Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This afternoon, we witnessed a stunt in the Senate that did nothing to advance policy and everything to inflame division. Senator Hanson chose to repeat her 2017 theatrics by entering the Senate in a burqa and demanding a ban, without a moment's regard for the people who will feel the consequences of that performance most acutely. This was not an act of leadership; it was not an act of concern for public safety. It was a calculated spectacle that was designed for attention rather than for the Australian people. Let us be honest about the repercussions of such behaviour. A stunt like this does not merely provoke commentary within these walls. It reverberates across the nation. It licenses ignorance. It emboldens hostility. It hands a megaphone to those who thrive on suspicion, division and hatred.

There are women in this country, and in my community, who already steel themselves before stepping onto a bus, into a shopping centre or down a street where they had previously been mocked or questioned. There are women who navigate their daily lives with a heightened awareness of how their clothing, their faith or simply their appearance might be judged. For those women, today's spectacle was not a curiosity. It was a reminder. It was a reminder of every sideways glance, every muttered comment and every moment when their belonging was made to feel conditional. When a parliamentary chamber becomes a platform for theatrics that caricature their identities, it sends a message far beyond Parliament House. It tells them that their safety, their dignity and their freedom can be traded away for a headline. It tells them that their lived experiences, their anxieties, their hopes for their children and their sense of place in this country are secondary to someone else's political pointscoring.

The reality is that this kind of performance does not spark debate. It heightens the risk that ordinary women—our neighbours, our colleagues and our fellow citizens—will face harassment, hostility or discrimination in their everyday lives. What we say and do in this chamber has an impact in the community. It can paint targets on the backs of people who already have to navigate a world of judgment. Today's performance was beyond dog whistling. Dog whistling at least cloaks itself in subtlety. What we witnessed was a foghorn. It was an unmistakable signal that was designed to agitate and divide. It was politics at its laziest and most dangerous, which used fear as a prop and people's identities as stage costumes.

This parliament must be better than the theatrics we witnessed today. We owe the Australian people a standard of debate that reflects the seriousness of our responsibilities and the diversity of our nation. Difficult conversations and points of disagreement can be had, but the way we conduct those debates—particularly on sensitive topics—matters. The path we take matters. It matters to the women who will walk home tonight wondering whether their parliament sees them. It matters to every Australian who wants to believe their parliament respects them and will stand up for them. So let's continue to meet that responsibility with courage and decency, and with the respect that the Australian people deserve and exercise most of the time.

With that said, I want to turn my attention to the kinds of things that make a positive difference to people's lives in communities like mine. I would prefer to talk about things like investments in social housing—the investment of 62 new social homes in Mitcham through the Housing Australia Future Fund and the 13 new crisis and transitional homes in Maroondah. I'd like to be able to talk more about this, and to talk about the 700 Deakin locals who have entered homeownership for the first time thanks to the five per cent deposit scheme. Because turning our attention to how we actually improve the lives of people is the work that matters. And I know it's the people across the chamber—we're here to make the lives of the people in this country better than they were yesterday. That's the job, and that is where the majority of us are focused most of the time. We can engage in rigorous debate in good faith while believing in our convictions, but while conducting ourselves in a way that reflects the dignity of this parliament and the solemn roles that we have on behalf of the Australian people.

I look to community projects where we can make a girls changeroom in a sports club that's excluded them for years and where we can support emergency relief organisations to deal with the most vulnerable citizens in a way that government simply can't. I go to Rotary clubs and Lions clubs where members of the community not only identify problems but spend their days being a part of the solution. I go to small businesses that are innovating and changing the way we think about problems confronted by our society, like energy and other things as well.

This country is full of amazing people doing amazing things. As their representatives, the least we can do is try to hold ourselves to a higher standard, focus on the issues that matter to them and dedicate every day to the task of making the standard of living in this country better than it was before.

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