Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, I am well aware that the Greens, in the last little while, have tried to set themselves up as the guardians of multicultural Australia, having previously shown no interest in those issues whatsoever in the entire lifetime of their party. As I say, what this government is about is genuine support for multicultural communities, not actually dividing Australian communities—in particular, multicultural communities—in the way the Greens have been doing of late.

This is an important time in Australia's history. We know that there are many international conflicts where there is great division within our Australian community, and what all responsible politicians in this chamber should be doing is actually working to bring communities together rather than dividing them in the way the Greens try to do, in the way Mr Dutton and the coalition try to do and in the way One Nation try to do. We are going to do better for multicultural communities than that. We're going to try to bring people together and we're going to continue supporting multicultural communities for the benefit of all Australians and our whole country.