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

Finally, the dangerous distraction of the referendum is over and we can get back to the real fight that the government have delayed for the last 12 months with excuses of saying they couldn't do anything until after the referendum, until we get this Voice. They couldn't implement the 339 recommendations to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody. They won't implement the recommendations of the Bringing them Home report when we have 23,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care.

Labor, wake up! Wake up! Did the referendum not tell you that we don't want some tokenistic gesture and to go into your colonial Constitution? We want real justice. We want you to implement the recommendations that your Senator Dodson worked on in 1991. We want the Bringing them Home report to stop our children being stolen from the breasts of their mothers.

You want to know what to do now? Act! Just act. Do your job, Labor. Don't wave our flag, wear our earrings, put our paintings in your offices and turn up to NAIDOC morning teas until you stop killing our people. You are now responsible for killing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country—deaths in custody, child removal, suicide. Congratulations, Labor!