Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion, and I thank Senator Lines for putting it before this chamber. It's very disturbing to hear the comments that people are making in this chamber. This is absolutely critical right now in this country because it is getting worse, and there is deep division in this country where we are meant to be uniting—as people who represent our constituents and the people of Australia. It's deeply saddening that we have a government who is so connected to the far Right, to the fascists, to the Nazis. It's deeply disturbing.

I have been on the receiving end of these racists, these violent perpetrators that don't like anybody else but themselves and the whiteness that they bring. When I was 14 and I started my first job, I rocked up to work one day and there was 'coon' written across the window, in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. When I had my first child, in Lakes Entrance, the skate park had a sign with graffiti across it saying 'all coons must die'. We had the KKK in Paynesville, in Victoria. The far Right are a threat to everybody in this country. They represent hate, they represent violence and they don't want to unite this country. They're not part of this country's identity, nor should they be. I'm just so surprised that so many people on the other side—and we're going to have the other senator come up after me and blurt out the racist rhetoric that they always do, but it's got to stop. We have children watching. Our children have to be safe. There are children being beaten up in the schoolyards because of racism. Children are not born racist; they learn it. They're learning it in their homes and they're learning it from their government. When are we going to truly mature as a nation? When? Stop racism because racism kills people in this country.