Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge everyone in this chamber this afternoon who has worked together so that we could have a set of words we can all coalesce around. On the question of race we should all come together to make unequivocal statements about the standards that we seek to maintain in Australia—that we seek to be a country which protects all people against any form of discrimination and which acknowledges that there have been too many Australians in these past few years who have been hurt by extreme ideology. I put on record the many Indian Australians, in particular, who were offended by the organisers of the March for Australia rallies. There were people who were grievously hurt by the statements made at those rallies and in the lead-up. No Australian should feel that they are under attack in their own country. I put on record those facts.

I also put on record, in relation to this motion, the reality that the Sydney Jewish community had to wake up to, with a bunch of Nazis standing in front of the state parliament of New South Wales, Australia's oldest parliament, holding placards saying 'abolish the Jewish lobby'. These events are all linked, and no person's experience is more important than anyone else's. The fact is that the way that we treat minority groups shows the standard that we are prepared to maintain in our society. That goes for any minority group, whether it be an Indian Australian group or a Jewish group, that has been exposed to these forms of deliberate discrimination, which is designed by its perpetrators to tee off on minority groups, because their nasty, mean politics is all based on playing to a small base of people. It is vindictive and wrong.

That's why I want to acknowledge all the leaders today—Senator Ruston, Senator Ayres, the Greens, Senator Wong and others—who have been able to bring us together to agree on a set of words that we can all support. The parliament is working at its best when we can show that there is a community standard represented by all the different groups with all their different life experiences and engagements across the community. So I want to put on record that this is the leadership that I believe Australians are looking for. Australians are looking for leadership at a time of great discord and division. We are not a nation of tribes. We are great, diverse country. Over the past few years, not because of anyone's particular fault, we have not always maintained the standards expected of us, so this a very important occasion for us to be able to maintain the standards that Australians want us to have here in parliament.