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

[Noongar language] Nih, ng-ung karn-arn, ka-ya-koorl Ngunnawal wer Ngambri boodja wer ng-ung waan-gk—kaya ng-ung moort, koor-a boordiya moort, yey boor-diya moort wer yirra koor-liny boor-diya moort. I want to acknowledge and pay my respects to the stolen lands, on which we meet today, that belong to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples of this area. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and I want to acknowledge their emerging leaders, who we nurture, love and support, for the future generations who will continue our legacies.

I rise to completely and wholeheartedly reject this motion and the foul hatred that sits at the core of it. Even after my relatively short time in this place, I'm not at all surprised to see One Nation putting forward this racially divisive garbage. Need I remind this place that you are all here on stolen land? This land was taken by force, brutal violence and dispossession. That's written into our history, and it's the reason why we all stand every morning in this place to acknowledge country before we start the day. And it is the respectful thing to do when you are entering a place that is not yours. You don't walk into somebody else's house without being welcomed in—in fact, to do so is a crime, so maybe this is in fact a crime scene. It is a sign of respect to the rightful custodians of this country, something that I think a lot of people in this place could learn a thing or two about.

A lot of people were saying that the racist lies that the 'no' campaign was spewing would embolden people right across the country, and this is exactly what we are seeing. This motion is a prime example, and unfortunately we had another example in this place earlier today.

Another example I want to share happened back in my home state of Western Australia where the Boyup Brook shire council has, shamefully, rejected a proposal to have the Blackwood River referred to by its traditional name. My grandmother was born on the banks of this river, and it holds deep significance for the First Peoples of this area. Dual naming doesn't take away anything from anybody; it only adds knowledge and recognition of those who came before us. It has been done in many other countries across the world, including New Zealand and Ireland. At a City of Bunbury council meeting, they had a debate recently about updating their welcome and acknowledgement statements, in which one councillor said it would take away their freedoms and another said they didn't want to recognise it for those who weren't pure in soul and heart. Go and take a look at some of the comments on social media posts of prominent black advocates, and come back and tell me that we are the divisive ones in this country. If you don't respect us, just say so. Own it. Let the Australian people see who you really are, but don't you dare stand in here and try and tell me that a cultural practice that First Peoples have been honouring for tens of thousands of years is a problem here.

This is precisely why we need truth-telling processes in this country. Everyone in this country needs to know what this country was built on—the attempted genocide, the frontier wars and the massacres. And make no mistake: this did not stop at 1901. We have seen the dispossession and the oppression continue to this day, with the stolen generations, the Northern Territory Intervention, and the destruction of our cultural heritage and our sacred sites, just to name a few. An acknowledgement of country is the least that people can do. It's like walking into a room and acknowledging people who are already there. Not to do this is just damned ignorance. Time and time again, First Nations people have been knocked down. Time and time again, we've picked ourselves up, and we continue to fight for our rights in this country. That is what we have to do. We simply have no other option. This motion is in fact just another weak attempt to try and lay the boots into blackfellas, post this referendum.

I tell you what: we ain't laying down any time soon. Like our ancestors, we will keep fighting and we will keep rising up. Our sovereignty has never been ceded. We are still here despite the best efforts of successive governments. Terra nullius has been overthrown. Eddie Mabo fought hard to make sure of this, and he took it to the highest court in this country. The Western legal system has been unable to understand that we have been here for tens of thousands of years and to acknowledge the connections that we have to the lands, waters and skies that make up the place we now know as Australia. I will not let this hard work and the hard work of so many First Nations people across this country who fight for our rights, our land, our waters and our culture be overshadowed by the continual narrative to destroy our natural resistance. (Time expired)