Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Australian Greens' new spokesperson for a republic, I want to be unequivocal about our commitment for Australia to become a republic hand in hand with treaty and truth telling. More and more people are waking up to the historic crimes of the British monarchy and wanting to cut ties with them. While nations like Barbados are becoming republics and speaking truth about empire, our Prime Minister is taking us backwards. There was absolutely no need for Prime Minister Albanese to make it a priority to fly to the UK for the Coronation, to bask in the excesses, pomp and pageantry of an institution that is so out of touch with everyday people.

The British monarchy is an outdated, colonial and racist institution built on the blood, backs and stolen wealth of brown and black people. If you needed any reminder of this, just look at the Coronation Necklace Queen Camilla wore to the crowning. It features the 22-carat Lahore diamond, stolen wealth from the city I grew up in, just as the Kohinoor diamond adorning the Crown Jewels was stolen from the subcontinent. The wealth looted by the empire from colonised countries knows no bounds. The violent legacies of British colonialism are felt by people in countries all over the globe, including here in Australia—a nation born of dispossession and violence.

We must forge a new path, one that reckons with this past and makes reparations, one that moves us forward on justice for first nations. It's time to cut ties with the British monarchy, it is time for democracy—not monarchy—and it is time to abolish the monarchy.