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

A lot of the decisions being made by those in power go against the best interests of young people in this country. This includes children from migrant backgrounds who are beloved members of our communities and some of the most vulnerable, especially those seeking asylum and refuge here. All children deserve access to the opportunities that are available in this country. They have the right to safety, education, housing, food and freedom from discrimination and criminalisation.

There are basic fundamental rights enshrined in international law. Yet successive governments have, by design, systematically underfunded our essential services and have instead created an economic apartheid, where the ability to access safe, ongoing, quality health, housing or education is dictated by the colour of your skin and the money in your bank account rather than the fundamental need. We have transitioned seamlessly from a welfare to a carceral state. We know that black kids in this country only ever experience the carceral state and, since colonisation, have been defined by policies designed to punish and destroy rather than care and nurture. Black kids in this country are on a fast-track pipeline from child protection to incarceration from before they're even born.

First Peoples understand that rights come with the responsibility to care for our mother country, our community, our waterways and the air that we breathe—as our ancestors did, protecting this country for future generations. Policies that pursue profit, privatisation, war and the destruction of country and culture go directly against the real law of this land, the law that's been here since before the ancestors of anyone else in this room right now. The law of this land was to protect our future generations. But the law in this chamber and this building is to demonise our children and threaten our children's future.