Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to echo the words of Senator Lidia Thorpe and all my other colleagues standing in support of this motion. Thank you, Senator Thorpe, for having the courage that we didn't see from the government as immediately as we have seen in other situations. On 26 January this device was thrown, and there is still debate over whether it was a terrorist attack or not, whether it was politically motivated or not. The T word was not being used. It begs the question: did we need to have casualties for this to have an immediate reaction from the government and from authorities in general?

This man, a 31-year-old man from the Perth suburb of Warwick, was charged the next day. As he faced court on 27 January, the court put in place a suppression order to conceal the man's identity after his defence lawyer raised safety concerns. If this man had been a man of colour, the reaction would have been very different, and we know it. That's the elephant in the room that we want to address. If this man had been a person of colour, his face would have been plastered on the front page of the West Australian. The Daily Mail would have been frothing over speculations, and Sky News would have been making all sorts of accusations and sowing seeds of division into our already fractured society. That's not what we need right now. Only a few weeks ago we came here to debate hate speech laws, but it seems the outrage is very selective. It only matters when it's a particular perpetrator or if a particular segment of our society are the victims.

On Friday I was walking down the streets from my office to the post office, and an Indigenous man came up to me and said: 'I know who you are. Can you just send a message to parliament when you go back that we feel very invisible. Our First Nations people feel invisible because our pain is neglected, our pain is not considered as important as every other Australian's pain and suffering. Our path to reconciliation seems to be very symbolic. It's just thrown around as confetti, but nobody really pays attention to it.' That was just one of the many concerns that people have raised either by writing to me or by speaking to me on the streets.

The news reports are calling this man a lone wolf. His identity is concealed. 'Nothing to see here; let's move on, people. The bomb didn't detonate and nobody died, so get over it,' is the sentiment we are getting. But the amount of trauma that this inflicted on the people who were there at the Invasion Day rally is catastrophic. People are scared, and rightfully so.

Just a week before 26 January, I received a letter, and many other colleagues may have received it too. I will read parts of the letter because it's very concerning. If this is the mentality that certain people have, it's no wonder that that incident, the terrorist attack at Boorloo, took place. It starts with:

Palestinians, Lebanese, Arabs, Muslims, Aboriginals, Torres Strait Islanders … socialists

…   …   …

Anyone from these groups who protests on 'Australia Day' should be beaten to death in the street on January 26th to show that we will no longer take their shit.

In the lead up to the 26th, our great National Day of celebrating everything Aussie, you should purchase spray paint and go out and spray walls in your local shopping centre with the 'V' symbol to let the bastards know that we are around, we will be watching them and we will kill them if we get the opportunity. Be brave.

But don't be stupid. Wear a hoodie because you will be caught on camera and the cops are so traitorous that they will arrest you while letting Arabs walk all over our 'sacred sites'—

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