Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the suspension motion, moved by Senator Birmingham, to bring on for debate the Criminal Code Amendment (Prohibition of Nazi Symbols) Bill 2023, which would prohibit the display of Nazi symbols.

Some in this place today have said that this bill is not an important bill to be brought on. Well, I say: shame on them! If this bill does not deserve precedence, quite frankly, I don't know what bill does. Every Australian should find the actions of that small group of protesters who dared to use the Nazi salute offensive, and every senator in this place, without a doubt, should condemn those actions. Those who display Nazi symbols or use the Nazi salute either are ignorant of the past or are deliberately promoting evil. As someone who in the 1990s had the privilege of living in Israel, let me assure you that this is something that is still on their minds today. There is absolutely no place in civil society for Nazi symbols, which, as we all know, are directly linked to one of the most heinous regimes in the history of the world.

Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany carried out the deliberate, calculated and organised mass murder of six million European Jews, as well as five million prisoners of war and other victims. The Nazis' systemic and state sponsored campaign of persecution dehumanised an entire people. But it was much worse than that. The Nazi regime's industrialised extermination resulted in the Holocaust, one of the worst crimes ever committed in history. There can be no doubt that the Nazi regime was one of the greatest evils ever visited upon humanity. Nazism is a vile ideology of unparalleled hate.

Because of what they represent—this evil, this terror—Nazi symbols are no ordinary symbols. We must all condemn Nazi symbols in any form that they are found or displayed. What we saw unfold on the streets of Melbourne last weekend was absolutely unacceptable and quite disgraceful. Again I say that every Australian should find the actions of a small group of protesters who used the Nazi salute offensive, and every senator in this place should condemn those actions. There is no doubt the Nazi salute is a symbol clearly associated with Nazi ideology and has no place in Australian public life. All Australians are diminished by the sharing and glorification of an ideology which is characterised by genocide, mass murder and other forms of persecution.

So to those who say this bill is not a matter of urgency I say that is exactly why this bill is a matter of urgency and needs to be debated and passed by the Senate. We are all here in this place to show leadership within our community, so let's live up to that, because this morning we can stand together against these vile bigots.