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

I, firstly, acknowledge that we stand on the unceded, sovereign lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, the custodians of this land, sea and sky country. This country has deep scars and memories of the massacres from the genocidal Frontier Wars. We feel it all around us. This building has deeply unsettling energy. It was built on a sacred gathering site, yet those who are in power here routinely consent to the continued violence against our mother country and our people and all those who want to protect and live by the law of the land. The Frontier Wars have never ended: same war, different weapons—same oppression of our people for access to our land and our resources for the profit of a few.

The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody referred to the genocide convention, and the Bringing them home report released in May 1997 provides 689 pages of damning indictment of the genocidal policies used against First Peoples in this country, with a whole chapter on contemporary separations. The report found that the removal of First Peoples constituted genocide as defined in the convention, yet, each year, our children are still being snatched at record rates. Our people are still being dispossessed of our country, forced into homelessness and jails, on our own lands, at the highest rates in the world. We have discriminatory living conditions, life experiences and racism. All the while, our land and sacred sites continue to be pillaged. This is the continued genocide of our people, of my people.

The lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who coined the concept of 'genocide' after the Second World War, literally used the massacres of First Peoples in Tasmania as a key example. As time goes on, more and more evidence of this country's dark, whitewashed history is being revealed. Just last month, the Guardian finished their eight-year-long collaboration project with the University of Newcastle called 'The killing times'. The report showed definitive proof that at least 10,657 people were murdered in at least 438 colonial frontier massacres. About half of all massacres of Aboriginal people were carried out by police and other government agents. Many others were committed by settlers acting with approval of the state. What is now called Victoria, alone recorded at least 50 frontier war massacres. My mob, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung, my grandmother's country, saw 70 Gunditjmara clans reduced down to seven. It is past time to let the truth be told and to stop denying genocide when it is clear before our eyes. It is time for everyone in this country to learn their local history and see what crimes took place where you live, where you sleep, where you work and where you go to school. Have a look at your own backyard, Aus.

The late Kevin Gilbert, a Wiradjuri poet, artist and activist, told the story of his people's genocidal suffering in a poem called 'On the road to Queanbeyan', which is not too far from here:

I look at the open fields and see

the space where my people used to be

I see the scars of wounded ground

I cry as I hear the death call sound

of curlew mourning by.

The bill before us today, the Criminal Code Amendment (Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes) Bill 2024, is about access to justice. It ensures that the crime of genocide is able to be prosecuted in domestic courts without political interference.

This bill embodies a commitment to transparency and accountability and an adherence to international human rights obligations, including the genocide convention, which established a framework for states to prevent and punish acts of genocide or crimes against humanity. It mandates that all perpetrators, whether private individuals, public officials or political leaders, must be held accountable. Yet, when the Australian government ratified the genocide convention in 2002, they put in an extra sneaky, slimy provision that only the Attorney-General can bring a prosecution for genocide, that their decision cannot be challenged and that it cannot be applied to historical events. This means the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, a single white man in this place, a political officer of the government, is the only person in the whole country who can make that decision, and no-one can question this. This goes against to the very intention of the convention. The Attorney-General is not required to follow any criteria for this decision-making, can make this decision in secret, and there is no possibility for judicial oversight, appeal or merits review. The Australia Tibet Council, in its submission, pointed out:

In its application, the Attorney-General's fiat creates silence.

The Tibetan experience has shown that silence only emboldens the perpetrators of human right abuses and genocide to continue their criminal policies with impunity.

This bill contains two simple demands: to remove the Attorney-General as the sole person in this country who can decide whether the crime of genocide can be prosecuted in the courts of this country; and to lift the block on the appeal or review of these decisions. The main bill addresses atrocity crimes of genocide that occurred domestically, and the circulated amendment on sheet 3055 upholds the principle of universal jurisdiction and ensures the fiat is removed for crimes that occurred in a foreign country when the individual accused is neither an Australian citizen nor a resident.

I want to thank everyone who made a submission to this inquiry and who provided evidence last year and acknowledge the difficulty for you in talking about crimes against humanity and genocide of your people. We heard so many stories from experts and human rights groups but most importantly from First Peoples in this country, who spoke to the genocide taking place, as well as from many others, including those from Palestine, West Papua, Tibet, Xinjiang, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and many more.

The inquiry made clear that the fiat stands in the way of justice and is an almost insurmountable obstacle for victims of atrocity crimes. Every single one of the witnesses, besides the Attorney-General's Department itself, supported the measures in the bill. Despite overwhelming support for this bill to pass, the committee ignored the voices of our people, disregarded the cries of those still living under the shadow of genocide and turned its back on the wisdom and pain shared by communities and experts, historians and survivors alike. They ignored legal and human rights experts. They ignored best evidence. This is to protect themselves. It is a protection racket. It's to protect their friends overseas and to keep lying about the history and reality.

This bill was supposed to be voted on last November and to be witnessed by First Peoples and activists from across the country who travelled here for this purpose—my brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles from Palestine, Kanaky, Tibet, West Papua, and the Sikh community and of course our own elders, who have looked after their land and our communities for many thousands of years. Genocide survivors and their allies came from across this continent and from overseas to stand together and bear witness to whether this government would stand true to its supposed commitment to prevent and end genocide. Instead of seeing the bill come to a vote, I was censured and then suspended for calling out genocide and racism in this very place.

I'm not alone in being punished. Over the past month, we have witnessed systemic, escalating attacks on cultural institutions, academics, artists, journalists and workers across the country for fighting against white supremacy, apartheid and genocide. Artists and academics have been censured, political dissent discredited and silenced, workers fired, and activists criminalised through a suite of legislation at both federal and state levels. The primary targets of these measures have been racialised communities speaking up against the realities of their own oppression.

Today is another day in the colony, because we will no doubt see the Labor and the coalition parties double down on their domestic and international policies of genocide, genocidal denial and blatant disregard of human rights obligations. The fact that both major parties are unwilling to remove the power from a single politician who can make decisions in secret without scrutiny, transparency and accountability or appeal avenues shows that this country is complicit. We have seen in the year how, instead of standing up against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, Labor and the coalition would rather support their dear friends and allies like the United States and Israel.

If you don't support this bill, you are complicit in the ongoing genocide of my people and around the world, and, one day, you will all be held accountable because you've signed up to a convention. You are breaking the law. You are breaking international law, and each and every one of you who do not support this bill today will be personally held accountable and responsible and will be called to a court of law to answer—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will come.