David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One year ago, in front of the Iranian embassy, Hamid Sotounzadeh was violently assaulted by a member of the AFP, when all he was doing was exercising his right to peacefully protest. Just this last week, Hamid has discovered that the officer who committed that assault—an unprovoked assault in a public place while being filmed—will not face charges. The AFP has said:

A criminal investigation will not be pursued in relation to the AFP member involved.

They won't even do a criminal investigation of the matter.

Apparently, a professional standards investigation has now been finalised, and it is 'now in the administrative phase'. The spokesperson for the AFP also said that the findings of the investigation will not be released publicly. How can we let this stand? Hamid is still in significant pain. He is still extremely distressed at this lack of action. He had his ribs fractured and his spinal disc damaged by this unprovoked assault by a member of the AFP when he was in a public place, exercising his right to peacefully protest.

Indeed, none of that core information is even disputed by the other side, but the other side is the Australian Federal Police. They've done their internal investigation, and the outcome is what? In any other situation this unprovoked assault would surely be considered a sackable offence and a serious crime. But, instead, it's just swept under the carpet because it's the AFP.

All Hamid wanted to do was peacefully protest. He was standing in front of the embassy of Iran, raising concern about the death of Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the brutal regime over there. He shouldn't have been assaulted by the Australian Federal Police. They should've been protecting him. Having been subject to that assault, though, surely he deserved a fair investigative process. Surely he deserved a system that would take what happened to him—the violence and the injuries that he suffered—fairly assess it and deliver a measure of justice. But, let's be clear, whilever police investigate police, there will be no justice for Hamid or whomever else is relying upon some kind of accountability, and this vacuum of accountability allows misconduct to become the norm in police officers.

If you want a further case of that, think about what's happening at the moment in New South Wales, where a police officer who has now been charged with brutal murder was, just 12 short months ago, investigated by police for tasering somebody in the face. Again, that was caught on film. Again, it was investigated by police. Police investigated police, and they let him keep his taser; they let him keep his gun. When will we acknowledge that it's not just one bad apple. Allowing that lack of accountability rots the whole barrel. It's time to end police investigating police.

The coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker has heard evidence that the Northern Territory police have an ingrained culture of racism. It's making front-page news now because of evidence that has come from former NT officer Zachary Rolfe. But, let's be clear, First Nations Territorians have been calling this out for years. Indeed, what we have heard from that officer in the last 24 hours should send a shiver down our spines. But the NT is not unique; officers in a Brisbane watchhouse were caught making the most sickening racist comments. There is page after page of them. I won't read them onto the record, so offensive are they to First Nations people. And do you know what? None of them got sanctioned. Why not? There was an internal investigation. What a coincidence! Police investigated police and said it was all fine. Something that in any other job would get you fired on the spot is not just excusable in Australian policing; it appears to be part of the culture.

It's the same in New South Wales, and there's is data to prove it. Data from the Redfern Legal Centre shows that, between 2018 and 2022, First Nations peoples were significantly overrepresented as victims of police violence. Of a total of some 28,800 recorded uses of force against people in New South Wales, 13,161 were against First Nations people. Forty-five per cent of the use of police violence was against just 3.4 per cent of the New South Wales population. Police systemically visit violence and abuse upon First Nations peoples, and whether it's in New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia, the story is the same across the country. Why am I saying this in the Senate? It's because, during 11 years as a New South Wales MP, I saw up close how state and territory police had such political control over governments. They're never held accountable by state or territory governments. If anything, governments pander to them with law-and-order politics, and the end result is that communities are less safe—much less safe.

It's time for the Albanese government, the federal government, to step up and take account of this plague of police violence and racism across the country and deliver a national response, not just be silent.

It's the federal government, the Commonwealth government, that's a party to all of the treaties about Indigenous rights, about civil and political rights and about preventing torture. And what have we heard in all of these instances from the federal Attorney-General and the Albanese government? Not one word. When racism is normalised in police forces in territories and states across the country, something needs to be done. And silence is not an option.

Last week, the Albanese government unveiled the Navy surface fleet review, after it had gathered dust on the defence minister's desk for nearly six months. It seems like the only thing the defence minister changed during that time was the name of the review. The review itself, and the government response, is little more than a shopping list for Defence. Indeed, the same Defence leadership who've overseen failure after failure—multibillion-dollar failure on procurement—have been given, by defence minister Marles, access to billions more dollars to effectively piss up against a wall. Worse than that, they're expected not to just clean up the mess that they created, but they're now given—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry—Senator Shoebridge, I think—

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw the point of order.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. You may continue.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But they're now given the green light to literally double the Navy fleet: a hugely expensive—almost never to be launched, if you take into account the timetables—fleet.

But perhaps most shockingly, the Albanese government decided to keep the Hunter frigates program. They cut the number from nine to six but kept the budget at $45 billion—almost $7 billion a boat! Each boat could build 325 primary schools. Each boat would effectively see millions of Australians get access to dental care. Seven billion dollars per boat—that's the same amount that it cost the US to launch a nuclear submarine, and we get a frigate for it! You couldn't make this stuff up!

But next time you can't drop your kids off to school, or you're talking to their teacher about the huge class size, or the classroom's not air-conditioned, think about the fact that this money that the Albanese government is spending on six frigates is enough to fix all of that and more. It's enough to fix pretty much any problem that you can fix with money. And so, next time Labor cry poor, as they do, on how they 'haven't got the money' for public housing, they can't raise JobSeeker and they can't improve Medicare—but they can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear submarines and tens of billions of dollars on frigates, and not even put any of them in the water?—ask your Labor MP why that's the case.

Finally, in this last week, we've seen Julian Assange trying to get his freedom—trying to get his government, and the UK government, and the US government, to finally see that he's a political prisoner and should be released. As Duncan Campbell wrote in the Guardian:

Which is the more serious criminal activity: extrajudicial killings, routine torture of prisoners and illegal renditions carried out by a state, or exposing those actions by publishing—

allegedly—

illegally leaked details of how, where, when and by whom they were committed?

Which is the bigger crime?

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to be clear, we're going to go to Senator Rice now, to conclude the 10 minutes, and then we're going to go back up to the top of the five minutes, and, Senator McCarthy, you'll be first.