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

Not only is it disgraceful, what a profound statement about freedom of speech, about who they have in mind when they lecture us all about freedom of speech. How is it that the men—and women, but in this case the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General—who stand up in the parliament and say, 'We believe in freedom of speech', then deny Aboriginal Australians and their representatives the right to speak at a committee? That is a profoundly important statement about their values. It is one that reflects most poorly upon them. The Australian people are far better than the behaviour and agenda of the government in relation to this legislation. The community wants to see the parliament toss out proposed amendments to section 18C.

I want to end on this point. In voting on this, and in discussing this legislation, I hope that people in this place can not only think of the rhetoric and the principle and the politics, I hope that in this place they can also have in their minds the experience of the young Muslim woman on the bus or the young Asian boy in the street, or some other member of Australia's multicultural community who is abused because of who they are. Not only is the amendment before this place wrong, but also in many ways what is most wrong and what has been most damaging has been the signal that has been sent by a Prime Minister who believes he is a Liberal moderate, the signal that he is sending in cahoots with this Attorney-General, that this sort of racial abuse is more permissible. I ask my colleagues in this place: think of the people who this legislation is designed to protect and think of the principle, the message, that this legislation seeks to send out to the community, because what it says to the community is, 'We do not believe in this modern multicultural Australia that it is okay for you to be abused because of your race.' That is a principle that we should all stand for.