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

I stand with Sam Kerr. What Sam experienced that night is what so many black and brown women experience every single day. She had been locked in a taxi for 20 minutes, unsure of where she was going or whether she was being kidnapped. Her simple request to that police officer was that he put himself in her shoes. But, instead of interviewing the taxi driver to investigate Sam's concerns, the police officer decided to belittle and ignore her. This is racism.

For those who need a reminder, here is a quick definition. Racism is a system of power and oppression based on race—a system in which social standards, institutions, laws and political decisions establish and reinforce norms that uphold inequalities between racial groups. Racism is about how power works to oppress people already copping it. It is a system that upholds white supremacy, like this place. A white cop who is a part of a system that upholds white supremacy and who benefits from white supremacy cannot be a victim of white supremacy. Come on! A lot of people are still blind to this, obviously, and we have a long way to go to understand what racism really is in this country and how it functions in our everyday society. To all those people making uninformed, sensationalised comments about this story: I urge you to do the work and get educated—educate yourselves—about what racism really is before— (Time expired)