Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

What a missed opportunity it is for the government to respond to the real issues around Black Lives Matter today in this place. It is a missed opportunity, and I condemn the government for their silence. We saw today the contribution of my colleague Senator Patrick Dodson—a Western Australian, the same as me. He made a powerful contribution, taking note of the high incarceration rates and about the need for change. He challenged the government to say that these are not complex issues. We've seen during the COVID-19 crisis how governments have moved quickly, including the Morrison government. The Western Australian government has moved really quickly. So where there's a political will, there's always a way.

First Nations people have waited way too long in this country for justice and for action. We heard the comments of Senator Malarndirri McCarthy earlier this week. She attended the rally up in Darwin. When she heard government ministers—indeed, senior government ministers—say that those protests were irresponsible, she said:

What's irresponsible here is that for nearly 30 years, we've had over 430 deaths in custody, and there's been no convictions, no arrests, no steps forward.

She went on to say:

This issue resonates far deeper than any other issue in Australia and around the world.

We need to be open to that. Our hearts need to move more quickly to the point that there is incredible change in our country. When there's change occurring, I would say to people that it's time to get on board or get out of the way. Is it any wonder that today we saw that anger from Senator Dodson and that on Monday we saw that anger from Senator McCarthy?

On Monday night on Q+A, who could not be moved by that powerful contribution from Meyne Wyatt—another Western Australian, an actor from Kalgoorlie—about the racism and discrimination that he faces as an Aboriginal person in this country every day of his life? Indeed, my own granddaughter Charlee, a Gija girl, has felt racism. Her family was a part of the stolen generations. She first felt racism, and remembers it, at the age of seven. She watched Meyne Wyatt's contribution, and she said to me that it was incredibly hard to watch. She's 16. I agree, and I felt everything that he talked about in that two-and-a-half minute video. If you haven't watched it then I urge you to do so.

These responses from Australians have of course been in response to the shocking, horrific murder of George Floyd in the US. But it's bigger than that in Australia, and we can no longer deny that we live in a racist country and that our First Nations people are not treated equally. Whilst George Floyd was clearly the catalyst for that outpouring, what it said to our First Nations people, and to the many millions of us who support the need for change, is that we have to get on to the streets. It is time for change, because there's no doubt that for First Nations people in this country there is profound and systemic disadvantage that they confront on a daily basis. As Professor Megan Davis said earlier this week: 'It's impossible to deny that these protests reflect a growing sentiment across Australia that justice for First Nations people is well overdue.' When tens of thousands of Australians take to the streets demanding justice for the 432 First Nations lives lost since 1991 and demanding that the deaths don't continue, we must not sit back and criticise that expression of grief and that expression of anger. We must listen.

But we know that for the entire time that we've had white settlement in this country First Nations people have been killed—massacred—and have been held in custody Whilst we in this parliament have apologised to the stolen generations, and I believe those in the parliament—with a number of exceptions, sadly—genuinely expressed that sorry, we are now seeing a second generation of children being taken away, children being taken after birth and children being taken into the care of state departments. That is clearly not a First Nations problem; it's a problem for all of us. It's something we all have to grapple with, because all of us agree that children are best off, where that's possible, in the care of their relatives, not in an institution, and certainly not in foster care. We know that the denial and failure to recognise that this country was settled as terra nullius has had a lasting impression. We've seen First Nations peoples in this country dispersed and their lifestyles damaged, and white diseases introduced—all of those things that are about intergenerational trauma are still being felt today. And some Australians still don't fully support the historic Mabo decision.

I am pleased to see the Morrison government finally starting to take account of incarceration rates, something Labor has been calling for for five or six years. So that is a positive first step, but it's not enough. I believe that step has come about as a direct result of the protests we saw—that palpable anger that we see in our First Nations communities, which I respect. I want to be part of change, because we do know we can achieve change. Change must happen. We must start to stamp out racism in this country, and it starts with us.