Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm also responding to Minister Watt, and I thank the minister for his response and follow up. But I do want to also add that the previous government, who actually invented this new Aboriginality for sovereign people, created some heartache and pain for many families. We had an Aboriginal man who was deported, who died after waiting six years as an Aboriginal man in another country for this government to allow him back into the country. He died waiting, and he came back in a body bag as a result. That family are still picking up the pieces. The number of children that this gentleman had are still reeling in the grief of not only not seeing their dad for six years but then having their dad coming home in a body bag.

So this is an urgent plea to the government to fix this problem, this decision that the ex-government made which was clearly discriminatory. We had a situation where we had the government or the parliament making decisions on who's Aboriginal and who's not in this country, which is going into very, very dangerous territory. It's not up to any government to decide who is Aboriginal and who is not in this country.

Question agreed to.