Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs (Senator Scullion) and the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Senators McAllister and Dastyari today relating to coal-fired power and to the Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom released by the United States of America Department of State.

What a performance in the Australian Senate today. What a performance! There are many days where I question why we come into this place. Often, I feel that we would be better off just staying at the bar. And there are days where things go completely crazy. To top off the insanity of what has been a truly surreal week, we saw the stunt of all stunts in this chamber by Senator Hanson.

Firstly, Senator Brandis, rightly deserves to be congratulated for his strong words and strong sentiment, and for expressing the view, rightly, that the close to 500,000 Muslim Australians do not deserve to be targeted, do not deserve to be marginalised, do not deserve to be ridiculed and do not deserve to have their faith made into some political point by the desperate leader of a desperate political party—a leader who has sitting beside her a senator who the Senate itself questions whether they should even be in this chamber in the first place.

Today was embarrassing. It was insulting; it was hurtful and it was wrong. In the same week as the United States Secretary of State, Secretary Tillerson, himself listed One Nation as a risk to religious freedom, and in the same week that we saw white nationalism rear its ugly head in the country of our closest ally, a stunt like this gets pulled in the Australian Senate. It is hurtful, it is offensive and it is wrong.

It is wrong, what's more, when we're talking about national security and the threats that are posed by extremism. Those actions and behaviours do not achieve any objective other than to make the risks and dangers in this country worse. When you pull those types of stunts, when people try to trivialise other people's faith and other people's religion for the sole purpose of a cheap headline, national security is damaged, not helped. And the idea that it is somehow appropriate to be mocking people, their faith and their values in this chamber goes to the heart of attacking what makes this country so amazing and so great.

Let's be clear: Islamic extremism is a threat and a danger, as is radical nationalism. And we need to call out extremism wherever it is. If that extremism is Islamic extremism, it should be called out. But if that extremism is the type of fascism Pauline Hanson and One Nation bring into this chamber, it should be called out as well. Extremism is wrong in whatever form it takes. Extremism is wrong when a group of white nationalists take over a city like Charlottesville in the United States of America. That is wrong, that is fascism, that is extremism, that is terrorism and it should be called out. Just as we should call out Islamic extremism, Islamic fascism, we need to call that out across the world. In the same week, even the Trump administration, in its International religious freedom report for 2016, has listed One Nation as a threat to religious freedom. We've seen extreme nationalism rear its ugly head. We don't want to see that type of extreme nationalism, that fascism, come to our country. We don't want to see it imported here. The stunt from Senator Hanson does nothing but bring out the worst of Australian society.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today in question time we had a very sobering reminder of the power that all of us have in this place and the power our words and actions can have in our broader community. For me, it was a salutary reminder that what we do and say in this place can have a great impact in the community. The impact can either be positive, uplifting and uniting or appeal to the worst aspects of human nature. For me, question time today was a salutary reminder of that. We've seen many things in the chamber this week that have united us, where we've come together on a bipartisan basis to do good for all Australians. But we've also seen on all sides of this chamber examples where that has not occurred.

I'm very conscious that we in this place have an important responsibility to all Australians. National security, and keeping our people safe, is probably the primary responsibility of governments and parliaments in this nation. However, the freedoms and liberties of all Australians—whether enshrined in our Constitution, by precedent or by an understanding of what we hold most valuable in this place—are two competing interests. We don't have a bill of rights in our Constitution. Our founders believed we could get right in this place a balance between keeping people safe and protecting their individual freedoms.

I think some people in this place would know that I am certainly a very strong supporter of tough national security measures. I worked in this area for many years. As I've said before in this place, I have seen and smelt the consequences of terrorism. I worked with the victims of terrorism for years. So I know better than most people in this place the consequences for Australians and the reasons we need to keep them safe. But I also know that if we let fear and the worse aspects of our natures, and the worse aspects of those who would do us evil, get the better of us then we've lost the fight and lost that balance.

In relation to the issue at hand today, in relation to the burqa, I do acknowledge that, in some parts of the world, many religions, including Christianity and Islam, are taken out of context and used to inflict great harm and great evil on people. That is the case sometimes with the burqa as well. But that is a very different situation from here in Australia.

The need for identification is not an issue of religion. I think, as Senator Fierravanti-Wells has said previously, it is an agnostic issue which needs to be separated from any issue of religion. As a member of a Liberal government, I know that we believe in inalienable rights and freedom for all people and being free from interference in our daily lives. I believe that involves people's choice of clothing and how they choose to express their religious beliefs, whether it is a nun's habit, a Christian cross, or a hijab or a burqa. If women or men are wearing their clothes of choice, free from interference, coercion and persuasion and not as a means of being subjected to somebody else's will but as an empowering action for themselves, I think that we have no place telling people what they should be wearing. But, that said, the President also outlined that there are national security issues and issues with security for all of us in this chamber, and also for those in the public galleries, and I believe the measures that are being taken to establish identity without interfering with anybody's privacy are sufficient.

Further in relation to this, I'd just like to quote a little bit more from my colleague Senator Fierravanti-Wells. She said this recently:

It is always regrettable that women, especially Muslim women, are criticised or attacked for what they choose to wear. We are a free society and it is not the business of government to tell people what they should and should not wear.

(Time expired)

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I move on to the energy part of my contribution, can I also associate my comments with those of my colleague Senator Dastyari in relation to his speech on the motion to take note of answers.

I want to move to the answers that we received from Minister Scullion to the question from Senator McAllister in relation to energy. Here we had Senator Scullion—who didn't know the context of the quotes by Mr Morrison, his own Treasurer, and who hadn't bothered to be briefed on the debate this week on resources and energy—refusing to take the first question from Senator McAllister on notice and saying that coal fundamentally has to be part of the future energy mix. When faced with the second part of the Treasurer's quote in the supplementary question, he realised that perhaps there was a change in policy and he then deferred to take that on notice. But then Minister Scullion had no answer when asked what the coalition government's position is on coal-fired power; he just took that on notice as well.

For the benefit of those who may be listening around the country, earlier this week the Treasurer, Mr Morrison—who, I have to add, kicked off 2017 by presenting a polished lump of coal in the House of Representatives and said, 'This is coal; don't be afraid'—said, 'Let's not think that there's cheap new coal; there's not,' and that the era of cheap coal-fired power is coming to an end. That's what he said earlier this week. Well, what a change of heart!

I note that the comment from the Treasurer came in the same week that the South Australian Labor government announced that a 150-megawatt solar thermal power plant would be built near Port Augusta. Construction of this exciting new project will commence next year, and the power plant will be operational by 2020. It will produce enough power to deliver five per cent of South Australia's energy needs, the equivalent of powering more than 90,000 homes, and it will be completely emissions free and produce energy at below $78 per megawatt hour.

Solar thermal technology works by using a huge mirror to concentrate sunlight onto a tower that heats molten salts. The heat created is then used to generate steam and, at this point, create power in a similar fashion to a coal-fired power station. Importantly, though, the solar thermal system can store energy for between eight and 10 hours and has no requirement for any coal or gas as a backup. The project will create more than 700 jobs in construction, with 50 full-time workers on an ongoing basis once the plant is fully operational.

The best part of this news, though, is that the South Australian government didn't pick a winner here. It didn't say, 'We love one type of energy,' as the former minister Senator Canavan has harped on about for the past year. It didn't seek to stop a company specialising in any type of energy source from submitting a tender. No, the South Australian government ran a tender process for 75 per cent of the state's power supply, and the company Solar Reserve submitted the lowest cost option over the 20-year tender period. I raise this story from South Australia because it demonstrates that it, as a government, goes through its internal processes on energy policy as it weighs up the recommendation from Professor Finkel to implement a clean energy target.

It's vital that members of the government stand up to those who seek to pick winners, and that those who support a market based economy actually defend the market. I note that this week it appeared that the Treasurer did his best to draw a line in the sand and say to Mr Abbott and Senator Canavan: 'Stop trying to pick winners,' because those winners do not stack up economically. Making these statements might make people feel good, but they drive a wedge through regional communities across our country. The people of regional Australia who work in the coal industry, in power generation and in heavy industry and whose small businesses support these industries right across this country care about reliability, price and sustainability, both in terms of economics and the environment. These people know that we need a technology-blind approach where we set our policy and then let the market decide. But at the moment we have a government with no energy policy. For a number of months, Labor has offered to work with the government to find middle ground. We want to move beyond the years of division and set in place a credible energy policy for Australia's future, to provide security, to provide jobs and, best of all, to try and provide a low-based economical cost basis for members. (Time expired).

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like my colleagues, I would like to stand today to take note of some of the things that have occurred in the Senate chamber today and the responses to it. I don't approve of Senator Hanson's stunt. There have been a range of expressions of disquiet about that today. Predominantly, my concern is that it is targeting a form of dress. I don't believe that we should be telling people what they wear, but on a security front we are reliant on good relations with all of our community, including the Muslim community, to provide information to our intelligence services. Having said that, there are three other points I would like to make.

One is about applying a common standard. We had great expressions of outrage here today about the fact that somebody wore what was seen as a religious form of dress in a manner that showed they clearly weren't of that religion and we had comments about freedom of religion and how we need to respect all religions. Yet, in this chamber, we've had comments, particularly, I have to say, from the Greens, not that the particular member who makes the comments is here at the moment—one has left the chamber, but one is still here—who frequently vilifies people of the Christian faith and other faiths who don't support his view around topics such as same-sex marriage. I don't dispute the fact that he has a right to a view on that—anyone has a right to a view on it—but to vilify somebody because of their view and to link that to their faith is, I believe, quite inappropriate. I would welcome the same degree of outrage I saw today, here, when people, on whatever side, make comments that vilify any other group of faith in this nation. Likewise, when we see somebody wear a nun's habit, for example, in something like the Mardi Gras—I'm not going to comment on whether the Mardi Gras should or shouldn't occur—if you're so outraged at what occurred here today, where is the equivalent outrage when another group or people of faith have their sense of dress, or something that is identified with their faith, mocked in a similar way? I just encourage a common standard.

The second point I would like to come to is international human rights law. The Attorney-General rightly mentioned the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I note that the Senate Select Committee on the Exposure Draft of the Marriage Amendment (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill, which looked at the intersection of human rights and religious freedom with the subject of same-sex marriage—that committee ran over Christmas and reported in February this year—noted that, unlike articles 2 and 26 of the ICCPR, on discrimination and equality, Australia has not legislated to enact in Australian law at the Commonwealth or a state level article 18, which goes to freedom of religion.

That is one of the key concerns of various faith groups, but also of people who are not of a faith group but who have a conscientious objection to a change in the definition of 'marriage', because, under our law, there is no protection for them, which is contrary to article 18. The committee found, and this was a consensus view, that Australia is not under an obligation to make a change, and that's by jurisprudence of the United Nations Human Rights Committee and also the European Court of Human Rights. Under international law, if you do not offend another human right then there is no legal basis to derogate a human right such as article 18. That is a significant issue which our nation needs to consider.

Lastly to the substantive point of the stunt that was pulled by Senator Hanson. We need to be careful in this country: just because we don't like the political party or the nature of the person who is raising an issue, we shouldn't disregard the substantive issue because we don't like the person who is delivering the message. I draw the Senate chamber's attention, for example, to the Kingdom of Morocco. It is a 99 per cent Muslim nation which has taken steps to ban the importation, production or sale of the burqa. They haven't banned people from wearing it, but they've taken very strict measures because they see that this is a sign of creeping extremism within the Islamic faith, and they tie it particularly to the Wahhabi stream of teaching. So even Muslim nations—people like President el-Sisi; the President of Indonesia; and those of other nations—have identified that there are concerns with extremism and the emblems that go with it. We need to be careful that we don't disregard the key issue that was raised because of who raised it.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, want to support the words of Senator Dastyari. I know that when we got to the task of taking note today we were intending to focus on the first question that was asked of Senator Scullion, around power. But, obviously, some events have overtaken that, and I think they are of a serious nature. I acknowledge the comments from the Liberals, those who have so far made a contribution in this debate, and I also acknowledge the words of Senator Brandis in response to Senator Hanson's question.

I think one of the important things for me in talking about this is looking at the issue of national security. I think Senator Brandis did a good job here in response to Senator Hanson, and it is something that I also spoke about in my first speech. There is a level of bipartisanship amongst the government and opposition when it comes to dealing with issues of national security. I think the reason for that is that there are serious threats. The government takes them seriously and, indeed, as those who aspire to government the opposition does as well. Probably the most disappointing thing about what we saw today is that Senator Hanson was willing to use a stunt that would be so offensive to the Islamic or Muslim population to try to make a cheap political point around national security. There is no place or time for that to happen about something as serious as that.

I know there are a number of our armed forces serving overseas. There is no way that they are going to benefit from what we saw today in the stunt from Senator Pauline Hanson. It is not going to add to their security and it is not going to do anything for the security concerns that Australians legitimately have, given how we have been targeted so far.

I think Senator Hanson and Senator Fawcett touched on this in terms of not attacking the person. I don't think anyone has done that deliberately. But we also need to ensure that there is a strong response from the government and the opposition so that the people of Australia understand where the major parties are going to land on such an important topic as this, and the way that this chamber is used with regard to important debates such as religious freedom and national security. It is important that the Australian people see that this parliament takes those seriously.

From time to time, there will be differences of opinion from the major parties on this, but we always have those debates in a serious way, and I know that there are levels of briefing that the government and opposition are often aware of that the community aren't at the same time. The public put a lot of faith in members of parliament to ensure that they take those responsibilities around civil liberties, protecting freedoms and also getting security settings right. It would be a shame if that overwhelming consensus from the community is undermined by cheap political stunts that we saw from Senator Hanson today. In closing, I thank Senator Brandis for his comments in response and I echo the thoughts of Senator Dastyari as the first senator taking note from the Labor team.

Question agreed to.