Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister often speaks of Australia as being the world's most successful multicultural society, and he is right to do so. I agree with the Prime Minister, but unlike him I am committed to standing up for our culturally and linguistically diverse communities. I am committed to standing up for multiculturalism with my Labor colleagues. What weight can be attached to the Prime Minister's words in support of multiculturalism, I ask? The answer, sadly, is very little. Why do I say this? Because of his shameful failure to repudiate the inflammatory and divisive comments of Minister Dutton in recent days. He has shown no leadership on behalf of many Australians. He has allowed them to be labelled as less than Australian and characterised in a shameful and unfair manner. He stands condemned by me, and he should be condemned by the wider Australian community.

Minister Dutton today has not only failed to apologise for his hurtful, divisive and untrue remarks but continued down the path. He has looked to blame others for the hurt he is causing, and he has caused hurt. We know this through reports such as that released by the Scanlon Foundation only this week, which contains some helpful findings in terms of the persistence of support across the Australian community for our multiculturalism. But really disturbing trends are emerging, and these trends are emerging in part because of a failure of leadership by the Prime Minister and his continued reliance on reactionary voices within his government who have been demonising Australians. We find in particular that the proportion of respondents to the survey indicating experience of discrimination on the basis of skin colour, ethnicity and religion increased in the past year and, in fact, over the life of this government, and we now have the highest ever recorded incidence of this behaviour. This is a deeply concerning finding, and it requires action on the part of all of us in this place to stand up for all Australians, including for our multicultural communities. It is so disappointing. Instead, we see a clamouring of voices to water down protections on race hate speech.

I am so proud to represent a diverse community in the Scullin electorate. I am so proud to represent them and to stand up for all of the members of the communities that make up Scullin. On behalf of those communities, I call on the Prime Minister to show real leadership on behalf of all Australians, to make a stand for our multiculturalism, to make true his words in support of multiculturalism and to make an unambiguous statement on behalf of all Australians for unity in place of division. (Time expired)