Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

February is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer in Australia, and there is no detection test for it. Tragically, almost half of the 1,560 Australians diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year die within five years. Ovarian cancer predominantly affects women. However, it also affects non-binary people, trans men and some people with variations of sex characteristics. In its 2011 report, Addressing sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity discrimination, the Australian Human Rights Commission noted concerns about medical professionals overlooking trans and intersex people for conditions that are generally understood to affect either men or women exclusively, such as ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. So, in this Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, I want to advocate on behalf of all people with ovaries for more education and resources to find a cure for this awful disease.

A group of white men are gathered around a burning cross. They can be heard chanting 'white power'. Some raise their hands in a Nazi salute. This isn't a chilling relic of the past, nor is it a scene from a video posted on a dark corner of the internet. This is a real-life gathering of about 40 Neo-Nazi extremists in broad daylight in our own backyard just weeks ago. The gathering of these Neo-Nazi extremists in the Grampians on Gunditjmara country over Invasion Day weekend on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day should be a wake-up call to us all.

Last year, ASIO advised the parliament that right-wing violent extremism occupies around 30 to 40 per cent of ASIO's current caseload in counterterrorism work. And, while it's good that security services are investigating these threats, there appears to be zero political appetite to invest in new initiatives to address the growth of right-wing extremism. The Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen when it comes to calling out white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Where are the press conferences, the scare campaigns and the damning words for these extremist groups, Mr Morrison? Is being white a 'get out of jail free' card to avoid being labelled a terrorist? You should be outraged. You should be scared of not only what these people are capable of but what their actions and opinions say about the state of our country. Ironically, just days after this group of Neo-Nazis gathered in regional Victoria, the Prime Minister claimed at an event on 26 January that Australia is the most successful multicultural nation on earth. Being a successful multicultural nation takes more than multicultural parades and festivities, more than platitudes, more than words, Prime Minister. It requires action.

The emerging Neo-Nazi movement that's taking a foothold right around the world, encouraged by leaders like Donald Trump, is very present right here in Australia, and this hateful tide has been growing as it has been encouraged, inflamed, fed and nurtured through the politics of hate. Politicians in this place have said that settling Muslims was a mistake. They have said that people can't go out into the streets at night for fear of African gang violence. The leader of a political party wore a burka into the Senate to mock a community of faith. And, when ASIO warned us last year of the increasing threat from right-wing extremist groups, Peter Dutton responded with the need to deal with left-wing loonies. We need only look at the attempted insurrection at the US capitol on 6 January to know what happens when a country's leaders outright or tacitly endorse far Right fringe groups and when these abhorrent ideas are given the oxygen and the sunlight needed for them to grow and spread. All of us, in this case, need to heed the calls of what ASIO and groups like YARD, or Yelling At Racist Dogs, and Jews Against Fascism have been telling us for years: Nazis are not a thing of the past. They are here in this country, and it's up to our leaders to call them out. Anti-fascist protesters and activists are campaigning in the streets and shining a light on those that seek to do us all harm. Now it's time for our leaders to step up. It's up to our leaders, like you, Prime Minister, to stamp out these threats before it's too late—noting that for those who lost their lives in Christchurch, it already is.