Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Equal laws for all and special laws for none. Equal rights for all and special rights for none. This is the only acceptable position in a democracy that is free and fair. In a true democracy with true equality, arbitrary characteristics like race never determine the outcome in courts or from the enforcement of the law. In a true democracy there is no place for separate laws and courts based on race. In a true democracy, we are all equal before the law.

The activists who promote the Voice and the activists who claim exclusive Aboriginal sovereignty over Australia do not support equality or democracy. They despise equality and democracy. They despise reconciliation and national unity. They support the tyrannical politics of victimhood and grievance. They tried to insert this tyranny into the Constitution. They literally sit in this building, the seat of democracy in Australia, while attacking the principles upon which it was built. The hypocrisy is absolutely breathtaking.

Senator Thorpe says Indigenous Australian children need their families, not prisons. I agree. But they need functional families who teach respect for the law and for the police who enforce the law on behalf of their communities. They do not need dysfunctional families who neglect or abuse their children. This is what is happening in many remote Indigenous communities, in country towns, in major regional centres and in our big cities. Indigenous Australian children roam the streets, looking for trouble, because it's safer than being at home with their families.

This epidemic of abuse has been destroying the lives of countless Indigenous Australian children. Countless times, we've called for a royal commission into the sexual abuse. But everyone says, 'No, we don't need it.' It's an epidemic that the activists do not acknowledge exists—despite many Indigenous leaders in these communities desperately calling for help to end it—because, for the activists, if you're Indigenous, you can do no wrong. For them, if you're Indigenous, you should be above the laws that apply to the rest of Australia—except that is complete nonsense, because of one thing: democracy itself. Indigenous Australians have had as much say in the creation of our laws as every other Australian, thanks to democracy. It's keeping to the principles of democracy that will ultimately empower Indigenous Australians. It's keeping to the rule of law that will ensure justice ultimately prevails for all Australians, regardless of race.