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

The Greens will absolutely be supporting this motion. We are a proud nation of immigrants. The things that bring us together are far more important and far more significant than the things that divide us. We should be very proud of the multicultural story here in Australia. Multiculturalism is often framed in language around people from multicultural communities needing to accept Australian values, but there's something much deeper going on. What it means is that people who come here from right around the world actually enrich our values. They make us better. They make us think more deeply about our national character. They help us to reflect on those things which we can learn from those communities that come here, make a contribution and make Australia a better place.

Of course, we know that, despite the fact that multiculturalism is embraced by the wider community, it's something we never have to stop fighting for. If recent events have shown as anything it's that we as a parliament have to redouble our efforts to continue fighting for that great multicultural experiment that began several decades ago and has made us the most successful multicultural nation on earth. That's why that speech yesterday was just so disappointing. It meant that Australia was forced to confront the fact that there are individuals who will seek to exploit questions of race, ethnicity and religion for base political motives. We are very pleased that we are coming in here today and recommitting to the notion of a multicultural Australia. It has never been more important.