Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am in continuation on this motion. Last night, I was sharing with the Senate some of the thoughts of my stepson, Jasper Lees, who is a young trans man—a fantastic young man. What I actually want to say—and I'm glad that Senator Hanson and Senator Roberts are here—is that I found their contributions vile and disgusting. The reason I found their contributions vile and disgusting is that they are deliberately trying to set up a situation where people can come in under parliamentary privilege and have their submissions, which would actively harm trans people, published. What trans people in this country don't need is for bigots and fascists who are attempting to erase them from the face of the earth to be able to make submissions to this inquiry and have their hatred and bile covered by parliamentary privilege. So, of course, the Greens won't be supporting this motion.

I also want to make it clear that my journey over a number of years with my stepson, Jasper, has allowed me to understand the very human and personal impact on a group of people who are not all the same and who have the full range of human feelings and human emotions as any other group of people but who are impacted so negatively and so profoundly because they are being used as political footballs by the far right in this country, who have decided that they are going to open up this front in their never-ending culture wars and that it doesn't matter how much they harm people or hurt people or how many people they drive to death and misery as a result. That's what we are dealing with here, and that is why the Greens are so staunchly opposed to this motion.

We will stand with trans folk. We will stand with trans men. We will stand with trans women. We will stand with all non-binary folk because trans rights are human rights. It is as simple as that. We will not stand for the fascism that is emerging around this issue, and we will not stand for them being erased off the face of this earth, as many people want. You only have to go into the cesspit that is some parts of various social media platforms to see the hatred and the bile that are being posted by far-right bigots and transphobes. We stand proudly with trans folk. We always have and we always will, and that is why we are so absolutely determined that this motion not be supported.