Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The true matter of public importance that we should be debating here today is the racism that pervades this country—the racism that was expressed by Senator Pauline Hanson in her contribution just previously.

The true matter of public importance we should be debating here today is the ignorance of the racism that is experienced by First Nations people—by black people and by brown people; by non-white Australians—every day. We don't have equality in this country; we have discrimination, we have prejudice, we have ignorance and we have deaths. The true matter of public importance that we should be debating here today is the deaths of 437 First Nations people in custody in the almost three decades since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and it is the continued racism and violence experienced disproportionately by people of colour, here in Australia and across the globe. That record, that racism and that discrimination are why I decided that I had to attend the rally in Melbourne on Saturday. It was in response to First Nations peoples and the organisers of that rally who were calling for settler allies to protest in solidarity with them. They made that call, and I made the decision that I needed to be there in solidarity with them. None of us would normally choose to protest during a pandemic, but we do not have a choice when black lives are being lost and our government refuses to do anything about it. Black lives are already at risk every day in Australia. Black people around the world are more likely to die from this pandemic.

Since that 1991 royal commission, not only have there been 437 Indigenous deaths in custody—and that total has increased by five just in the last week—but not one person has been convicted over any of those deaths. Racial injustice in this country is so bad that people feel they do need to protest during a pandemic, because black voices have not been heard.

That royal commission was almost three decades ago, and yet the racist institutions in this country are still causing the deaths of people like David Dungay and Tanya Day. I feel particularly strongly about Tanya Day. She was a woman about my age. She died because she fell asleep on a train. She died in custody 17 days later. If I had fallen asleep on the train having had a couple of drinks, I know that I would not be dying in custody 17 days later.

The movement in the US sparked by the murder of George Floyd has resonated so strongly in Australia and expresses the fault lines of injustice in our own home that people feel compelled to come out to express their anger and their grief. Protest is never popular, but it's an important expression of that community grief and it can bring about change. And we've seen that the protests in Minneapolis have brought about change. The council has pledged to defund and dismantle the city's police department.

If the coalition was serious about antiracism and justice for our First Nations peoples and people of colour across this country, there would not be a pressing need to protest. In May, when restrictions were still in place, the Prime Minister did nothing to stop the anti-5G people and declared that it's a free country; however, when it's a protest he didn't like then suddenly it's something that should be quashed and condemned.