Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian flag is far more than cloth and colour. Under this flag, generations of Australians have fought and fallen. They gave their lives to protect this land and to protect the freedoms that we enjoy today. Those freedoms include the right to free speech, but they do not include the right to deliberately desecrate the very flag that represents our nation.

Twice in recent months the Labor government has been asked to act. In September last year and again in January this year, proposals to criminalise the burning and desecration of the Australian flag were put forward, and on both occasions the Albanese government refused to act. Australians have made their views crystal clear. In less than 24 hours, more than 2,000 Australians signed my petition calling for the Australian flag to be protected under law. That is Australia saying: the current laws are not good enough. A country that cannot protect its flag cannot honour those who fought under it. I ask this government: can you look a veteran in the eye and explain why the flag they served under, the flag they buried their mates beneath, means nothing to you? The Australian flag deserves protection. I am demanding it, and the Australian people are demanding it.