Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three weeks ago in America, a black American man, an African-American man, was killed at the hands—or the knee—of a Minneapolis police officer. His name was George Floyd. He was knelt on for over 8½ minutes. His last words were, 'I can't breathe.' He was choked and the world let out a primal scream: enough is enough. No more to inequality, no more to racism, no more to black lives being lost, no more to violence, and no more to brutality. Many Americans are asking, 'Did the era of the Jim Crow laws ever finish?' It reverberated around the world: South Korea, New Zealand, the British Isles, France, Europe and Australia.

In this place last week, the senator from Queensland, Amanda Stoker, used the despicable, abhorrent term. Referring to Annastacia Palaszczuk, she said:

… she is absolutely choking our economy by having these borders shut. She is the knee on the throat of the businesses of Queensland stopping them breathing.

The question from Senator McCarthy to Senator Cormann is: 'What are you going to do about it?' My question to this House and to this Prime Minister is: 'What are you going to do about those comments and those attitudes from the senator from Queensland, Amanda Stoker?'