Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Fifty years ago this week, the Racial Discrimination Act came into force—Australia's first federal human rights law. It was a landmark moment born of struggle and courage at a time when people around the country were demanding that racism and discrimination be named for what they are, a blight on any so-called fair and democratic society. It's worth remembering that this law was passed in the shadow of the White Australia policy and on the shoulders of the civil rights and land rights movements.

Fifty years on, I want to say this very clearly: the Racial Discrimination Act remains vital. But racism is still everywhere in this country, woven into our institutions, systems and public life. The race power in the Constitution, enacted on the basis of white supremacy, still exists. We need only look at the racist abuse hurled at First Nations players on the field, the appalling rhetoric, including from the most senior politicians in this country, directed at migrants and people of colour, the racial profiling, the deportations and the incarcerations. This country has never truly reckoned with the violence of colonisation or the racism that continues to sustain it. Until we do, our laws, even those as important as the Racial Discrimination Act, will only be a partial shield against ongoing injustice.

For First Nations people, racism is not history; it is daily reality. The same state that passed the Racial Discrimination Act still oversees the removal of First Nations children at alarming rates, still locks up First Nations kids in prisons and still lets police kill with impunity, with more than 600 First Nations deaths in custody since the royal commission—and no-one has ever been held to account. If we are to honour the spirit of the Racial Discrimination Act, then we must listen to First Nations people calling for truth-telling, for justice, for land back and for treaties. That is what reckoning looks like.

Islamophobia is rife in this country, and we have never even reckoned with the reality that Australia produced the Christchurch mosque murderer. Right now, Muslims, Palestinians and Arabs are being marginalised, silenced and vilified more than ever for taking a stand against Israel's genocide in Gaza. The far right here is more brazen and violent than I have ever seen in my time, and, sadly, we don't have a prime minister with the courage that Whitlam had to fight it.

The Racial Discrimination Act is also deeply personal to me. I've had to rely on it myself when I was targeted with racist abuse by a colleague in this very place, Senator Pauline Hanson, who told me to 'piss off back to Pakistan' and unleashed a torrent of hate against me and triggered people across the country. Using the act was not just about defending myself; it was about standing up for everyone who has ever been told they don't belong because of their skin colour or who has been told to 'shut up, be grateful or get the hell out'. The court found that her words were indeed racist and unlawful. That verdict, now under appeal, laid bare how hard it is, even with legislation in place, for people to get justice in a system built to minimise and excuse racism, and it showed how far we still have to go, because racism doesn't just live in slurs or tweets; it lives in policy choices, who gets housing, who gets stopped by police, who gets detained, who gets deported and whose stories are heard or erased.

So, yes, we commemorate 50 years of the Racial Discrimination Act, but we also confront its limits, especially when we have a national antiracism framework, a road map to end systemic racism, gathering dust on the government's bookshelves. The fight against racism is not a box we tick. It is ongoing and it demands courage, solidarity and action, not just words in a motion. Let's make the next 50 years about building an antiracist, decolonised country that truly lives up to the promise of the Racial Discrimination Act, where no-one's humanity is conditional, where First Nations sovereignty is recognised and where every person, regardless of race or background, can live free from discrimination and fear.