Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today.

The blame game cannot continue. We heard today in question time that the current government keep referring to, in the blame game, what the previous government did over the last decade. It is absolutely crystal clear in that that the human rights of all Australians matter but most importantly First Nations Australians, and unfortunately that's not up for debate. The Greens firmly believe this has been bandied around for too long, particularly when we talk about the rights of First Nations people, disabled people, trans people—it's used as a political football in this place. It's absolutely unacceptable.

The answer I received in response to my question in question time was: 'We cannot keep going to the UN, to the Pacific, to other places, talking about accountability and what we're going to do when we get into government, and then not do it, because we're leaving the grassroots people behind in that conversation.' We need action. We don't need any more empty words. Unfortunately, you can't stand up in this place and the other place and say these matters are serious when you're doing nothing about them. When are we going to have that immediate action on the impact we can already see happening in communities? We are seeing the impacts of climate change right now. The echoing of the conversations and the voices of the people from the Torres Strait Islands, who are saying to us they have water lapping at their doorstep—we are still not hearing their voices. Do we believe it's serious enough, that it's an emergency, when we have examples of this particular case from the Torres Strait Islands—the landmark case, where one of the residents of the Torres Strait Islands had to continue to look for bones from an ancestor, from a grave that's possibly washed away? That's not happening anywhere else in Australia and no-one cares. No-one is going, 'Oh my God, this is an immediate issue. We need to get onto this.' Now we're seeing the Labor government saying they are committed to giving First Nations people a voice but they're actually not then getting into action.

What I heard from Minister Wong is she knew about the issue when she was the climate minister in 2008 and 2009. Why is it now, many years later, we're going to put in place a First Nations ambassador for foreign affairs to give us the answer? First Nations people, Torres Strait Islander people, have already been giving you the answer and telling you what needs to be done, urging you, when you were in power in government, to take the action that is required, and that's what I'm asking for.

You don't need a referendum to start respecting First Nations people's rights, culture and sovereignty in this country. What we now see is a continuation of statements. The massive statement, the voices from the deep, that Torres Strait Islander people gave to the Prime Minister, to the climate minister, to the minister of Indigenous affairs—handed it to them—was about self-determination and regional autonomy by 2037. We are still not listening. We, as First Nations people in this country, are standing up. We are sick of being silenced—our voices being silenced—and we're sick of this government not respecting our rights. We've seen that happen in the Tiwi Islands and now we're seeing it happen in the Torres Strait.

First Nations people shouldn't have to resort to court cases. They shouldn't have to resort to the Human Rights Commission and committees overseas for the government to do their job properly. We shouldn't have to bend our ways of life, our knowledge, to the legal system in this country to be taken seriously. If you want to listen to our voice, listen now. We are the original scientists. We can tell you what the climate impacts are just by looking at our country. We know what that looks like.

This government's failure to take action on climate at the rate that it's needed is eroding our culture. It's impacting on our cultural heritage. It's impacting on our land, our water, our sea country and our sky country. The government is continuing to violate those human rights. This is not up for debate anymore. Compensation is an absolute bare minimum and that's what we need. They need this government to take action on the climate crisis seriously, not be captured by their mates in the fossil fuel industry. We continue to raise our voices in relation to climate action now.

Question agreed to.