Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll be brief. I've seen some racist claptrap in my time in this place, but I have to say that what we saw yesterday from the LNP was down there with the worst of it—the very, very worst of it. And then they compounded the terrible error they made yesterday by coming in here today and claiming that it was because they'd made an administrative error. Leave aside the fact that the bells rang for four minutes. Leave aside the fact that everyone on that side of the chamber can read okay, I presume, and had the Notice Paper in front of them and had the capacity to make their own decisions. Leave aside all those things, and look at the context in which the LNP made the decision to vote for white supremacy in this Senate chamber yesterday. When you look at the context, you can actually understand that this was yet another step down a path that the LNP has been walking with absolute and utter deliberation for some time now in Australian politics.

We only found out in the last few days that neo-Nazis have infiltrated the Young Nationals. And, as an aside I might add, we found out in this chamber yesterday that they didn't even need to bother! Look at what the government has been saying. Government ministers were out there asserting that people in Melbourne were too scared to go out to dinner because of Sudanese gangs, ignoring the fact the Victoria Police have been very clear that there are no such things as Sudanese gangs operating in Melbourne. Again, not so much the dog whistle but the racist foghorn from Minister Dutton and ultimately former Prime Minister Turnbull, who backed his minister to the hilt when he was asked about Minister Dutton's assertion that Melburnians were too scared to go out for dinner and visit their local restaurants because of Sudanese gangs.

This government has made an absolute art form out of dancing with, and embracing, white supremacy. The only surprise about yesterday's vote was how blatant they were about it. Let's not forget they are running an offshore detention system based on torture and child abuse, and there is not a single white person locked up on Manus Island or Nauru. That regime has racism at its very core. We've seen them trying to introduce the White Australia policy by stealth, making it more difficult to get citizenship in this country if you come from a non-English-speaking background. Again, that is inherently racist. They're locking up Indigenous people, our First Australians, in record numbers. Yesterday was not an administrative error. This was a carefully calculated step down a path that the Liberals and Nationals have been walking with absolute deliberation for some time now. We do not accept that this was an administrative error, and that is why we're not going to give the leave that Senator Cormann will shortly seek.

What we are going to do is to continue to stand up for multicultural Australia and continue to stand up for every Australian to be treated equally no matter where they're from, no matter what language they speak at home, no matter how good their English is, no matter the colour of their skin, because it's only when we do that that we can give everyone in this country the maximum opportunity to prosper and the maximum opportunity to live a good life. If we are not about providing people with the best chance to lead a good life, what in fact are we doing in this chamber?