Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We once had laws that made slaves of men and women. We once had laws that said homosexuality was unnatural and illegal. We once had laws that effectively told women that their place was in the kitchen. We once had laws that allowed governments to rape and pillage our environment. We have had these laws that we, through the generations, have stood up to, and this has allowed us to create the sort of society that we enjoy today and the sorts of rights that people in our country enjoy right now. And we, as a political party with a proud history of achieving social change not just through our actions in the parliament but also by involving ourselves in those social movements, understand more than anybody else that it is not just our right to stand up to unjust laws, but that it is also our duty as citizens of this country. As people who believe in upholding human rights, in protecting our environment, we have a moral duty to stand up to unjust laws wherever they are.

Yes, of course, parliaments play an important role in the passage of legislation, and, yes, that legislation helps to create the framework for a civilised society. But so too does that moral opposition to those unjust laws that mean that right now we have people who this government would seek to make criminals because they stand up on behalf of those innocent people locked up in those offshore jails. The Border Force Act says to doctors and nurses, 'You can't speak out against the injustice that you bear witness to.' We have people in this country right now who are preparing themselves to fight against a whopping great big polluting coal mine that would cook the planet and destroy the Great Barrier Reef. I say to them all around the country: go and do what generations of people have done before for you and take a stand against laws that you believe to be unjust, because we will be there with you. Social movements right across the nation—the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the environment movement—have ensured that people have the right to vote and can participate freely as democratic citizens in this nation of ours.

It is only with the passage of time that those who were once deemed to be lawbreakers are now deemed to be heroes. It is only in retrospect that we appreciate the actions of those brave people who take a stand against the entrenched power of the day. Rosa Parks was not somebody who was held up to be an exemplar of democracy at that time. It was only after she took the brave step of defying the law of the day that we now celebrate her bravery and her actions. Nelson Mandela was another person who broke the law in order to change it. It is only with the actions of those brave few that we could achieve the social changes in our society that all of us now enjoy.