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

I rise to contribute to this matter of true public urgency. Our people are no strangers to infectious diseases to which we have no immunity. And some of the government senators speaking to this motion do have some nerve. Just yesterday, leaked secret government documents showed that our people are being infected with COVID at rates up to three times higher—Aboriginal people in this country are being infected at rates three times higher—than the rest of the population. Is that continuing the genocide that the colonial project had intentions to do 240 years ago? Is this the sophistication of genocide today or what? The government provided this data to the advisory group on COVID-19, marked as 'confidential, not to be further distributed'. This is data on black lives in this country that the government are being secretive about. If you're doing such a good job, then why don't you want people, our people in particular, to know that you're making us sicker? You're killing us, still.

Fifty years ago, when government health services were failing us badly—as usual—we took the driver's seat and set up Aboriginal health services right across this country. That was 50 years ago. We did that based on self-determination and free, prior and informed consent and holistic health. Today our services are the best in the country, and government models your services on ours, particularly health, legal aid and child care. But our services don't get the funding, do they? We're just left at the bottom of the heap, to scrape up the scraps as per usual. So, again, government is failing us, and Morrison is trying to hide the fact that his failures are putting our people at risk. In public, this government talks big on closing the gap; but, in private, they know that they are making us sicker. And, let's be honest, you don't care. We're on the bottom rung. But love a good dot paintin', don't youse!

Our people are strong and resilient, and, when we are free to choose our own path, this whole country benefits. Everyone deserves to be treated with equal respect and dignity, and Morrison ignores so many calls from our people. You have to stop the genocide in this country against the First People.