Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) reaffirms its commitment to the right of all Australians to enjoy equal rights and be treated with equal respect regardless of race, colour, creed or origin;

(2) reaffirms its commitment to maintaining an immigration policy wholly non-discriminatory on grounds of race, colour, creed or origin;

(3) reaffirms its commitment to the process of reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in the context of redressing their profound social and economic disadvantage;

(4) reaffirms its commitment to maintaining Australia as a culturally diverse, tolerant and open society, united by an overriding commitment to our nation, and its democratic institutions and values; and

(5) denounces racial intolerance in any form as incompatible with the kind of society we are and want to be.

Mr Speaker, 50 years ago this week Australia became an early signatory to one of the world's most profound declarations on human rights, the United Nations international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. It is a treaty that goes directly to a basic principle of our respect for each other as fellow human beings—respect for each other regardless of race, colour or ethnicity. I am proud that it was the government of my liberal predecessor Harold Holt that signed that treaty in New York on 13 October 1966. I am equally proud that only six months earlier the Holt government had made historic changes to our migration laws, dismantling all laws and regulations allowing discrimination against migrants on the grounds of colour or race. It was in August of the previous year, 1965, that the Labor Party formally removed the maintenance of the White Australia from its platform. On 27 May 1967 Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution to enable the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, a process that was begun under Sir Robert Menzies' government and was completed under the leadership of Harold Holt.

Ultimately those momentous decisions by the Menzies and Holt liberal governments signalled the death of the White Australia policy and opened up for this country all the new and exciting opportunities awaiting a multicultural Australia. They sought to end discrimination and ensure our first Australians were not treated like visitors in their own country—a wrong which we as a nation are still reconciling. Accordingly, we rise in this parliament today, as John Howard and Kim Beazley did 20 years ago, to speak on this very motion—a 20-year-old unity ticket, perhaps—celebrating and reaffirming the Australian values of fair go and mutual respect for all regardless of how they look, how they worship or where they come from.

Today, Mr Speaker, I rise to reaffirm my commitment to those common values and to the kind of Australian society that I believe in and have always believed in. First and foremost, I see one of the great defining characteristics of our nation Australia is that we are the most successful multicultural society in the world. We are as old as our first Australians, the oldest continuing human culture on earth who cared for this country for more than 40,000 years, and we are as young as the baby in the arms of her migrant mother who could have come from any nation, any faith, any race in the world. In just the last week we welcomed 1667 people as new Australians in 47 citizenship ceremonies around our nation. Australian citizenship represents commitment to Australia and its people, the values we share and our common future. It symbolises and unity as a nation; it represents our sense of belonging to the country where we have been born or where we have decided to make our home. These new citizens have come from 88 different countries. Many have joined our regional communities—such as Port Lincoln and Coober Pedy, Derwent and Moora, Dubbo, Bega and Maitland, La Trobe and Casey, Ipswich and Cook, as well as in the larger metropolitan centres. As I speak now, a ceremony is being held on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.

Australia is in immigration nation. Today almost half of us have a parent born overseas and more than a quarter of Australians were born overseas themselves. We are much more diverse than the United States, only one of whose 50 states, California, has a comparable overseas born population. Since 1945 more than seven and a half million people have come from all corners of the earth to make their life here. In joining our fold they have added their own identity to the extraordinary project that is modern Australia. Migrants from every continent, from the grandest cities to the smallest villages, from our nearest neighbour to the most far-flung corner of the globe have made Australia their home. Our newest Australians have arrived under a broad range of visas: as skilled migrants nominated by employers; as refugees and humanitarian entrants; as partners, carers, business owners, regional skilled migrants, people of distinguished talent; and as parents. Each one brings a rich personal history that we welcome into our Australian community at the time they formalise their commitment to our country, our values and our rule of law. They are drawn here by the promise of security, prosperity and freedom. Everyone sitting in this chamber and every Australian is a beneficiary of the diversity that is at the heart of our nation.

At the United Nations last month I told story of one of those people, 22-year-old Sudanese Australian Aliir Aliir who grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya after his family fled the bloody civil war in Sudan. For Aliir and 150,000 other men, women and children, Kakuma refugee camp was their home. It provided the bare necessities of meals and shelter, but not much else. Aliir and his friends would improvise with the balloon wrapped with strips of old clothing to use as a football. He was seven when he and his family came to Australia. Tall, fast and agile, he was a natural for Australian rules football. Earlier this year I was delighted when he debuted for the AFL team I support, the Sydney Swans. He is one of the first Sudanese immigrants to play AFL and as such he has become a role model in our multicultural nation. There are thousands of migrant stories like Aliir's. Their stories are our stories; their successes are our successes.

Our achievement in creating a harmonious nation is not an accident; it has been carefully crafted and it must be nurtured. A necessary precondition for harmony is security.

Our achievement in creating a harmonious nation is not an accident. It has been carefully crafted and it must be nurtured. A necessary precondition for harmony is security. Understanding why Australia has been successful will help ensure that we continue to be so: strong borders, vigilant security agents governed by the rule of law, and a steadfast commitment to the shared values of freedom and mutual respect.

Harmony and security are not mutually exclusive—they are mutually reinforcing. Why is it that people of different races, cultures and religions live alongside each other in harmony here, while similarly diverse societies elsewhere are marked by conflict, division and distrust? Australians do not define themselves by reference to race, religion or ethnic background. Our identity is defined by shared political values and an overriding commitment to our nation and its democratic institutions. We are bound together by shared political values of democracy, the rule of law and equality of opportunity—a fair go. That is the glue that holds us together. The glue which hold us together is mutual respect—a deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity and the same opportunities.

Our natural inclination is to welcome newcomers, to be curious about their cultures and to enjoy learning about their beliefs and experience. We are open and tolerant because we are confident in our culture, our institutions and our laws. In turn, when our newest Australians take the pledge of citizenship, they promise 'loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.' This is the precious compact that binds those of us already here with those who wish to join us. It offers rights, but it also confers responsibility, and it works because both sides uphold their end of the bargain.

Central to our democracy is the rule of law. At the same time that our democracy empowers the majority, the rule of law constrains it. The law of the land applies to and protects every Australian, regardless of race, creed, colour, gender or status. Just as the law applies to every citizen and corporation, it applies, most importantly, to the government.

Our proud migrant story has many chapters and is told in the waves of people who have come to our shores from different parts of the world. Many of these migrant communities faced tough times when they first arrived, and acceptance among fellow Australians was hard won. New waves of immigrants have often been resented, sometimes feared, and we have not always been as tolerant or understanding as, in retrospect, we ought to have been. But we have much more of which to be proud than self-reproaching. Compared to other nations and societies, our multicultural experience has been remarkably harmonious and peaceful. With each new addition to our immigration nation it has become clear that our capacity for acceptance and appreciation leads to a strength and richness of cultural diversity.

Australia and the world face the threat of terrorism perpetrated and promoted by extremists who claim to be fighting and killing for Islam. These people blaspheme Islam, and they have been condemned by Muslims and Muslim leaders around the world—most eloquently, perhaps, by our neighbour President Widodo of Indonesia, who reminds us that his country proves that Islam, democracy and moderation are compatible.

The object of these terrorists is to divide Islam by driving a wedge of violence between Muslims, between Sunni and Shia, and to turn Muslims against the West and the West against Muslims. The resolution of this conflict within Islam will ultimately depend on Muslims, but in the meantime these Islamist terrorists have succeeded in raising levels of anxiety about Muslim immigration and about the role of Islam itself within Australia. We should not dismiss these concerns. They are real. But, as leaders, our job is to explain the facts, reassure citizens and ensure that everything we do is calculated to keep Australians safe.

About half a million Muslims now call Australia home, 40 per cent of whom were born here, and those of the Islamic faith make up 2.2 per cent of our total population. Islam is a global religion whose adherents number about a quarter of the world's population. The Muslim communities are thoroughly diverse, and generalisation is more likely to mislead than enlighten. Muslim Australians are an integral part of our Australian family. Australians of all faith and of none work, live, play and learn happily alongside their Muslim neighbours, friends, colleagues and teammates. While there are Muslim Australians, including converts, who support the terrorists and seek to do us harm, they are a tiny minority, whose madness offends and appals Australian Muslims as much as it does the wider Australian community.

The terrorists want the wider Australian community to turn against Australian Muslims. Their message to Australian Muslims is, 'You're not wanted here. You will never be accepted here. You cannot be Australian.' The most effective weapon against the terrorists is an inclusive nation. An inclusive nation is a safer nation. It enables our security agencies to better protect us. It enables them to secure the support and assistance of the Muslim communities without which they cannot keep us safe, and it gives the lie to the poison spread by the terrorists who seek to divide us.

Australia's migrant story tells us that if we keep learning from each other and opening our doors, our hearts and our minds, harmony will win out. One of the reasons we are so accepting of newcomers is that all but our first Australians are migrants to this land. As I noted at the outset, this year marks 50 years since Harold Holt introduced the Migration Act of 1966 and the changes to the rules and laws that established legal equality between British, European and non-European migrants to Australia. At the time this approach was not universally supported. The battle to drop the White Australia policy was especially hard fought within the Labor movement. Gough Whitlam and Don Dunstan led the charge for a non-discriminatory policy and were held off for years by Arthur Calwell and an older brigade. After all, it was only in 1961 that the national magazine The Bulletin dropped its masthead slogan 'Australia for the White Man'.

It was also in that era, in 1966, that Vincent Lingiari led the walk-off of Gurindji stockmen from the Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory. They walked off to demand equal pay and conditions for Aboriginal stockmen, but it was more than that. It was a demand for recognition of their right to their land, a demand for political representation and a demand to respect Aboriginal cultures and peoples. It was a cry for the mutual respect upon which the success of our great Australian project is founded.

We are a multicultural nation, and our multicultural character began long before Europeans set foot on this land. Before European settlement, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples spoke hundreds of languages, including more than 600 dialects, and for tens of thousands of years Indigenous cultures lived side by side with the shared purpose of caring for this great continent. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people language is not just a collection of words; language is knowledge, and knowledge is what protects and maintains culture. My government is deeply committed to the preservation of these ancient languages, to the recognition by the wider Australian community of them and to ensuring Indigenous language organisations can teach them to future generations, so that the stories, knowledge and cultures live on.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are as diverse as the broader Australian population. Our First Australians live and work in our biggest cities and in the smallest of remote places. Our First Australians are doctors, teachers, studying at Harvard and Oxford, studying at schools right across Australia, taking on work, buying homes, travelling and supporting their families. Their hopes and aspirations are as diverse as those of all other Australians.

What unites our First Australians is their rich history of the protection of lands and of caring for country. But rather than seeing this as something that belongs only to Indigenous people and not to all Australians, we should see the history and cultures of our First Australians as something that informs and enlightens us all.

For decades, Aboriginal identity was used to control the lives of Indigenous people and diminish their value in our society. It is to the credit of our First Australians that their strength, resilience and determination have enabled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to continue to survive despite the injustices and the trauma.

Kevin Rudd's apology for these past injustices went some way to heal our nation. Our democratic institutions and the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who have steered them mean that our journey towards reconciliation has taken great leaps forward in the half century that has passed since Wave Hill, but there is still more healing to be done, still relationships that can be built and still many steps we must walk together on the journey of reconciliation. That is why today this House reaffirm our commitment to the process of reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and we rededicate ourselves to redressing the profound social and economic disadvantage of our nation's first people. But it is more than that. We want to ensure that our First Australians are not just surviving but have the opportunity to thrive, to excel and to live the life of their choosing with meaning and purpose in a way that matters to them.

Having more Indigenous voices in this parliament enriches all of us, and I pay tribute to my Liberal colleague Ken Wyatt, the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives. He has now been joined by Linda Burney, who has made history as the first Indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives. In the other chamber we have Patrick Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy, who have joined Jacqui Lambie. Together, they carry forward the hopes of the Australians who brought them here to Canberra.

We recognise that healing takes time, but the commitment our generation has made to improving the relationship is a vitally important one. I look forward to the day that our nation's founding document—our Constitution—recognises and respects our First Australians and thus reflects Australia as it is now, not how it was imagined over a century ago. The responsibility is ours to ensure that we continue to forge a common way, a shared way, with our nation's first people.

Our Australia is one in which we find unity in our diversity. Australians today are truly global citizens connected by family, culture and languages to people across the globe. We are defined not by one race but by many. We are defined not by one culture but by many. We are defined not by one religion but by many. We are defined not by one way of life but by many. What unites us is that we call ourselves 'Australian'. We are a nation defined by shared political values, democracy, the rule of law and a fair go. Surely, if someone, whoever they are, ascribes to the values we hold as important in Australia and sees themselves as Australian with all that means in terms of freedom, rule of law and social cohesion through the acceptance of these fundamental democratic principles, then they deserve our respect and our welcome.

We are citizens of a most remarkable nation. Our people are our greatest assets. We are a nation of immigration, and we are multicultural with a shared destiny. This is our home, and we have no other. Unity in diversity and harmony at home in the midst of a turbulent world—we have much of which to be proud, to cherish and to defend. It is our duty—the 45th Parliament's duty—to stand up today for the timeless values of this motion, which together we commend to the House.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his words and for agreeing to my request to introduce this motion. Often in this place we disagree on matters of principle and questions of policy in everything from Medicare to how we keep manufacturing jobs. That is as it should be. Ours is a system built upon the contest of ideas. But this is a matter where we genuinely have a shared interest: the national interest. Attacks on minorities are always weaker when we in this parliament set a better example and show the way.

In this place we should always stand up for our values and our national identity in its most generous fullest expression not on the basis of history of faith alone, because our collective and individual identities are the sum of a long list of attributes: our views and ideas, gender, faith, ethnicity, family, sexuality, disability, education and community. But when we take all of these attributes and many more as a whole we do not use one feature to exclude others. We do not use one feature to entirely describe ourselves. And in this parliament we must make that choice.

As leaders we have a responsibility to unite not divide, to reject the falsehood of a strong man or a strong woman imposing simple 'us versus them' solutions, which only leads to bleaker outcomes, to reject the false choice between faith or nation, between a person's heritage or their hopes for a future. Instead, with this motion today, we say to all Australians: no one part of you defines all of you, and it should not define your destiny.

Importantly, this motion rededicates this House to the pursuit of reconciliation alongside respect for migration. As the great Gough Whitlam said, when he introduced the Racial Discrimination Act into the House of Representatives in 1975, 'The main victims of social depravation and restricted opportunity have been the oldest Australians and the newest,' and as long as the gap in life expectancy, health, education, employment and justice stands between Indigenous Australia and the rest of Australia then there is unfinished business for all of us to resolve.

Constitutional recognition is certainly a very important part of this but I must speak for a broader effort, not just making peace with the past but ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a full and equal share in Australia's future. This must begin, as all great enterprises do, with a sense that it can be done, a belief that we can strike racism from the pages of our Constitution and the hearts of our people, a faith that a place in our national birth certificate will be matched by economic and social progress, the hope that the historical justice in the document which forms the basis of our laws will be paired with real justice in the courts of this land.

Much of this motion, the text identical to that authored by Kim Beazley and John Howard 20 years ago, is as timely now as it was then. But there is one word whose meaning, the way we understand it, I believe, has changed in that 20 years: the word 'tolerance'. The word tolerance does not do justice to the society we treasure. We tolerate traffic jams. We tolerate flight delays. We tolerate headaches. We tolerate brussels sprouts. But we embrace diversity. The Bible does not tell us to tolerate thy neighbour. Diversity is not a minor inconvenience to be endured. It is not an artifice of political correctness. It is the collective power of our nation, of all of us.

We know that today's immigrants and refugees are tomorrow's community leaders, business leaders, doctors, nurses and teachers. We know that inclusion, openness and cohesion are universal values to build upon. We know multiculturalism is not a passing fashion. It is at the very heart of our national identity, a national identity which is proudly complex and all the richer and stronger because it is diverse.

Of the 226 members of this place, all but five of us are exclusively migrants or the descendants of migrants. We swore a common oath, on different texts, from different faiths. I stand in this place as Labor but I also stand in this place as a father, a husband, a son. I am a proud Victorian and a proud Australian. Some of my mother's ancestors came here at the firm suggestion of the British justice system, others as underqualified and, subsequently, unsuccessful goldminers. My father was a Geordie from the north-east of England, a seafarer who came ashore here in the 1960s. Australia, for him—as it has been for so many—was the home of the second chance.

But the fact that the first of my ancestors got here in 1831 off a convict ship does not make my citizenship better than someone who has just arrived. Our obligation, in this place, runs deeper than a few nice sentiments on holy days or at the beginning of a cultural new year. We need to do more than mouth words of respect. We must thoroughly—publicly—reject racism wherever it occurs or by whoever says it. There is no place in Australia for extremism, no matter the party, no matter the agenda, no matter the importance of the individual vote.

As leaders we cannot choose to pass by on the other side of the road. We are, indeed, our brothers' and our sisters' keepers. We have to call out prejudice whenever we see it in this parliament, in the workplace, on the sporting field and in the media. The way we do this matters. The tone we take matters. Hateful words appealing to the very worst aspects of our national character may prompt strong emotions in us, but we must guard against the temptation to respond with uncontrolled anger breeding resentment and division or with an aggressive contempt that only hardens attitudes. We must be calm and clinical, rationally and relentlessly tackling baseless falsehood with fact, because when people are informed, when we can appeal to their essential decency with the truth, that is how we bring people together.

The facts are these: in 2016, in Australia, we are not being swamped by anyone; migrants are not filling our dole queues or taking our jobs or clogging up our highways or doing all three at the same time. Migration is not a cost or a burden. It is a powerful force for our continuing economic growth and future prosperity. Migration boosts productivity, participation and population. It enhances and complements the skills of our workforce. It adds new knowledge to our national understanding.

In their first year of arrival migrants contribute a net economic benefit of around $880 million. Ten years later the same group will contribute around $2 billion to our national economy. And as for the idea that migrants are bludging on welfare, within six months of their arrival migrants have a workforce participation rate of nearly 80 per cent compared to a national average of 65 per cent. Sometimes this means taking on jobs that other Australians are simply not prepared to do—working late nights, early mornings and long weekends, stacking shelves, driving taxis, cleaning offices, working the back shifts of our factories, setting out in the predawn, knowing that their sacrifice will give their children the chance for a better more rewarding life, children who even now are winning prizes in our schools and excelling in our universities.

For every generation there are obstacles, barriers, irrational slights and indignities in the way. It was only 60 years ago that my own mum was turned away from working in a supermarket for no other reason than that she was a Catholic. It is a story familiar to the Greeks, Italians and eastern Europeans of the 1950s and 1960s, the Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s and the new wave of arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. It is never easy to leave behind the land of your birth, the home of your ancestors. Inevitably, the people who make this journey are resilient, courageous self-starters. That is why so many migrants set the entrepreneurial example in this country. Fifteen out of every 100 people born in Australia are self employed, but of Australians born in Asia, it is 17 in every 100; born in Europe, 23 in every 100, and from the Middle East, 25 in every 100. These Australians are taking risks, launching start-ups and opening businesses from law firms, restaurants and newsagents to corner shops, market gardens and childcare centres, and diversifying our economy as well as our society. Just as migration adds to our skillset, it helps shift our national mindset. Increased migration from Asia has given Australia greater confidence in Asia—the confidence to seek security in our region, not from our region.

Let us tell it how it is. Coded statements about preserving community harmony are not an argument against migration; they are a reminder that Australians-by-birth have a responsibility and an opportunity to embrace Australians-by-choice. Fearmongering about terrorism is not an argument against migration. Countering violent extremism depends upon building cohesion. This is the problem with the bizarre unity ticket between Daesh and other extreme Muslim fundamentalists, and the extreme Right. Both argue that it is not possible to hold Western liberal democratic values and be Muslim. Both say that somehow you cannot be a good Muslim and a good citizen. This shows no understanding of Australia or of the remarkable contribution our Muslim community makes. People need to realise that when they are set up with this false choice or allow it to go unchallenged, they are doing the work of extremists.

Complaining about traffic on the roads or crowded trains is not an argument against permanent migration; it is proof of the need for improved infrastructure processes, better planning and stronger leadership. Economic transition is not an argument against permanent migration; it is proof that we need a government serious about creating and upholding decent jobs. One of the most effective things that the government could do to counter the fallacy that migrants are taking Australian jobs is clean up exploitation and corruption in 457 and temporary work visas, because the unfair power structures arising in our system, which exploit new migrants to undercut Australian wages, are undermining faith in open markets and international labour.

We live in a time when people are being forgotten by change, when people feel afraid of change, and when they feel unrepresented in decision-making. This can lead us to a low road of blaming others, demonising minorities and lashing out; or we can take the high road by skilling our people, investing in education, rewarding hard work with decent wages, including more Australians in opportunity. The unfinished business of Australia is to summon our principles, our values, to share prosperity with all who help to build it; to choose inclusion over exclusion, understanding over ignorance, hope over fear; to embrace the stranger in our midst as our neighbour; to make ordinary citizens our partner in politics; and to build a country where everyone has a seat at the table, an Australia where everyone is welcome and everyone is equal under our Southern Cross.

Debate adjourned.