Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the government, and, at the request of Senator Walsh, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that this week marks 50 years since the landmark Racial Discrimination Act entered into force on 31 October 1975;

(b) recalls that passage of the act was a unifying moment for the Parliament, with bipartisan efforts to pass the bill with unanimous support across the Parliament;

(c) affirms that the act has played and continues to play an essential role in prohibiting racial discrimination in Australia, building a fairer and more inclusive nation;

(d) affirms that it is unlawful in this country to discriminate against people based on their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin;

(e) notes the Racial Discrimination Act implemented Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and

(f) affirms the Act as representative of Australia's values as a democratic and multicultural nation that stands against hate, prejudice and discrimination.

Fifty years ago tomorrow, a piece of legislation was proclaimed that would fundamentally change Australia; 31 October will mark half a century of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

When the Whitlam government introduced the Racial Discrimination Act, or RDA, it was groundbreaking. It was the first Commonwealth law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, colour, national origin or ethnic origin. But, beyond that, it was the first law regarding human rights and discrimination at all. It marked a historic shift. It set into the law a new standard for all Australians to aspire to: a society that says no to racism. But, under that lofty goal, in its practice, the Racial Discrimination Act provided Australians of all backgrounds a bedrock to stand on to assert their equality under the law.

Fifty years ago, the RDA explicitly targeted insidious and all-too-common forms of discrimination—access to accommodation, to facilities, to housing, to goods in shops, to services and to employment. Those forms of discrimination remain all too familiar to many Australians. We cannot pretend that this act has eliminated racism in Australia; it hasn't. But the legislation was never meant to do that. The Whitlam government understood that you wouldn't end racism overnight with a bill. They were building cultural change, a better Australia. In his second reading speech, Attorney-General Kep Enderby said that the new legal sanctions against discrimination would 'make people more aware of the evils … of discrimination … and make them more obvious and conspicuous'. He said, for those discriminated against:

The fact that racial discrimination is unlawful will make it easier for people to resist social pressures that result in discrimination.

In 1995, when the act was expanded to prohibit racial vilification, Attorney-General Michael Lavarch summed it up well:

The Racial Discrimination Act does not eliminate racist attitudes. It does not try to, for a law cannot change what people think. But it does target behaviour—behaviour that causes an individual to suffer discrimination.

But the genius of the RDA was not just its effect on citizens' behaviour; its genius was also its effect on government. For 50 years the Racial Discrimination Act has sunk roots into our constitutional architecture, and quietly those roots have taken hold, ensuring governments, not just citizens, are prevented from discriminating on the basis of race. Nowhere is this clearer than in the RDA's protection of First Nations title to land. Australians know Mabo, the 1992 case that recognised native title in Australian law, but many will not know that case is Mabo No 2. Mabo No. 1 came to the High Court first after Queensland legislation was passed to pre-empt and extinguish any title rights of Eddie Mabo and the Meriam people—what would be recognised as their native title rights. In Mabo No. 1, the High Court found that the Queensland legislation was invalid. The RDA—namely section 10, on equality before the law—prevented Queensland from singling out the Meriam peoples' rights on the basis they were Indigenous rights. Without the RDA, there could be no Mabo No. 2, and there could be no native title in Australian law as we know it. Without the RDA, these steps towards justice in Australia could have been stripped away with the flick of a minister's pen. First Nations peoples' relationship with country over countless generations never relied on any Commonwealth law, but it took the RDA to begin to dismantle the law's 200-year-long ignorance, cruelty and violence to First Nations Australians.

The Racial Discrimination Act passed two weeks before the Whitlam government was removed. It's daunting to imagine what a delay to the legislation could have meant. It paved the way for the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Age Discrimination Act 2004. In recognition of Australians of all backgrounds, the assertion of equality under the law is the RDA. Bauji barra.