Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is a country envied by many people around the world. This is evident from the number of people who have migrated or those applying to migrate to our beautiful and unique part of the world. Australia is my place of birth, as it was my parents' and children's. Yet, on a daily basis, I'm made to feel inferior and not entitled to enjoy, connect to, use or have the knowledge that this is my land—a country that I love and would fight for to defend my way of life and connection to it. How could this happen?

It's happening to all Australians who are non-Indigenous. This is becoming more apparent now from Aboriginal activists, our own Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and former coalition and Labor governments. Aboriginals and their corporations don't pay tax on royalties or leasing agreements. Why? A fund was set up under the Howard government to buy land in perpetuity, funded by taxpayers. This is separate from native title claims. When billions of dollars in royalties have been handed over to these Indigenous corporations, why do we continue to fund Indigenous corporations, land councils, charities and programs? Where are the accountability, progress and milestone reports? Where are the outcomes? There are very few. Corruption and nepotism are rife, with the leaders of these entities preying on the Australian taxpayer and disadvantaging Indigenous people for personal financial gain.

A royal commission needs to be held to expose the corruption and enrichment of some over the majority of Australians. You don't need paperwork to identify as an Aboriginal person. It's estimated that only one per cent of people who identify as Aboriginal in Australia are full-blooded Aboriginals. In the first census that included the Indigenous population in 1971, 115,953 people identified as Indigenous. In the 2021 census, the figure was 812,728—an increase of 25.2 per cent from 2016—which is approximately three per cent of the population in Australia.

Why am I fed up to the back teeth with being disenfranchised in my own country, along with many millions of my fellow Australians? Let me explain. A non-Indigenous Australian can no longer visit or climb iconic landmarks such as Ayers Rock—Uluru—Grampians National Park, Mount Warning, the Glass House Mountains and some beaches. These are only the few places I have named. This is nothing more than a power play over other Australians, making a point that this land belongs only to the Indigenous people, and everyone else can go to hell. The endgame is to set up an Indigenous black state with their own government that will be paid for by everyone but them. Australians will have to pay for the privilege of travelling across Australia, whether on land, sea, rivers or flying by plane, believe it or not, because they own the air as well. Australians will be paying rent. Trust me, if we don't take a stand now, we will be paying, and we will pay dearly.

Welcome to country or acknowledgements of country are performed at virtually all government departments, private businesses, commercial flights, schools, universities, sport events and so on. I refuse to say it myself. As a good, obedient politician, I turn my back when it is said every sitting morning of parliament. In 1976, Ernie Dingo and musician Richard Walley performed what they claimed was Australia's first contemporary welcome to country. Children are being made to perform welcome to country and being taught that the land belongs only to the Aboriginals. I refuse to be welcomed to my own country, and I advise every other proud Australian to protest against this division. Other Australians are denied the right to enter some waterways and fish but not Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. What is traditional about fishing when outboard motors, fishing lines and nets are permitted? Turtles and dugongs and other species are protected from ordinary Australians but not the Indigenous. Most of these people have never lived traditionally and never will but are granted these rights over other Australians on this basis. Talk about racism!

It makes my blood boil when I hear people such as Bruce Pascoe making claims that the Aborigines were farmers or environmentalists. Apart from very few tribes, they were nomadic hunters and gatherers. They burnt the shrub and bush to chase out the animals for food, not for environmental reasons. The activists would want me to believe they did it because they knew about climate change and wanted to save the planet. Give me a break! If they respect their traditions and want their culture, then why build the white man's house? That's not traditional. Alcohol and tobacco are not traditional.

The Prime Minister's Voice to Parliament was overwhelmingly thrown out by Australians, as it should have been. It was divisive, insulting and full of lies that were only said to further pit one Australian against another with more rights and privileges. The PM claims now that he didn't advocate for a Makarrata Commission—another lie. He endorsed and promised the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full which included the Makarrata and truth-telling. When is he going to be truthful about Indigenous child sexual abuse and domestic violence that is the highest per capita in Australia? When will he acknowledge Aboriginal juvenile crime destroying townships and communities? When is he going to call for a royal commission into the corruption and misappropriation of approximately 35 billion to 40 billion of taxpayers dollars spent each year supposedly on three per cent of the population?

Most Australians are doing it tough. Homelessness, health, dental, education, or the cost of living are everyday struggles. Why does the colour of one's skin or cultural background based on self-identifying entitle them to jobs, special health care or education? One black child sitting beside a white child in a classroom should be entitled to the same education. This whole Aboriginal identity racket is racist and not tested. How often do we see people as white as me, with red or blonde hair and green or blue eyes claiming to be Aboriginal?

Our country has also been divided by allowing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to be flown on the floors of parliament across the country and on government buildings. These flags never existed before the 1970s. We went to the Olympics under the one flag. Why can't we live in our own country under the one flag? I'll put it to Australians. If war were ever to come to our shores, I ask Australians this: how many of you would take up arms and possibly lay down your lives to defend a country which is being denied to you? I acknowledge that some Indigenous soldiers fought to defend our nation in the First and Second World Wars, but, if a black nation were established with our own nation, would they be capable of defending it? My answer is no. How many of the three per cent would fight, or would they claim every other Australian owes them and must defend their nation. Never forget it was mostly migrants and Australians born here who fought and sacrificed their lives for our freedom and way of life. Their hard work has made Australia what it is. This country would not be what it is today if not for them.

No Indigenous culture made Australia what it is today. Lies, feeling sorry for the past and playing the victim will never change or amend the true agenda of those who want nothing more than to appease their hatred for their failures and to blame everyone else but themselves. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I say in this relation to myself: I confess I have been an irritant, a thorn in your rump, an obstinate woman who has my own mind and the disagreeable habit of sharing it with you. Mr Churchill also said, 'What is the use of parliament if it is not the place where true statements can be brought before the people? What on earth is the use of sending members to parliament to say what they are told to say by the whips and loudly cheer every ministerial platitude? What value can we place on our parliamentary institutions if constituencies return only tame, docile and subservient members who try to stamp on every form of independent judgement. For that is precisely what some have suggested. But let us put that all behind us. Let us not dwell on the dark pits of disaster. Let us move forward to face the challenges which lie ahead.'

I ask my Senate colleagues: have you got the intestinal fortitude to face the challenge? One Nations calls for accountability and transparency in the Aboriginal industry gravy train, which only a royal commission can deliver. One Nation calls for a united Australia—one people, one nation under one flag. Criticism is not racism. One Nation demands equal rights for all and special rights for none. That's the only way that's fair in a true democracy.