Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

  (i) on 21 March 2017, Harmony Day, the Senate passed a motion that acknowledged "the success of Australia's laws in protecting Australians from discrimination on the basis of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, key to Australia's success as a multicultural society",

  (ii) the comments of the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, that "Here in Australia we have no tolerance for anti-Semitism, no tolerance for racism, no tolerance for anybody who seeks to demean or de-legitimise or dehumanise somebody because of their race or their religion or their culture", and

  (iii) the comments of the Coalition to Advance Multiculturalism, a collection of twenty organisations, that "The Turnbull Government's decision to pursue watering down of protections against racial vilification is utterly shameful and at odds with the principles of multicultural Australia";

(b) calls on all members of the Parliament to acknowledge the importance of legislative protections against actions that offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people on the basis of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group; and

(c) reaffirms its commitment to a multicultural Australia in which racism and discrimination have no place.