Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few comments about where I think the nation is going. One of the main reasons I joined the Liberal Party was because I had a high conviction that there was great value and virtue in the individual. Having been wary of collectivism, I've also valued greatly the virtue of a good society being able to protect minority interests. That has always been, I think, a mark of liberalism but also a mark of Australia at its finest, when it can find a way to protect and, in fact, advance minority interests.

That's why I was very happy to be heavily involved in the marriage equality campaigns back in 2017 and, in fact, to run one of the campaigns. And that's why I was happy to have voted yes in the referendum last year. It is important to keep in mind that minority interests, while very important, have to be balanced against the overall national interest. And I am very concerned that there is a degradation of our standards where people feel almost embarrassed to celebrate our country. I think that being patriotic is a great virtue. If we, the Australian people, cannot be patriotic, I don't know who can be.

Since the Second World War, we have resettled millions of people in a harmonious way from all corners of the planet. We have amongst the highest living standards in the world. I worry that there is a sense in parts of the community, particularly in the very politically engaged community, that it is embarrassing to be proud of our country. Even just this week, in reflecting on some of the contributions that were made in relation to the defacing of the war memorials, it is sad to think that people can't come together on the fact that people in their hundreds and thousands—in fact, over a million in the last century—went to war to advocate for the way of life that we now enjoy. We have received a dividend from their sacrifice, and the fact that we can't coalesce around that is very troubling. I worry that there is more division ahead.

The discussion around the creation of a Muslim party and our failure to agree to reasonable laws that defend the rights of religious institutions to conduct themselves in the way they wish while not discriminating on any individual basis against a student or teacher does worry me greatly. My sense is that it is very important that we are a society that can defend and protect minority interests. It has always been my view that that's the mark of a good society: how it defends minority interests. We also have to balance the fact that we live in the world's greatest country. We have unimaginable freedoms in this country. We have been able to deliver a harmonious and cohesive nation when so many other countries have failed at the very first hurdle.

So I'm very proud to be an Australian. I'm very proud to be an Australian because we are a country where you can do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want to say as long as you're not breaking any laws. That's a very important principle for us to uphold. I want us to try and work together. I would much rather we be ambitious for what our country can do and how we address our challenges than descend into division and try to coalesce around the things that we know we can all agree on, which is that we are a great country and that we should always try and find a place to defend minority interests.