Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In respect of the report of the Joint Migration Standing Committee entitled No-one teaches you to become an Australian, I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The Australian Greens did not support the establishment of this inquiry, because we believed that it would not prove to be a genuine attempt to improve the lives and outcomes of migrants in Australia. Unfortunately, history showed that we were entirely right to oppose the establishment of this inquiry, because, the way this inquiry was run under the chair, it became nothing more than a shameless attack on migrant communities in Australia. It was overtly designed to play one part of the Australian community against another, and was a fig leaf so that Peter Dutton, the Minister for Home Affairs, could have an excuse to deport migrant children from Australia. This inquiry was a stitch-up with a predetermined outcome so that the Liberals could continue their political victimisation of non-white people in this country. This agenda has been made clear through the report's reliance on proven racist Andrew Bolt as though he were some kind of an expert on anything, let alone migration. We also know that the Liberal members of this committee completely misrepresented crime statistics in their majority report by overstating the rate of offending by Sudanese Australians by 40 per cent.

What an absolute farce this report was. What an absolute farce this inquiry was. But what do facts actually matter when you're more interested in running a racist campaign! That's what this inquiry was all about—a racist campaign—and over the last few months this racist campaign, this campaign of hatred, has ramped up more and more. We've had the ludicrous spectacle of Minister Dutton suggesting, from the comfort of his weekly massage in the studios of 2GB Sydney, lovingly provided by Ray Hadley, that the good people of Melbourne were now too afraid to go out for dinner because of Sudanese gangs. Fortunately, the good people of Melbourne have the sense to ignore the paranoid rantings and ravings of the Minister for Home Affairs.

We now, of course, have the elevation of the new Liberal Party senator—or perhaps that should be the new Britain First senator—Senator Molan, which shows how far the Liberal Party has descended into the hands of white supremacists in this country. Let's look at the facts. Senator Molan shared a video of a confirmed white supremacist group, Britain First, that has incredibly strong links to violent white right-wing extremists in the UK. He then doubled down on his decision. He didn't apologise, but—you know what?—just over an hour ago he wiped his whole Facebook page without explanation. It's all gone ta-ta. 'Nothing to see here,' says Senator Molan. That's not good enough. You can't wash the blood off your hands by simply deleting your social media page. He needs to apologise for sharing that vile video created by Britain First.