Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Labor, you claim to support First Peoples. You claim to stand for justice. But today your words mean nothing unless they are backed by action. This bill before us, the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Amendment (Consideration of UNDRIP) Bill 2023, is about the rights of First Nations peoples. It hits the three Rs: it is reasonable, rational and responsible. It is a simple change to ensure the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, when scrutinising legislation, is able to consider rights and freedoms laid out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UNDRIP, a human rights instrument this country signed up to in 2009. It means that, every time a minister puts forward a piece of legislation, they have to write a statement of compatibility that forces them to consider the rights and freedoms of First Nations peoples as laid out in the UNDRIP.

It was actually a Labor government who signed this country up to the UNDRIP, which was developed over many years by First Peoples all over the world. It was a Labor senator, Patrick Dodson, who, in his last act of parliament, tabled the UNDRIP report, which recommended not only this change but that the whole of UNDRIP be implemented into domestic legislation. I won't go into the whole story of how Labor hijacked my original bill and watered down the inquiry; that's a yarn for another time.

Last year I tried to do exactly what the UNDRIP report recommended and introduced a bill that set up the framework for its implementation in domestic legislation. I thought: 'Labor themselves recommended this. Surely they can't vote against it. That would be so unlike them.' But Labor and Liberal voted it down right after their gammon referendum. When I asked them why they couldn't support the bill, Labor told me they needed the permission of their Liberal mates before they could move forward on the rights of First Peoples. Today I come with an even more modest proposal for the human rights committee to just be able to consider the rights in UNDRIP when scrutinising legislation. It is not that hard. Once again, this is something the Labor Party apparently supports. It was in their own committee recommendations. This support will come to a test today. If the government do not support this bill, we know that it is only because it was not written by yourselves and that policy does not matter in this place—only political games.

I am not fighting for this for myself; I am fighting for the rights of blackfellas all over this country. Not supporting this bill meant not even having the courage to let a human rights committee, who they ignore anyway unless it suits them, put some words on a piece of paper, which none of you will bother to read anyway. Theoretically, the government should already be bound by the provisions outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples anyway, from back when they agreed to it in 2009. There should be nothing to fear.

Let's be real. The colonial masters have a long history of treating human rights like an optional guideline, not a binding obligation. They don't care about First Peoples' rights. They don't care about truth-telling. All they care about is their own survival. Minister McCarthy, you can have a legacy. You could actually fight for the rights of our people. I don't mean fighting me; that's exactly what the colony wants. I mean fighting the people in your own party to stand up for our people. If you really care for your people, cross the floor if your party won't support this bill. Show the people on the ground that you are willing to put yourself on the line for them. Instead, you will go down in history as just another minister for Indigenous Australians who did not fight for real justice for our people. Shame.

Disappointingly, I didn't even get a phone call or reply when I requested a meeting with you, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and the Attorney-General about this bill. You shut the door. You didn't even want to talk about it—too ashamed to front up. Apparently, Minister McCarthy, you were too busy. What in your calendar, Minister, was more important than the rights of your people? The letter even had the signatures of the majority of crossbench senators and members of parliament, meaning you have the support to pass this bill today in both houses.

How's that, mob out there? This place and the place next door have an opportunity to take seriously the rights of our people in this country, and we have a gammon Labor government who will do nothing, except to turn up to the Sorry Day morning tea and make a few gammon speeches about how much they care about us. You've got to see through this. Look how many people are locked up. Look how many babies are taken away. Look how much destruction there is of our water and our land. They are so gammon.

The support for this change is unanimous and has been called for by experts, academics and civil society more broadly, including by the Australian Human Rights Commission in their 2021 report Free and equal: a reform agenda for federal discrimination laws (2021); the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, who recommended this amendment in a report after her visit to this country in 2017; the Inquiry into the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Australia report 2023, recommendation 6; the Human Rights Joint Committee Inquiry into Australia's Human Rights Framework report 2024, recommendation 13; and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Katie Kiss, is calling for this amendment in her current listening tour. You appoint these commissioners. You say that they're going to do all these deadly things. You just appointed a children's commissioner. What's the point if you don't take on board what they are saying?

It is a simple yet critical amendment that ensures that no matter who is next in government—and we know you're doing really badly out there—we have to consider the human rights of First Peoples every time they put forward a piece of legislation. So they can't send the army into communities to destroy peace and harmony, because we would have an instrument that calls out the human rights and the Indigenous rights prior to that happening. Today I anticipate we will hear nothing but excuses from Labor. They will tell us to wait and to compromise, and to negotiate within the boundaries they set on their white line that they're not allowed to cross. They will tell us that there are too many unintended consequences. The human rights committee is not powerful. There is a majority of Labor and Liberal people around the table to ensure that the human rights committee doesn't have any power.

Our people have waited for over two centuries for rights in this country. We have negotiated with the colonial boots on our necks every time. This is not governance; this is domination by delaying. Labor has real power, a crossbench that today is ready and would support human rights and First Peoples' rights in this country. So, Labor, are you genuine? You wear your Aboriginal earrings and your deadly little dot-painted scarves and you pretend to care, but, in fact, you really don't, because you've got to uphold the colonial system, and the colonial system is not about giving us rights; it's about taking away our rights and stripping us of our rights. It's about stripping us of our land, resources, water, babies, families—the list goes on.

You sip your morning tea and celebrate Rudd's apology, even though we've got 24,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care today. After he said sorry, they kept going; they kept taking our children. We have mothers who are being shackled to beds to have their babies and we have child protection waiting at the end of those beds to take those babies. If you are genuine, let the First Peoples in your party speak about what they genuinely want. Stop shutting them down. Stop gaslighting them. Let them speak. Let them cross the floor. If you are genuine, please prove this country wrong, prove me wrong, prove my people wrong: give this bill your support, especially today, on the national apology day.

We know Rudd's apology was carefully written. It was carefully scrutinised by the highest lawyers in this country so that there was no comeback to this government ever. We know that that apology was hollow. It ensured that there were no reparations. It ensured that they were able to continue to steal our children. So, while you sip your tea and have your cake and pat yourselves on the back, think about what else you can do today for our rights in this country, because our people are dying at a faster rate than anybody else in this country, and it's because of what comes out of this place. If you don't support this bill then you'll have to live with that. I hope you don't sleep well at night. I hope our ancestors haunt you all.