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

I withdraw. Thirty years ago, in this very parliament, Senator Hanson stood up and said Asian migrants 'have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate'. Almost 10 years ago, she said:

Islam is a disease. We need to vaccinate ourselves against that.

If that's not racism, I don't know what is. She is a grafter who does the bidding of billionaires.

One Nation exists to prey on the anxieties of Australians and redirect concerns about housing, cost of living and inflation towards an invented enemy: migrants and Muslims. I have said many times in this chamber that they are merchants of hate who find it easier to destroy communities than to build them. What she said about Muslims is disgusting, ignorant and politically calculated. It is designed to inflame, but it is not surprising. Hanson and One Nation's brand of racism has been inflicted on us for decades. They light the fire, but, rather than their dousing that flame, it is fanned by both the Liberals and Labor with their own brands of dog whistling, scapegoating and falsely blaming migrants and Muslims for everything under the sun, from traffic congestion and the housing crisis to the horrific Bondi attack.

The media has played a similarly toxic role in vilifying and demonising Muslims. This is what concerns me more. This is what has legitimised and normalised anti-Muslim hate in a way which is no longer fringe. It has become mainstream. The Liberals are so far right and so desperate, now, that they are looking at doing preference deals with One Nation, trying to resuscitate themselves using racism, as their former leader actually fears that it is their last days.

Labor also have their hands dirty. You have built a system that creates tiers of racism—that some communities are more deserving of protection than others. We have heard, loud and clear, that our lives are not treated as equal. If the remarks that Senator Hanson made had been directed at almost any other community in this country, we would have seen all hell break loose, and rightly so. But the Prime Minister can't and won't even call One Nation a racist and hateful party, which they are. What are you scared of? Their leader has been found by the Federal Court to have engaged in racist behaviour. This is a senator who has been found by the Federal Court to have a tendency to make racist, discriminatory, hateful, derogatory and Islamophobic statements. The truth is that the Labor government wants to hedge its bets. Performative motions like this allow you to attend our iftars and whisper in our ears that Labor supports the Muslim community, while, at the same time, you hesitate to offer unequivocal support. You treat us as second class, you harden your stance on immigration, and you refuse to repatriate Australian women and children stuck in camps in Syria, because you are also courting One Nation and its votes and you are trying to appease the Murdoch media.

But we can see right through this. This motion does not even mention Islamophobia. That's how much you care about anti-Muslim hate. What we are seeing here today is the predictable outcome of years of escalating hostility towards Muslims. One Nation thrives in this environment, cultivated by successive Labor and Liberal governments. We remember when Prime Minister Albanese stood beside the antisemitism envoy in a big press conference to announce her, while journalists were not even invited to the Islamophobia envoy launch. That contrast did not go unnoticed. We remember when Labor passed some of the most draconian antirefugee and antimigrant laws in this country's history. We remember when Labor scapegoated international students for the housing crisis that they didn't cause. We remember what went on. You have legitimised all of this, so we won't let you hide behind this cloak of a performative motion when you have been part and parcel of the rising Islamophobia and hate that is in this country now. Let us censure Senator Hanson for her vile words, but let us not pretend that this is enough. There is so much more you need to do, and that includes ending the dog whistling.