains today, a landmark piece of legislation. The act prohibits racial discrimination in our nation. It makes it unlawful to discriminate against people based on their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin. It makes it unlawful to impair any person's human rights or freedoms in the political, economic, social or cultural spheres, or in other fields of public life. It prohibits acts of racial vilification in public, including through the media, and it provides legal remedies against acts of discrimination.

The Racial Discrimination Act implemented the obligations which Australia took on when we ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It paved the way for many significant milestones in contemporary Australian history. The validity of the act was challenged by Queensland's Bjelke-Petersen government, leading to the High Court's Koowarta decision affirming the Commonwealth's external affairs power—an important and far-reaching decision in Australian constitutional law. The Racial Discrimination Act has played a significant role in ensuring the native title rights of Australia's indigenous people were recognised—more than 200 years after Europeans arrived on this land.

In 1982 Eddie Mabo and fellow representatives of the Meriam people commenced legal proceedings against the Queensland and Commonwealth governments. They sought declarations that they held traditional native title over the lands and waters of the Murray Islands, in the Torres Strait. The Bjelke-Petersen government responded in 1985 by passing the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, a piece of legislation that retrospectively extinguished native title rights without compensation. The High Court then held that this piece of legislation was invalid, because it was inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act. That decision, in the Mabo No. 1 case, opened the way for the High Court's ruling in Mabo No. 2 that:

…the Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands.

It was a ruling that overturned the legal doctrine that Australia was terra nullius—an empty land—when the British arrived. It was a decision that led to the recognition of native title in Australia, and it would not have happened but for the Racial Discrimination Act. The year after that landmark decision, the Keating government's Native Title Act was passed in this parliament. It is an example of how fundamental reforms work their transformative effects on society. It is an example of how progressive reforms can build on one another, and how tackling injustice in one area extends the remit of justice into new spheres.

But it is important to remember that this act has not only contributed to historic breakthroughs like Mabo and the native title legislation—the big news stories that have been in our headlines in years gone past. Every day of the week, in every community around this country, this legislation protects ordinary people from the poison of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination. Last week Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, launched the book I'm Not Racist But … 40 years of the Racial Discrimination Act.In the book, he gives three examples of discrimination:

A man of Sri Lankan background works at a warehouse but finds other employees of Anglo-Celtic background receiving better hours and pay rises; his co-workers frequently subject him to derogatory racial comments and harassment.

Second:

An aboriginal man makes arrangements to rent a room in a boarding house but is told by the caretaker when he arrives: 'We don't take anyone who is aboriginal because there have been problems in the past. This is management policy.

Third:

A woman of Asian background comes across an anti-immigration website on the internet: using inflammatory language involving racial epithets, it encourages people to abuse and attack Asians they encounter on the street.

As Commissioner Soutphommasane explains, these examples are drawn from actual complaints made under the Racial Discrimination Act. They are real life examples of what still does happen in Australia. In each case, the act provided a remedy: damages for the abused worker; an apology and compensation for the Aboriginal boarder; and the taking down of the abusive anti-Asian website.

There are some, including some in this place, who have tried to argue that the Racial Discrimination Act is some kind of gag on people simply expressing their opinions. I suspect that is the view of those of those who almost certainly have never experienced racial prejudice or discrimination. Speaking 20 years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act, Prime Minister Paul Keating made that point eloquently:

Legislation like this does not spring from any utopian vision of society or human nature. It springs from recognition of the less than perfect reality. And it doesn't spring from a wish to punish the perpetrators of racism, but from a desire to protect its victims.

I think that this is the essential point: we come to understand the necessity for this kind of legislation when we put ourselves in the position of the victims of racial discrimination or vilification or worse.

I would ask members and senators of this parliament to heed those words: put yourself in the position of the victims of racial discrimination or vilification, or worse.

The symbolic message sent by the Racial Discrimination Act goes well beyond words in legislation. This act sent a message to Australian society that our parliament believes that discrimination on the basis of someone's race, colour or national or ethnic origin is unacceptable. It shows any Australian who experiences racial vilification or discrimination that we stand beside you. We understand the pain that you, or your children or your grandchildren experience when you are victimised simply because of the colour of your skin or because of your ethnic origin.

In large part, the history of this act has been characterised by a measure of bipartisanship between the main political parties. In large part, that is its history. In large part, this act has a bipartisan history. It is a shame that in the past few years we have seen a break from that shared acknowledgement in this place of the importance of the Racial Discrimination Act.

We in this nation enjoy a remarkably tolerant, democratic and multicultural nation. We have chosen, over our history, to give collective expression to the values that underpin that tolerant, democratic and multicultural nation. The achievement of that fact is not by accident; it is because we have seen community leaders collectively articulate values consistent with this. We have given collective expression to these values in many ways, and I say to this place that the Racial Discrimination Act is one of these. It is a collective expression of our Australian values, a collective expression that Australians ought not be discriminated against on the basis of their race, and it is our collective agreement that we will, together, stand against bigotry and prejudice. For 40 years this act has been part of our collective expression of these important Australian values. I look forward to many more anniversaries of this act into the future.