David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[simultaneously interpreted into Auslan] President, for more than 2,000 generations, First Nations peoples have lived in this land, raising their children in culture and on country according to law passed down through generations. There's wisdom and power in this history that this parliament refuses to acknowledge, but I acknowledge it here, and I recognise the long history of First Nations led resistance to violent dispossession and genocide.

This place is on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. I was born on Dharug and Kuringgai land, and my family and I live on Gadigal country. And everywhere in between and across this extraordinary land is Aboriginal land. I look around this chamber and I see and respect the growing number of First Nations senators in this place, including my two powerful Greens colleagues, Lidia Thorpe and Dorinda Cox. I acknowledge that, for as much as time means anything to us as humans, this land always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

As Greens, we're here to do more than keep the bastards honest. Yes, we'll push this government further and faster on things that matter—on climate change, on integrity and on fairness. More than that, though, we're here to change the system—to make it represent the many and not just the few. You've told us what you care about, and we hear you. We're ready to make changes. We're ready to legalise cannabis. We're going to tax billionaires to deliver dental and mental health care into Medicare. And we'll fight to keep coal and gas in the ground.

Greens MPs and senators aren't sent here by a powerful few to serve their interests. We, in fact, come from a proud history of protest, resistance and grassroots activism. As a member of the New South Wales Greens, I owe a particular debt to the green bans movement of Jack Mundey and the BLF, which began in the 1970s. Jack saw earlier than most—