Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I start by saying that I do not think there could be a greater commitment to us making sure that we all play a leadership role in this than the tone which has been adopted in this MPI. I cannot remember the last time an opposition put forward an MPI at the end of a parliamentary sitting fortnight with the purpose of having this sort of debate. The reason we need to have it is absolutely clear: to send the message loud and clear to the Australian public that the issues we are talking about are issues that almost every one of us in this building agree with, and this is the opportunity to show that. When there have been a very small number of outbreaks within this building of people not behaving the same way, I think it is right and proper that they be called out on that.

I praise, for example, the comments that Mike Baird made in a tweet only about an hour ago. The Premier of New South Wales said:

My clear position on this is governments should not be telling anyone what they should be wearing.

The reason why I think it is so important for us to be making these sorts of speeches today is that none of us should pretend that, when we have the privilege of officially and constitutionally being representatives of the Australian people, on issues of national character like this we have the luxury of saying, 'Look, it's just my personal opinion and please take it as such.' We are representatives by definition and the community needs us as representatives to make clear that we have the view that Australians will not be told they do not belong.

I have seen how it wears people down when, time and again, leaders within my community have seen something horrific overseas and have then been told by the media, 'We know you're a leader, we know you're a good person, we know you're 100 per cent part of the community, but, by the way, we just need to check: are you opposed to the child holding the decapitated head?' I can see why that wears people down. And they have still had the courage to go out time and time again saying, 'The hatred that we have seen in those images are not in my name.' Today is an opportunity for us, as representatives of the Australian people, to say to the woman who was being abused by a thug at a rail station that that abuse is not happening on behalf of Australia and that abuse is not in our name; we need to be able to say to the Sikh taxi driver who is being called a terrorist that the abuse that he is receiving is not in our name; and we need to be able to say to the children who were abused on a bus with anti-Semitic bile that the abuse they received was not in our name—not in the name of this parliament, not in the name of our country and not what Australia represents or is. Community leaders across Australia are part of a campaign making clear: not in my name. You will see it take off over the next few days. In Europe, it was only the Islamic community that was part of that campaign, having to go out and explain, time and time again, that the things that were being ostensibly done in the name of their religion were not in their name.

People are now presenting themselves as though they are the true representatives of Australia and some of those people are presenting themselves with extraordinary prejudice. We need to make sure as a parliament that one message comes out of here: not that we hedge or that we show different levels of sympathy in different ways but that we send a message loud and clear that prejudice is not in our name. The voice of hatred will always be there, but we will make sure that the voice of hatred will never be the loudest voice. We need to make sure of this now, more than at any other time I can remember. Make no mistake, the abuse that is happening to so many people on the streets—particularly to community leaders who are receiving death threats, which are usually threads involving, 'I threaten you with beheading'—is being received from yobbos.

These sorts of threats are hurting the exact people who we need to be fostering the sense of community and keeping people together. We have an unusual leadership role right now, and none of us can pretend on this one we are simply here on our own behalf. As a parliament, as a House of Representatives, as different political parties, we need to make sure that the people who are receiving hate that we will never be able to imagine know absolutely that Australia says they are part of this country and we unequivocally stand together. (Time expired)

See this speech in context