Barnaby Joyce (New England, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wished to speak on today's matter of public importance, but I unfortunately missed out. I would take issue with the member for Wentworth's statement, which was:

I think we need to build a modern version of the Australian story, because we have this Gallipoli myth about who we were back in 1914.

I'll start by saying that the 'Gallipoli myth' is not a myth; it is one of the fundamental parts of what is Australia. It is part of our iconography. It is something that we hold so firmly because it identifies Australians at their very best. What we should be doing is attaching where Australia is now to that Gallipoli ethos more than what we saw with the disgusting behaviour of Grace Tame, who was apparently Australian of the Year.

I don't dispute for one second the trials of her life, but that does not give her licence to go out and carpet the rest of Australia from the front of the town hall. She's brought the award into disrepute. She should hand it back if that is her belief about Australia. If not, the National Australia Day Council should explain why she should keep it. If you were to go out and promote the intifada in the form of—I don't know what you would call it—an abrasive, piercing caterwaul, the approach of inspiring that violence would absolutely be to the detriment of Australians of the Jewish faith. It would bring about friction, which would inevitably lead to further deaths. A person who does that needs to be called to account, no matter what former laurels they may have attained or what former life experiences they may have had.

I do not believe in multiculturalism. I believe in an Australian culture. I believe in an Australian culture that is formed by legacy, heritage issues, such as Gallipoli. I believe in some of the heritage issues that have been given to us by the Aboriginal people. I believe in an Australian culture. I don't believe you can have this amorphous mass of multiple cultural perspectives on how we should be Australian, because inevitably it leads to Balkanisation, it leads to friction and it leads to death. I believe that we have to clearly understand that, when you come to Australia, there is most definitely a contract. When you come to Australia, you are a representation of whence you came. If you come to Australia, you have a responsibility to not be in the crime pages or on social security, because then you are not an asset to the nation; you are a burden to the nation. When you come to Australia, you have to act in such a way as to give good representation of other people from your part of the world, who you may also wish to come to this nation. It is not an issue of colour, creed or geography. It is a representation of actions and how you act in this nation.

We have to say the things that in the past would've been called 'politically incorrect'. We have to become strong. We have to understand that the circumstances of how Australia is have unfortunately and tragically changed. And if we are to be resolute in changing Australia back to something that is an adornment and a respect of the Gallipoli legacy and heritage, then we cannot do it by demonstrations in the middle of Sydney, completely at odds with court orders and the directions of the police, without an Australian flag in sight, that laud a form of aggression and antagonism that is nothing but the demise of this great nation of Australia.

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