Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My contribution to this debate and the fact that we are marking this very important anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act is to bring into focus Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I would argue that the act, while it has done some great things and we have made some progress, is still not protecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from prejudice or, in fact, racial abuse. It is very important to note that the only time that the Racial Discrimination Act has been set aside has been to enable legislation to impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Northern Territory intervention was an unfortunate example of where the Racial Discrimination Act was set aside. The intervention was exempted from the operation of that act. While I disagreed with many other things that the Labor government subsequently did in the Northern Territory with the intervention, one of the good things they did was restore the operation—although not quite fully—of the Racial Discrimination Act to that particular piece of legislation.

The law, as we know, makes it so you cannot lawfully discriminate and so you can protect people against prejudice. The point that I made earlier is that this act has not done that. If you go and talk to any Aboriginal community, they can recount occasion after occasion where they have been subjected to prejudice and racial abuse. When we were carrying out the hearings on constitutional recognition, we constantly heard that. Just a couple of months ago in South Australia a young man gave us an account of the abuse and prejudice he suffered at school. So we still have a long way to go. It is worth celebrating, but we in this country have more to do.