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

I seek leave to make a short statement of no more than five minutes.

Leave granted.

Senator McCarthy and the other members of the First Nations caucus, as you call yourselves, I do understand and respect that you are asking for respect as Australians. All One Nation, and the rest of the Australian people, wants is the same respect back—that is, that we are still part of this nation, that we are people who are born here and people who have migrated here. We also want acknowledgement and respect of this nation. To be constantly told, 'This is not your land,' or 'Always was, always will be Aboriginal land,' you are disenfranchising me and many other Australians.

The welcome to country was not culture or tradition; it was actually introduced into Australia by Ernie Dingo in the seventies in relation to New Zealand having the haka. Welcome to country has not been a tradition of this parliament and was only introduced in the last few years. This is not a stunt that I've pulled just this week. I have turned my back on it for the past three years. I am acknowledging the Australian people who voted against the Voice. They don't want the division that is happening in our country. They are fed up with welcome to country. They want to see an end to it. People don't want to arrive on a plane in every state across this nation and get a welcome to country. They don't want this division.

We have seen land handed back. We've seen Australians stopped from going to certain places in this country because they are not welcome there. This is their land. They can't go to Mount Warning or the Grampians. They can't go to certain parts. They can't do the things that every Australian should be entitled to. We are treated totally different in many areas.

I understand the demise of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I've visited their communities. I've spoken to them. You haven't got the support of every Aboriginal for welcome to country. A lot of them out there have contacted me and said: 'We are over it as well. We don't want this division in our nation.' It's a stance that I've taken to speak up on behalf of those Australian people who don't want this division.

I don't want to have to do this, but the fact is that I am actually speaking up on behalf of the people who don't know how else to protest this. It's dividing us as a nation and as a people. I've said this right from the very beginning, when I came into parliament in 1996. My first statement was on equality for all Australians. But we're being treated totally differently. It doesn't whether it's education, jobs, welfare—whatever it is. There is no definition of Aboriginality. A lot of people claim to be an Aboriginal of this nation when they're not, because they can just say it. That needs to change.

As I've said before, and I will say it again, when you recognise and respect us and say that we accept you as our equals in this nation, that we are all Australians together—I never hear it. What protest do you hear when the Australian flag is burnt in protest? Why should that be allowed? That is not right. I've seen protests from Aboriginal people. I've seen the racism that has been thrown at me. I dare to raise issues and call for equality—so I'm supposedly the racist in this nation because I question things. That's not racism. Racism means that you believe your race to be superior to another. I have never ever indicated that at all. I question. All I have ever questioned is equality for all Australians, and I will stand by that.

I am the one who has gone to these communities and come back to see the minister for aboriginal affairs. I have advocated for jobs for the people at Uluru, Ayres Rock. I have advocated for housing up in North Queensland, at Bamaga. I have advocated for a lot of issues to do with Aboriginal people and the corruption that is going on within these communities—land councils and everything like that. I've advocated for these people. A lot of Aboriginals come to me— (Time expired)