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

I rise proudly to support this motion. Senator Anning's despicable comments were a new low in what has been a terrible term of this parliament for race-based hate speech. His speech has rightly been condemned across the political spectrum. But anyone following politics closely could hardly be surprised that we have reached this point. Senator Anning's speech last night was the inevitable result of toxic elements in politics and the Australian media that have fed each other in a downward spiral of hatred, xenophobia and pure and blatant racism.

This coalition government has embraced race politics at its core. It continues to push policies that are designed to exclude and ostracise migrants and people of different race and culture from Australian society. You've got a Prime Minister and Minister Tudge who very gently rebuked Senator Anning last night, but those gentle rebukes belie the fact that they have deliberately and systematically embraced the hatred of One Nation's world view and are now pursuing it with great vigour. The truth is that, in 2018, the only way that the Liberal and National parties differ from Senator Anning is in presentation. The pretence that Mr Turnbull and Mr Tudge are critical is an attempt to con Australia, because, remember, they are trying to introduce mandatory dictation tests for Australian citizenship, and they are trying to introduce the White Australia policy version two. Mr Turnbull supported amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to make it easier to be a racist in Australia. And Mr Dutton and many of his colleagues want to give preferential treatment to white South African farmers.

Victorian opposition leader, Matthew Guy, has made the racial vilification of African migrants the cornerstone of his election campaign. He's been aided and abetted by Mr Jason Wood MP, whose Facebook page is chock-a-block full of racist scaremongering about foreign criminals. He chortles in glee about potentially deporting people. In days gone past, Mr Wood would have been kicked out of the Liberal Party, but Mr Turnbull has made him chair of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Migration.

We've got the con—the bipartisan pretence—that Australia has a non-discriminatory migration policy. That is untrue. That is categorically untrue, because we have a policy of immigration that does discriminate based on mode of arrival, which has the effect of discriminating on the basis of country of origin, which has the effect of discriminating on the basis of race and culture. There are no white people locked up on Manus Island or Nauru. We have a bipartisan policy of banishing people of different races and cultures who arrive by boat to island prison camps where they are tortured and deprived of basic liberties.

It's not just the Liberal Party and the Labor Party who should be examining their consciences today. Sunrise resurrected the career of now Senator Pauline Hanson and indirectly helped Senator Anning get his Senate seat. It's just days since Sky News hosted a violent neo-Nazi for a friendly chat. It's worth pointing out that that same neo-Nazi was given a friendly platform on Triple J, the ABC and Channel 7 in the past. Racist rantings in News Corp pamphlets are now so common they're too numerous to mention. Yes, we should be angry about Senator Anning's comments. In fact, we should be bloody furious about them, but we certainly should not be surprised.