Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his words and for agreeing to my request to introduce this motion. Often in this place we disagree on matters of principle and questions of policy in everything from Medicare to how we keep manufacturing jobs. That is as it should be. Ours is a system built upon the contest of ideas. But this is a matter where we genuinely have a shared interest: the national interest. Attacks on minorities are always weaker when we in this parliament set a better example and show the way.

In this place we should always stand up for our values and our national identity in its most generous fullest expression not on the basis of history of faith alone, because our collective and individual identities are the sum of a long list of attributes: our views and ideas, gender, faith, ethnicity, family, sexuality, disability, education and community. But when we take all of these attributes and many more as a whole we do not use one feature to exclude others. We do not use one feature to entirely describe ourselves. And in this parliament we must make that choice.

As leaders we have a responsibility to unite not divide, to reject the falsehood of a strong man or a strong woman imposing simple 'us versus them' solutions, which only leads to bleaker outcomes, to reject the false choice between faith or nation, between a person's heritage or their hopes for a future. Instead, with this motion today, we say to all Australians: no one part of you defines all of you, and it should not define your destiny.

Importantly, this motion rededicates this House to the pursuit of reconciliation alongside respect for migration. As the great Gough Whitlam said, when he introduced the Racial Discrimination Act into the House of Representatives in 1975, 'The main victims of social depravation and restricted opportunity have been the oldest Australians and the newest,' and as long as the gap in life expectancy, health, education, employment and justice stands between Indigenous Australia and the rest of Australia then there is unfinished business for all of us to resolve.

Constitutional recognition is certainly a very important part of this but I must speak for a broader effort, not just making peace with the past but ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a full and equal share in Australia's future. This must begin, as all great enterprises do, with a sense that it can be done, a belief that we can strike racism from the pages of our Constitution and the hearts of our people, a faith that a place in our national birth certificate will be matched by economic and social progress, the hope that the historical justice in the document which forms the basis of our laws will be paired with real justice in the courts of this land.

Much of this motion, the text identical to that authored by Kim Beazley and John Howard 20 years ago, is as timely now as it was then. But there is one word whose meaning, the way we understand it, I believe, has changed in that 20 years: the word 'tolerance'. The word tolerance does not do justice to the society we treasure. We tolerate traffic jams. We tolerate flight delays. We tolerate headaches. We tolerate brussels sprouts. But we embrace diversity. The Bible does not tell us to tolerate thy neighbour. Diversity is not a minor inconvenience to be endured. It is not an artifice of political correctness. It is the collective power of our nation, of all of us.

We know that today's immigrants and refugees are tomorrow's community leaders, business leaders, doctors, nurses and teachers. We know that inclusion, openness and cohesion are universal values to build upon. We know multiculturalism is not a passing fashion. It is at the very heart of our national identity, a national identity which is proudly complex and all the richer and stronger because it is diverse.

Of the 226 members of this place, all but five of us are exclusively migrants or the descendants of migrants. We swore a common oath, on different texts, from different faiths. I stand in this place as Labor but I also stand in this place as a father, a husband, a son. I am a proud Victorian and a proud Australian. Some of my mother's ancestors came here at the firm suggestion of the British justice system, others as underqualified and, subsequently, unsuccessful goldminers. My father was a Geordie from the north-east of England, a seafarer who came ashore here in the 1960s. Australia, for him—as it has been for so many—was the home of the second chance.

But the fact that the first of my ancestors got here in 1831 off a convict ship does not make my citizenship better than someone who has just arrived. Our obligation, in this place, runs deeper than a few nice sentiments on holy days or at the beginning of a cultural new year. We need to do more than mouth words of respect. We must thoroughly—publicly—reject racism wherever it occurs or by whoever says it. There is no place in Australia for extremism, no matter the party, no matter the agenda, no matter the importance of the individual vote.

As leaders we cannot choose to pass by on the other side of the road. We are, indeed, our brothers' and our sisters' keepers. We have to call out prejudice whenever we see it in this parliament, in the workplace, on the sporting field and in the media. The way we do this matters. The tone we take matters. Hateful words appealing to the very worst aspects of our national character may prompt strong emotions in us, but we must guard against the temptation to respond with uncontrolled anger breeding resentment and division or with an aggressive contempt that only hardens attitudes. We must be calm and clinical, rationally and relentlessly tackling baseless falsehood with fact, because when people are informed, when we can appeal to their essential decency with the truth, that is how we bring people together.

The facts are these: in 2016, in Australia, we are not being swamped by anyone; migrants are not filling our dole queues or taking our jobs or clogging up our highways or doing all three at the same time. Migration is not a cost or a burden. It is a powerful force for our continuing economic growth and future prosperity. Migration boosts productivity, participation and population. It enhances and complements the skills of our workforce. It adds new knowledge to our national understanding.

In their first year of arrival migrants contribute a net economic benefit of around $880 million. Ten years later the same group will contribute around $2 billion to our national economy. And as for the idea that migrants are bludging on welfare, within six months of their arrival migrants have a workforce participation rate of nearly 80 per cent compared to a national average of 65 per cent. Sometimes this means taking on jobs that other Australians are simply not prepared to do—working late nights, early mornings and long weekends, stacking shelves, driving taxis, cleaning offices, working the back shifts of our factories, setting out in the predawn, knowing that their sacrifice will give their children the chance for a better more rewarding life, children who even now are winning prizes in our schools and excelling in our universities.

For every generation there are obstacles, barriers, irrational slights and indignities in the way. It was only 60 years ago that my own mum was turned away from working in a supermarket for no other reason than that she was a Catholic. It is a story familiar to the Greeks, Italians and eastern Europeans of the 1950s and 1960s, the Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s and the new wave of arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. It is never easy to leave behind the land of your birth, the home of your ancestors. Inevitably, the people who make this journey are resilient, courageous self-starters. That is why so many migrants set the entrepreneurial example in this country. Fifteen out of every 100 people born in Australia are self employed, but of Australians born in Asia, it is 17 in every 100; born in Europe, 23 in every 100, and from the Middle East, 25 in every 100. These Australians are taking risks, launching start-ups and opening businesses from law firms, restaurants and newsagents to corner shops, market gardens and childcare centres, and diversifying our economy as well as our society. Just as migration adds to our skillset, it helps shift our national mindset. Increased migration from Asia has given Australia greater confidence in Asia—the confidence to seek security in our region, not from our region.

Let us tell it how it is. Coded statements about preserving community harmony are not an argument against migration; they are a reminder that Australians-by-birth have a responsibility and an opportunity to embrace Australians-by-choice. Fearmongering about terrorism is not an argument against migration. Countering violent extremism depends upon building cohesion. This is the problem with the bizarre unity ticket between Daesh and other extreme Muslim fundamentalists, and the extreme Right. Both argue that it is not possible to hold Western liberal democratic values and be Muslim. Both say that somehow you cannot be a good Muslim and a good citizen. This shows no understanding of Australia or of the remarkable contribution our Muslim community makes. People need to realise that when they are set up with this false choice or allow it to go unchallenged, they are doing the work of extremists.

Complaining about traffic on the roads or crowded trains is not an argument against permanent migration; it is proof of the need for improved infrastructure processes, better planning and stronger leadership. Economic transition is not an argument against permanent migration; it is proof that we need a government serious about creating and upholding decent jobs. One of the most effective things that the government could do to counter the fallacy that migrants are taking Australian jobs is clean up exploitation and corruption in 457 and temporary work visas, because the unfair power structures arising in our system, which exploit new migrants to undercut Australian wages, are undermining faith in open markets and international labour.

We live in a time when people are being forgotten by change, when people feel afraid of change, and when they feel unrepresented in decision-making. This can lead us to a low road of blaming others, demonising minorities and lashing out; or we can take the high road by skilling our people, investing in education, rewarding hard work with decent wages, including more Australians in opportunity. The unfinished business of Australia is to summon our principles, our values, to share prosperity with all who help to build it; to choose inclusion over exclusion, understanding over ignorance, hope over fear; to embrace the stranger in our midst as our neighbour; to make ordinary citizens our partner in politics; and to build a country where everyone has a seat at the table, an Australia where everyone is welcome and everyone is equal under our Southern Cross.

Debate adjourned.

See this speech in context