Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to recognise that it has been 50 years since the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act, Australia's first antidiscrimination law. For most in this place there would now be broad agreement that we need laws to prevent racial discrimination. However, the Racial Discrimination Act is like many progressive reforms that are now such fundamental parts of Australian society that they are sometimes taken for granted. Reforms like Medicare and superannuation required sustained effort and a deep commitment to principle to get the legislation passed—the kind of effort and principle that only Labor governments show, in this case the Whitlam Labor government. Like other important Labor government reforms, it was opposed by the then Liberal Country Party coalition. And, like other important Labor government reforms, it has required us to show that same effort and commitment to principle to protect it from attacks from the coalition to weaken and undermine it.

The act codified into Australian law our international obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified in September 1975 by Australia. It showed a commitment to international law, to our international obligations to being responsible members of the international community that continues to this day. The act made racial discrimination unlawful in Australia through federal legislation. This historic legislation came only two years after the Whitlam government abolished the final vestiges of the White Australia policy.

The coalition's shadow Attorney-General, on speaking in the second reading debate, stated—with a myopia that mirrors that of the current federal Liberal Party—that 'we in Australia have been singularly free of racial discrimination'. Sadly, that wasn't true then and it isn't true now. There is still racism of both the overt and the covert kind. The Racial Discrimination Act is just one tool to combat it, but it is a crucial one.

Going to the specifics of the act, it includes a general provision making racial discrimination unlawful as well as specific protections to prevent discrimination in areas including employment, the provision of goods, housing and access to public places. This means that when someone goes to purchase a product in a store or to visit a restaurant or tries to access services like their local GP they must be treated the same, regardless of their race, ethnicity or national background. When someone applies for a job or a promotion or asks for leave, they will not face discrimination, under the provisions of this act.

But the act goes further, preventing indirect discrimination, where a person requires another to comply with a term or condition that is not reasonable and that requirement is discriminatory. It goes to that fundamental principle of the rule of law—that all people are equal under the law. Not surprisingly, the act has a significant legacy. It influenced the states and territories to legislate their own antidiscrimination laws. Section 10 of the act, which provides for rights and equality before the law, influenced the decision in Mabo v Queensland (No. 1) to invalidate legislation which would have retrospectively abolished native title rights. Of course, the subsequent decision in Mabo (No. 2) rejected the fiction of terra nullius in Australian law. But most importantly the act made clear to the community, to employers, to businesses and to services that they must treat people the same, regardless of race, and that, where this doesn't occur, there will be consequences.

Vital to the administration of the act is the Australian Human Rights Commission, who are responsible for receiving complaints and attempting to mediate them. The most common type of complaint received are those related to discrimination in the provision of goods and services, followed by discrimination in employment. The AHRC also play a vital role in educating the community about their obligations under the act as well as implementing the national antiracism strategy, commissioned by the Albanese Labor government in 2022.

It is not just the AHRC that plays that vital role of combatting racism within society. There are also many organisations within my electorate of Menzies that play this vital role. We have the Migrant Information Centre in Box Hill, which supports migrants and refugees to settle in the community, links them with essential services, informs them of their rights and their responsibilities as members of the community, and holds a number of functions reaching out to the broader community. We have AMES, who deliver the Adult Migrant English Program to ensure that recent migrants have a level of English that allows them to communicate with businesses and employers and helps them settle successfully in Australia. But our local schools, kindergartens, childcare centres and businesses all play a role in combatting racism.

I'm lucky enough to visit a lot of schools around my electorate, and I know that they all have strong antiracism strategies so that all the children from diverse backgrounds should, as much as possible, feel safe attending school, knowing that they won't face racism or discrimination. Menzies has a higher-than-average proportion of people born overseas and a higher-than-average proportion of people who speak a language other than English at home, and it's really important that all of our services, especially those that support young people, are sending that message that racism is not acceptable under any circumstances.

We also have some great local festivals that play an important role in building bridges and celebrating and sharing cultures in our local community. On the weekend just past, I was lucky to attend the Persian Fair at Box Hill Town Hall, which was organised by the House of Persia and the Australian Iranian Society of Victoria. I was fortunate to be able to watch their amazing performances with dancing and music. The food was really incredible as well, and I was very grateful to the community for being so welcoming but also for providing the opportunity for members of the wider community to experience the richness and the colour of Iranian culture.

Next year we will have the Box Hill Chinese New Year Festival, which is one of the highlights of our local calendar and one of the biggest Chinese New Year festivals in Melbourne. It attracts over 100,000 people, and it's a real staple of our calendar. I was proud to advocate and secure an election commitment of $150,000 to support the Box Hill Chinese New Year Festival. We will also be holding the inaugural Manningham Chinese New Year Festival. It was held for the first time last year and was a huge success. I'm looking forward to seeing it back in the northern part of my electorate next year and seeing how it benefits our local traders around Jackson Court and in Doncaster East. We have been able to support that as well with a federal election commitment of $50,000. Both of those events are run by the Asian Business Association of Whitehorse. We're very active in our community in running these local festivals and advocating for small businesses.

In 1995 the Racial Discrimination Act was strengthened by the Keating Labor government, following a number of inquiries into racist violence in Australia as well as in response to a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. One of the more debated amendments to the act is section 18C, which provides that 'it is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if the act is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people' due to their race. Now, there are some in this place, some on the opposite side, who believe that people have a right to be bigots. That is something we in the Labor Party will never support.

The Racial Discrimination Act is more important than ever. As much as we would like to believe that the arc of justice bends towards history, this is not something we can take for granted. Anti-immigration rallies organised by neo-Nazis have been held in our major cities; foreign narratives and conspiracy theories spread on social media erode our trust in democracy; and conflicts abroad have tested our social cohesion here.

The Labor Party will always stand up for modern multicultural Australia. We are the party that enacted the Racial Discrimination Act, we are the party that acted to address apartheid and we are the party that will always back modern multicultural Australia.

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