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

I thank the Senate for the courtesy. I move the following motion:

That the Senate—

1. acknowledges the historic action of the Holt government, with bipartisan support from the Australian Labor Party, in initiating the dismantling of the White Australia Policy;

2. recognises that since 1973, successive Labor and Liberal/National Party Governments have, with bipartisan support, pursued a racially non-discriminatory immigration policy to the overwhelming national, and international, benefit of Australia; and

3. gives its unambiguous and unqualified commitment to the principle that, whatever criteria are applied by Australian Governments in exercising their sovereign right to determine the composition of the immigration intake, race, faith or ethnic origin shall never, explicitly or implicitly, be among them.

Yesterday in this chamber we saw a speech that was not worthy of this parliament. We saw a speech that did not reflect the heart of this country. We saw a speech that did not reflect the strong, independent, multicultural, tolerant, accepting nation that we are. We saw a speech that did not reflect a nation which has been built by people from every country, every part of this world—a strong independent multicultural nation. Instead, we saw a speech that sought to divide us. We saw a speech that sought to fan prejudice. We saw a speech that sought to fan racism. I say again—and I know this is a statement that so many in this country support—that a nation that is divided is never safer. A nation that is divided is never stronger. Making others lesser, fanning prejudice and discrimination, has never made a nation safer.

It is so important that we in this chamber express our view, our positive view, about what values matter to us. We have built this country, a country that is the most multicultural nation on the face of the earth, not because we have allowed prejudice to persist, not because we have allowed discrimination to exist, not because we have accepted division but because we have stood against it. We have built this country because we have stood for unity, for a collective, for community and for values of acceptance and respect, values that are intrinsic to who we are. What we must do as a parliament, and that is what this motion does, is assert those values again.

There are many times in this chamber—and we saw them in question time yesterday and no doubt we'll see them again—when we have a bit of a barney, when the partisan system is at its finest or perhaps at its least fine. But the times in our history that have been of most importance on these issues have been when our parties have worked together, when our parties have stood for the values that have built modern Australia, when our parties have stood for the values of acceptance and respect and have stood against discrimination and prejudice. That is the history of Australia, and it is your history as much as it is ours. Today let us demonstrate that again. Let us demonstrate again that bipartisan support for those Australian values of inclusion, acceptance and respect; a belief in equality; the rejection of racism; the rejection of prejudice; and the rejection of division. Let us support tolerance, acceptance, respect and equality. Let us stand for that because that is the best of this country.

I want to say something on a human level. Think of what might be happening in some of the schoolyards in Australia today. Those of us who've been on the receiving end of racism know what it feels like and know that what leaders say matters. To be prejudiced against a group the first thing you have to do is diminish them, to say that they are somehow lesser and not deserving of the empathy that you would want for yourself and your family. That is the worst thing about the speech that we saw last night—because it sought to make one part of Australia less worthy of empathy. That is the first step in prejudice.

So I ask this chamber to support this motion and I ask us to reflect on what is the best of who we are and why it is so important that we do not allow any of our fellow Australians to be as diminished as they were in yesterday's speech and, more importantly, why we must go forward, particularly the parties of government, adhering to the central values that are at the heart of the Australian nation: tolerance, respect, acceptance and equality.