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

I want to start by saying that any loss of life is a tragedy. These are people with friends, family and community. They are people. Violence, the violation of human lives and the violation of international humanitarian law can never be justified. We must never lose sight of each other's humanity—never.

This week, a year on, is painful for all of us. I acknowledge and feel the grief of all those who have lost loved ones, who lost their homes, who lost everything. I acknowledge and feel the grief of their communities and everyone standing with them. I stand with you. I stand against the dispossession, violence and murder of people here and everywhere. I stand against genocide. As a black woman living through an ongoing genocide here in this country, with many of my own clans wiped out, wiped off the face of the earth by the colonisers, 63 clans, I stand in solidarity with all victims of genocide. We have to call out genocide when and wherever it occurs, and there is no question at all that there is a genocide occurring right in front of our eyes in Palestine.

Genocide is reliant on the dehumanisation of others to justify inhumane action. Since 7 October, we have heard Netanyahu describe Gaza as a city of darkness and ask people to flee or face certain death. Of the Palestinians, Netanyahu says: 'We are facing monsters. It is a battle of civilisation against barbarism.' The Israeli defence minister said, 'We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.' Several Israeli military politicians have described Palestinians as cockroaches, a cancer and a vermin that should be annihilated. Have we heard Albanese or Penny Wong denounce this language? No. We have only heard support for Israel. The language is familiar. The Australian government called the First Peoples on this land savages and barbarians to justify their slaughter, the massacres that happened to my people. We were dehumanised by the coloniser too. The pillaging and rape of our country, our culture and our people—the First Peoples of this land know what genocide looks and feels like.

For over a year our communities have stood firmly together and shown up in the streets every week calling loudly for an end to the genocide, for a weapons embargo on Israel, for visas, for aid, for food, for this country to stop sending weapon parts for the F-35 fighter jets that are used to indiscriminately bomb civilians. We have stood in solidarity to protest against genocide, against war, against racism and against colonisation. We've stood up against what is happening in Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, West Papua, Tibet and Kanaks. We see this for what it is: colonial powers maintaining and expanding their systems of oppression, exploitation and violence.

We protest for those in our communities whose loved ones are being slaughtered by violent, greedy governments. We protest for those being used for fodder in this bloody expansion of the colony. We protest for our safety, our rights, our lives and our liberation. We protest to show that we care and that we stand together, side by side. We protest to show that Palestine has not been abandoned. We protest because we love and care deeply about each other's shared humanity. We protest to protect each other. This is a human rights movement—an anti-war movement that is standing up to the federal government, which is showing no morality and is absolutely complicit in genocide.

Not only has this government looked away as the State of Israel ethnically cleanses the Palestinians as they breach international law just to build vacation homes and extract gas and steal water; this government has gone further. It has offered diplomatic support and helped the Israeli regime build the weapons that are used to commit their war crimes. This government has provided not just impunity but active support—blood on your hands. Those who have lost family and loved ones already feel like they have lost everything. Every day, more news could arrive of another heartbeat snuffed out. How can we have social cohesion when our government is enabling the killing of those in our community?

It is our duty to protest against genocide. It is our duty to stop genocide. It was a protest from the union movement here in so-called Australia that helped break apartheid in South Africa, even while Nelson Mandela was listed as a terrorist by the US for trying to do exactly that. None of us are free unless we are all free. What comes of international inaction? Israel has set its sights on Lebanon. Why wouldn't it? What consequences has it faced for its genocide from so-called Australia, from Germany and from its closest allies, the US and the UK?

When so-called Australia tells so-called Israel, 'You have claimed this land, so you can do what you like,' it is giving itself permission to do the same on land it has claimed and continue the genocide against First Peoples here. In the acts of violence and dispossession being committed by Israel, so-called Australia sees itself reflected back. No consent was given to take the Palestinians' land or our land, yet we are told to take the exploitation, murder, rape and pillaging of our people, country and culture quietly. 'Don't protest.' We are not allowed to protest against genocide and occupation! You come after the protesters.

The frontier wars continue wherever the militarised police and army are involved, through more sophisticated tactics of administration or incarceration. The police went to the New South Wales courts to block the Palestinian protests that happened this weekend. This is not new. The right to protest is being eroded across the continent. We will not stop for any illegal colonial government, such as this place here. There is no consent for this place to be here. It's through invasion and massacre that this parliament sits here on a gathering place of Ngambri and Ngunnawal people. You just wiped them off their land and built this monstrosity. We're not going to stop protesting. We're going to hold you all to account.

Albanese talks about the need for social cohesion, something no-one would disagree with. But the real question is: how can you address the injustice you're responding to? Social cohesion doesn't just happen—duh, Albo. It's a response to perceived injustice.