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

by leave—One of the bills in this report is the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2018, which the Australian Greens asked to have referred and which has regrettably not been referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for an inquiry. This bill is part of the slow march down the very dangerous path to authoritarianism and fascism around the world that we are seeing at the moment. That slow march contains an erosion of some of the fundamental freedoms and liberties that we used to hold so dear in Western democracies and in Australia. We used to actually sacrifice lives to defend those fundamental freedoms and liberties.

You only have to look at what is happening around the world now. Look at what is happening in Italy, where they have just announced that they're going to do a census to discover which of the Italian people are Roma people as a precursor to rounding the Roma people up and deporting them from Italy. You only have to look at what is now happening in Trump's America, where children are being ripped from their parents' arms near the border with Mexico, kept in cages and injected with dangerous drugs to treat the very serious psychiatric conditions that that separation from their parents is causing. If you want to look at where this most recent manifestation of fascism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism started, look no further than this parliament and look no further than this country. The words, 'You are worse than I am,' should be ringing in the ears of every Australian right now. That phrase, 'You are worse than I am,' is what US President Donald Trump said—