Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The matter of public importance I have raised today is based on our state governments, in particular the weak leadership of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, allowing activists to breach COVID-19 restrictions without punishment even as these same restrictions are devastating jobs, businesses and lives. It's a grave insult to all law-abiding Australians.

Last weekend we saw tens of thousands of Australians pack city centres across the nation protesting for Black Lives Matter. This protest started in the United States with the unnecessary death of a black American at the hands of police officers. No-one could possibly condone the way in which George Floyd died, but what upsets me is the attitude of many people, black and white, that his death matters more because he is black, and yet when a white 40-year-old Australian-American woman by the name of Justine Damond was shot, there was no protest. No-one really cared, because she was white.

George Floyd had been made out to be a martyr. This man had been in and out of prison numerous times. He was a criminal and a dangerous thug. George Floyd had a criminal history of breaking into a pregnant woman's home, looking for drugs and money and threatening her by holding a gun to her stomach. It sickened me to see people holding up signs saying 'Black Lives Matter' in memory of this American criminal. I'm sorry, but all lives matter. If I saw signs being paraded on the day that said that very thing, we wouldn't be having this debate.

More whites in Australia and America die in custody than blacks. That's a fact. But where is the outrage for white people? For the majority of people in custody, it's because they've broken the law. In other words, they've committed crimes against innocent people. To hear brainless comments from people saying our Indigenous Australians should not be locked up, as was the case put forward in 1995, is absolutely ridiculous. Black and white Australians must face punishment if they commit an offence or break the law. We cannot allow bleeding hearts and those on the Left to destroy the fabric of our society and our freedom. The public sentiment calls for those who do the wrong thing to be held to account for their actions. I'm used to seeing gutless behaviour from political parties, but the word 'gutless' doesn't even begin to describe what I have seen transpire over the last few days.

When the severity of the coronavirus pandemic became apparent, we asked Australians to make some sacrifices. We asked them to stay at home, to shut down their businesses. We asked people to put their livelihoods on the line for the wellbeing of every Australian. And they've done that, much to their own detriment. So, after what I saw over the weekend, I don't blame the 445,000 mum-and-dad businesses in my home state for saying they feel betrayed. Although there were just two new cases of coronavirus across Australia, the Queensland Labor Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has kept our state border in lockdown, like a scene out of Germany in the 1960s when they established Checkpoint Charlie. While 'Checkpoint' Palaszczuk claims to be saving Queenslanders from COVID-19, she authorises a mass gathering of 30,000 Black Lives Matter protesters in Brisbane, which flies in the face of all social distancing laws. Reportedly, not one person was fined or held to account even when someone was filmed jumping on a police car. What an insult to law-abiding Australians.

We saw this scene played out across Australia, and every politician who turned a blind eye should hang their head in shame. People are furious, and I don't blame them. They want to know how this can happen when our pubs, clubs, gyms, restaurants and businesses are still crippled by the full force of COVID-19 restrictions. They can barely have 20 people in a room. Doesn't Queensland's economy matter? Doesn't Australia's economy matter? These activists should never have been allowed to march and call Australians racist, especially when we can't even hold a proper funeral for our loved ones. I say shame on the politicians who were too gutless and too scared of losing votes to stand up to the mob.