Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

This motion confronts us with a truth that should unsettle every person in this chamber. Racial violence against First Nations people in Australia is not hypothetical, it is not historical and it is not isolated. It remains a real and present threat. The attempted bombing in Boorloo/Perth on 26 January was not just an attack on a peaceful protest; it was an attack on First People who were asserting their identity, their history and their right to gather on a day that to them marks a day of dispossession. That this incident is now being investigated as a possible act of terrorism is appropriate but also deeply alarming. It speaks to the seriousness of the threat that we are now all confronting.

Violence motivated by racial hate has no place in Australia. Many of us spoke to this fact, and we tried to legislate to that effect in this place last month. But words of condemnation, while necessary, are insufficient. When acts of racial violence occur and are not met with immediate, visible, decisive action by police forces and by government, they don't fade; they metastasise. An attack against First Nations people is an attack on all Australians. This is not a political slogan; it is a statement of fact. Our country and our culture rest on the principle that no group should live in fear because of who they are. When that principle is breached for one community, it is weakened for all of us.

For many First Nations people, 26 January is a day of mourning. As a country, we should have the heart and the maturity to respect that fact. To target a non-violent Invasion Day rally with an act of violence represents a deliberate attempt to intimidate and to silence. That's why this motion matters and why the response to it must be more than just the sum of the words that we speak here today.

What happened in Perth on 26 January didn't happen in isolation. Months earlier, after the March for Australia rally in September, Neo-Nazi protesters in Melbourne openly attacked a camp which was asserting Indigenous sovereignty. These were not covert acts. They were carried out in public in broad daylight with symbols and chants that left no ambiguity about their intent. But the response from authorities from both Victoria Police and from the AFP has been slow and opaque. Five months after this act of violence, we're still waiting on investigations to be completed and charges to be issued.

For First Nations people from Victoria and their allies, the message has been unmistakeable: expressions of white supremacist intimidation can occur in the open in the heart of our city without immediate consequence. That perception is corrosive. It emboldens extremists. It deepens fears in people who have already been subjected to entrenched racism for generations.

The federal government has a duty to protect all people in this country from racism, discrimination, hate speech and the threat of racially motivated violence. That duty doesn't end in statements. It requires coordination with the states. It requires the enforcement of policing standards. It requires the disruption of organised extremist networks and a willingness to name Neo-Nazism for what it is: an ideology of racism and violence.

First Peoples in Australia continue to face entrenched racism, threats and intimidation. This motion appropriately calls for urgent action in response. Urgent means now. It means ensuring that camps asserting sovereignty are protected, not ignored. It means ensuring that those who organise, incite or carry out racially motivated violence face consequences proportionate to the harm that they cause.

This parliament has recently and rightly condemned racially motivated hatred and extremism. That condemnation has to unambiguously include the incitement of hatred and violence towards First Nations people. So I thank the member for Curtin for moving this motion, and I join my colleagues here today in acknowledging the significance of this event and expressing solidarity with all those impacted by it.

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