Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in solidarity with the Tibetan people as a sovereign person of this country, to the sovereign people of your country. What is happening in Tibet is cultural genocide. It's what happens here as well, under this government and the last government. They continue cultural genocide today, here, on us. We are with you.

The Chinese regime is oppressing educational, religious and language institutions, which is against the cultural rights, the freedom of religion and belief, and the rights to education of the Tibetan people. Tibetan children are being forced into boarding schools run by the Chinese Communist Party and separated from their religion, families, culture and tradition. We also have 23,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children that have been taken from their mothers, and the government here still won't do anything. Again, we are in solidarity with you. To the sovereign people of Tibet I want to say that we see you, we hear you and we feel you. As First Peoples of this country now called Australia, we know exactly what it is like to have our children ripped away by a system that tries to erase you. That's what this place has tried to do to my people here for over 200 years.

To the federal government I say: nice speeches, but it's time to set up against the cultural genocide in Tibet and engage internationally with our allies to support the UN investigation into China's policy of acculturation and assimilation—we know Voice is assimilating us. Through the ancient Tibetan traditions and practices, that self-determination, and to the Tibetan community here: we are with you. (Time expired)