Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will not be supporting the referral of this bill to the committee. First and foremost, under Australian law, aboriginality is well understood, so this bill is actually seeking to solve an issue that doesn't even exist. In the historic 1992 Mabo v Queensland (No. 2) case, Justice Brennan stated:

Membership of the Indigenous people depends on biological descent from the Indigenous people and on mutual recognition of a particular person's membership by that person and by the elders or other persons enjoying traditional authority among those people.

It is very clear, and this criteria is widely accepted within our community. And there has been no identified need to change this by our community.

Our Aboriginality as sovereign people is not up for debate by white people in this place. No-one in this place can tell me whether I'm Aboriginal or not. Linking Aboriginality to native title will not prevent fraud; it will simply strengthen the colonial abuses of Aboriginal rights by attempting to erase our identity, our culture and our existence. Linking someone's status as an Aboriginal person to their membership of a native title claim links their right as sovereign people to a flawed system that was set up by the government and was badged as being self-determined. It's not self-determination at all. This bill ignores the areas of Australia that have competing native title claims, that have claims that have failed, and it ignores the areas of this country where native title rights have been extinguished. They've been extinguished under whitefella law, which is what the argument is here. It's still Aboriginal land; it always was and always will be.

Not only is this bill unnecessary and, frankly, stupid; this bill perpetuates the racist stereotype that Aboriginal people are handed free stuff—'Oh, they're handed free houses, free education, free land', and whatever other conspiracy theorist argument they have cooked up over there—and it's because we apparently get so much free stuff that there are a huge amount of people running around out there who are claiming to be Aboriginal, so they can get free stuff. I'll tell you what being black in this country gets you. I'll give you a list: overcrowded housing; lower life expectancy rates; higher rates of preventable disease; having your children removed; being racially profiled and thrown into jail; having your land and culture destroyed; and, on top of that, intergenerational trauma. Statistically, my kids are more likely to go to prison than they are to university in this country.

If Senator Hanson is truly serious about protecting the identity of First Nations people, I invite Senator Hanson to come here and speak in support of cultural protections, education in language, culturally and environmentally sound housing and health programs, and getting our kids out on country. There is nothing absolutely more shameful in this place than racist dog-whistling. This deserves no more airtime.