Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, there are those in this parliament who want to deny justice to First Nations peoples. The Leader of the Opposition has taken this opportunity to divide instead of unite, to continue a long tradition of using race to seek to win votes. The Leader of the Opposition is someone who claims there is sexual abuse in Alice Springs but refuses to report it to the police. The Leader of the Opposition opposes lifting the age of criminal responsibility, which currently sees Indigenous children locked up at record rates. He doesn't think that there should be a federal voice to parliament, and he opposes a federal body to listen to, consult with and consider the views of First Nations peoples.

The Uluru statement was presented to the last government when the Leader of the Opposition was in cabinet. He vigorously opposed it then as he vigorously opposes it now, because if there's one thing about the Leader of the Opposition worth noting it's that he doesn't change. Last time he was in opposition, when there was a formal apology made to members of the stolen generation, he turned his back and walked out. He said he couldn't support the apology. He was deaf to the cries of anguish.

He is a man who has built a career on attacking those in a weaker position than himself, on making people seeking asylum 'illegals', on fearmongering about different racial groups, trashing them in the media and in his public comments and seeking to further his lot through the marginalisation of the weakest in our world. It's the sort of approach you would expect from One Nation, but it's coming from someone who wants to lead this country. That is his record on immigration, where he built and ran prison islands which saw human rights abuse on an industrial scale. When women were raped, he accused them of trying it on. When people were left with no other option but to set themselves on fire, he claimed it was hype. And he accused refugee advocates of coaching self-harm. That's the history of this man.

He has both denied the climate crisis, siding with coal barons and gas corporations to continue to pollute, and attacked those who would be the victims of the climate crisis in the Pacific island, with his unforgettable 'water lapping at your door' joke. He thinks the oceans rising and lapping at the doors of the Pacific islands is funny. The Leader of the Opposition falsely claimed that people in my hometown of Melbourne were afraid to go out for dinner because of African gangs, and that unleashed and gave licence to hate—hate on the streets and hate in our communities—and people are still suffering from it. He claimed allowing Lebanese Muslims to immigrate was a mistake. He accused the now Prime Minister of being an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. He was opposed to marriage equality and even attacked 'Same Love', the song choice of a band playing at the rugby league grand final, and demanded that the anti-marriage-equality argument got equal time.

The Leader of the Opposition is scared of a voice to parliament. He's scared to listen to what a voice might have to say. He's scared of the voice of First Nations people while he pushes for them to be silent in prisons. We need a voice to parliament enshrined in the Constitution because of people like the Leader of the Opposition and Senator Hanson. Without a First Nations Voice, they will continue to see the First Nations people of this country as criminals, not as equals. They will ignore how the laws of our parliament have impacted First Nations people. They see the Voice as a threat. Justice, liberty and equality, according to the far-right-wing Liberals and One Nation, is a threat.

But this country is changing. We want a different future. We want to be more than a prison island. We want to come to terms with how we all came to be here. We want to punch up and not down. We want a country which treats everyone fairly. We want to be brave and bold, not weak and cowardly. We want to be proud of our future. So we will back the Voice. But it must be just the beginning. The Greens will fight to make sure the government also implements truth and treaty. We must reckon with the truth of our history and move forward together through treaty. That is the only path.

I repeat: if the Voice referendum goes down, we will be further away from those critical next steps for justice. We can all live on this ancient land. We can replace the centuries of racism and division with a shared understanding and a new political settlement which embraces the millennia of human history. This is in all of our interests. There's a profound beauty in this land. We must understand the connection that First Nations peoples have to it. If we all took a moment to shut up and listen, we might actually learn something and build a country and a nation that we can all be part of; build something far more powerful, honest and just.

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