House debates

Wednesday, 17 October 2018

Statements by Members

Racism

1:51 pm

Photo of Joanne RyanJoanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise today to bring to the attention of the House that it seems in our national parliament we have ministers' offices devoid of a search engine that would have prevented this week's shameful vote where the once-proud Liberal Party backed in the other place a racist catchphrase used by the KKK and other white supremacist groups. We've got a Prime Minister now spruiking thought bubbles and then claiming they are merely conversation starters. He certainly started a conversation in my electorate, and I don't think he'll like what people have got to say. Prime Minister, if you're short of ideas to define your prime ministership, give up on the muppet movies. There are lots of ideas brought in here every day. You could fund education and hospitals. You could fix Centrelink; it appears to be broken. You could tackle homelessness; that would be a good legacy issue. You could address the aged-care crisis that we've been talking about in here for the last two days.

The Prime Minister, in office for such a short time, has got himself and his party into such a mess. Leadership 101: take the job and have a look and a think before you go to do massive changes that your community isn't ready for. (Time expired)