Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In August 2014, a group of primary school students from Mount Sinai College in Maroubra were racially abused on a bus on their way home. There were targeted for one sad reason: their religion, their Jewish heritage. The actions of the perpetrators were offensive, insulting and aimed at humiliating the children. Yet, 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' are the three words that are being removed from the Racial Discrimination Act by the Turnbull government. On Harmony Day, of all days, the Turnbull government announced that they will amend Australia's law to allow Australians to offend, insult and humiliate each other on the basis of their ethnicity and race without legal recourse. It was a truly sad day for our nation. Yesterday, former senator Nova Peris posted on her social media some of the vulgar letters and emails that she has received. They were truly disgusting. Some of the racist rhetoric in modern-day Australia is truly shocking.

I say to those opposite: have we not put the Aboriginal people of Australia through enough already? Isn't it enough that we kicked them off their land, that we took their children off them and that we made them abandon their heritage, their culture and their language? We are now going to amend Australia's laws to allow people to offend, insult and humiliate them on the basis of their race. This was a truly sad day and it was a truly sad day for Malcolm Turnbull's leadership.