Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go back to the words of Gough Whitlam on the proclamation of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975 when he said:

There is nothing in the Constitution, or any other document, to entrench or even give expression to the rights of citizens and the democratic ideals on which our society is based. Unlike the United States, we have no bill of rights; unlike the US, our Constitution says nothing about civil liberties. There is a need to spell out in an enduring form the founding principles of our civilisation, and in particular the principle that all Australians, whatever their colour, race or creed, are equal before the law and have the same basic rights and opportunities.

When Mr Kep Enderby moved the bill, he said: 'It should have happened many years ago.' The bill was a significant step in the development of policy and the promotion of human rights in Australia.

Laws against racial vilification and racial discrimination should not be contested in Australia, but sadly they are. We are a country with a history of migration which has yet to reconcile, accept and respect that our first peoples, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, are still not recognised and are discriminated against in Australia. On a day when we celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, WA Chief Justice Martin reminds us that we fail to acknowledge that Aboriginals law is many thousands of years older than that which was created when the English earls and barons bailed up King John on the banks of the Thames near Runnymede. If parliaments are the place which set the example, not only do we need to do more to reflect, in our elected representatives, our multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; we must do it in the acts we debate in this place.

The Racial Discrimination Act has been under attack by the Abbott government, which sought to repeal section 18C of the act. An overwhelming backlash in the community ensured this attack on the act was dropped. But the record shows that the conservatives have tried to water down the act since it was introduced in 1975—indeed, they sought amendments which watered down the act on its introduction—and they have continued their attack on this act over the last 40 years.

Why is it that when there is a clear need for this act in 2015, as there was in 1975, that conservatives continue to attack this act? We saw the extraordinary outcry just a few weeks ago when Adam Goodes did a celebration dance, a recognition and respect of his culture, a tribute to the Flying Boomerangs, an Indigenous youth program run by the AFL, that many commentators thought was outrageous and frightening. Anyone who watched that surely must have seen the delight on his face as he did that wonderful dance. It shows again that racial discrimination in our country continues, unfortunately, to be alive and well.

Why is it that, in the town of Geraldton, my 11-year-old Gidja granddaughter, on my taking her into a shop, said to me: 'I've been in this shop before and I don't like this shop.' I asked her: 'Why?' She told me that when she went into that shop with her mother, a Gidja woman, they were followed around. When I asked Charlee, 'Why was it that you were followed around by the owner of this shop', she said to me, as plain as anything, 'Because I'm Aboriginal.' That is the lesson that Australia has taught my 11-year-old granddaughter. She learnt that a long time ago—long before she got to the tender age of 11.

The Racial Discrimination Act is a good act. We need it, and we need to enact those principles. We need to enact the principles in the parliament and in our everyday lives, because the act, in and of itself, will not end discrimination. But, on the 40th anniversary of this act, I know, and many of my Labor colleagues know, that this act is as needed today as it was 40 years ago. I commend the act to the parliament—and I will continue to defend its operation.