Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am exhausted as a migrant to constantly have to justify my existence in this country. I've been here for 40 years. I came to Australia when I was 12. Here I am at the age of 52 as a parliamentarian in the Australian parliament having to prove my Australianness—having to prove it! For goodness sake, I'm wearing a sprig of wattle on my lapel today. Why? Because it's 1 September, National Wattle Day, a day to celebrate our unity, diversity and resilience. Why wattle? Because there are over a thousand species of wattle and wattle is one of the most resilient plants in our landscape. It can withstand fire after fire after fire and it blooms; it comes back stronger. It's a bit like the story of the waves and waves of migrants to this country.

Since World War II, every wave of migrants, from the Greeks, the Italians, the Jews and the Vietnamese to, now, the South Asians—Indians, Sri Lankans, Malaysians, people of colour like me—have had to be resilient because they've have all encountered xenophobia—all of them. But you would think that, over this passage of time, we would evolve, that we would get better as a country. I do truly believe we are better as a country, but in this chamber, on some days, I have to question that, and today is one of those days.

If there was ever any doubt that the coalition, the Liberals and Nationals, have moved to the hard right, that was dispelled today by their actions and their words. For years they've been flirting with the fringe, and today they got into bed with that fringe. I've seen this movie before. I've seen this movie played over and over again. My sister Senator Stewart, a First Nations woman, knows exactly what I'm talking about because First Nations people have had to endure this since colonisation. It's so normalised for them. It's not normalised for me. It shouldn't be normalised for any migrant in this country.

Cultural diversity is under attack. It's under attack all around the world. There are some places where migrants, even though they've laid down roots and raised children, are being detained and locked up, and some are being deported. That anti-immigrant sentiment may have been normalised once upon a time in our history. And that history wasn't that long ago. It was completely normalised when the White Australia policy was operating in this country. That was revoked in 1973 by a Labor prime minister, Gough Whitlam. Since then, successive governments—Liberal and Labor—have embraced multiculturalism. It's been a pillar of our national economy. Multiculturalism is now woven into the fabric of our country. Once upon a time it was probably okay, historically, to attack diversity. It's certainly not okay now, not when one in two Australians have either been born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas.

I'm not here anymore to justify my existence, to prove my Australianness, to constantly wonder whether I belong or whether I'm pretending. I am here. I am Australian. I am a member of this federal parliament. I don't have to prove to any of you over there that I belong. I belong is what I'm saying. I stamp my foot down and I say I belong. I will wave that Australian flag. What I saw on the weekend was a betrayal. It was disgusting to see what they did to the Australian flag—the flag that our diggers fought under against Nazis.

Sure, we should be able to have a rational debate about migration. Sure, we should be able to do that, but rationality goes out the window when that argument is co-opted by Neo-Nazis, when anti-immigrant sentiment is the business model of One Nation and now the coalition. This place turns the dog whistle into a megaphone. And the people who are impacted are not people like me. It's not me. It's the little kid who's going to school, the kid who wears the hijab, the little Indian kid who plays footy or cricket on the weekend. It's their parents. It's those people who don't have the voice of Senator Ananda-Rajah in the nation's parliament. Those are the people who are impacted. The words spoken in this chamber ricochet around this country, tearing at our social fabric. The words get fired from here, and the impacts are not felt by anyone in this chamber because we're too privileged, but they are acutely felt by people outside the chamber in those communities right around the country.

To weaponise migration is beyond the pale in 2025. We are here. We are part of this country. We contribute. There isn't a single facet of our economy that doesn't depend on the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants. You can't walk into a hospital, an aged-care facility, a childcare facility or any business without seeing migrants. They hold up the sky. Hospitals are like the United Nations. So are aged-care facilities. So are childcare facilities.

Guess what? If you don't have any of those essential, key workers, your economy cannot function. We can't actually build the homes that we need, because the people who are building those homes need other people to look after their children while they are working. Those IT workers who come from places like India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and so on underpin every single business and government agency in this country. If you take them away, everything grinds to a halt. So be careful what you wish for, One Nation. Be careful what you wish for. You go out there and blow that dog whistle, and the only people who get harmed are all of us—our country.

But you're right: we should be able to have a rational discussion about immigration. You're right: there aren't enough homes. There aren't enough homes not because of migrants; there aren't enough homes because successive governments over the last 40 years have not been building enough homes. It's been utterly neglected. It caught up with us over the pandemic.

I'm exhausted. On the weekend, colleagues, my daughter decided to go into the city—yesterday, in Melbourne. I begged her. I pleaded with my 20-year-old daughter for her to not do that, because of what was going on on the streets of Melbourne. I do track my daughter on her phone. She doesn't like it, but I'm a helicopter mum. I make no apology about that. I did that, and I constantly watched her to make sure she was fine, and then I messaged her. When she was on the train she messaged me and she said, 'Mum, some of these Neo-Nazis are on the train.' I said: 'Go and seek help. Go and sit next to someone of authority. Go and find that person.' She was fine. This is 2025. This should not be happening in modern Australia.

There were people at these rallies who have legitimate grievances. They are concerned about housing. We as a government take those grievances seriously, which is why we are pulling every lever imaginable to solve the housing crisis. There are so many pillars to that portfolio, most of which were actually voted against by the coalition, who stand here and cry crocodile tears and blame migrants while still holding up housing supply. They voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund. They voted against Help to Buy. They then tried to move a disallowance motion last week into Build to Rent. Every step of the way they have blocked passage of housing supply. So don't come in here and pretend that we've all suddenly had amnesia on the Labor side. We haven't.

The bottom line is that the coalition love to pump up the tyres of migrants and multiculturalism. They turn up to citizenship ceremonies. They turn up to festivals, where they might eat a samosa, wear a turban or have a shawl put round their necks. That's multiculturalism, isn't it? Little do they know that migrants think that they are, deep down, a nasty party. Deep down, migrants know that the coalition—the Liberals and the Nationals—don't really like them. That's evident on their benches. Where are the migrants? Where are the people who look like me? I was the member for Higgins. Senator Collins is putting up her hand. Senator Collins, I would love to look like you, but I don't.