Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday that his government intends to try to water down section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to make it easier to be a racist in Australia, I was bracing myself for The Australian today; but, my word, they have absolutely outdone themselves down there at the Q Society gazette. We have the front page. We have the editorial. We have Paul Kelly, Caroline Overington, Chris Merritt, Janet Albrechtsen, Gary Jones, the sketch and the ongoing best of Bill Leak series, with another particularly unfunny cartoon featuring Professor Gillian Triggs. Fair dinkum! Down there at Holt Street, they are celebrating as if they have just stormed the bloody Bastille today, and those self-styled freedom warriors—let's make no mistake—have finally bullied a craven Prime Minister into trying to water down racial hate speech laws.

I have to say that 16—that is 16—articles is more than just a tad excessive; it is actually completely onanistic in The Australian today. There are 16 articles, so we had a quick brainstorm in the office this morning, and I have come up with 16 subjects I reckon The Australian should have focused on today rather than their onanistic cacophony of self-congratulation and mutual back-slapping that we have been subjected today. First and foremost is global warming, the most important issue facing humanity today. Second is the decline of coal and the resulting uncertainty for Australia's electricity sector. We have our unconscionable treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. We could have read in The Australian today how civil liberties are under attack through the rise in the national security state and the ongoing erosion of civil liberties and human rights in this country. We could have read about the need for a bill of rights, but, of course, we are not reading about that, because I do not believe The Australian supports a bill of rights, even though it styles itself as a great protector of the right to freedom of speech. Why didn't we hear about housing unaffordability and rental stress, particularly for young people? I make the point that they actually did touch on this; it was on page 19, and we had to wade through pages of vomitous pap on 18C before we could get there. What about the threat to global security of the Trump administration? Fair dinkum! There is every likelihood our country is going to get sucked into a war with China in the South China Sea because Donald Trump cannot control himself and there has not been a war in the last century that the US went into that Australia did not blindly follow them into. Where is the focus on that? Nowhere to be seen. There are 16 articles of vomitous pap on 18C. What about coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef? We have just had some science come out on that. But no—nothing on the slow death, caused by the burning coal so beloved of the coalition and, for that matter, the Labor Party, of one of our global natural icons, with all of the myriad beautiful species and, for that matter, human jobs that it supports. What about the appalling rates of Indigenous incarceration in this country? Actually, not making racist jokes about it would be a good start as well. What about the Tasmanian government's plan to open up the high-conservation-value forests for logging, a plan that Senator Duniam would have worked closely on while he was deputy chief of staff to the Tasmanian Premier, Will Hodgman? What about the failure of multinational companies to pay their fair share of tax? I note the difference today in Fairfax, which quite rightly gave prime billing to the outstanding work done by my friend and colleague Senator Whish-Wilson and his efforts to ensure that our banks are held to account for the many issues that they have. What about the disappearance of work-life balance in this country or the runaway success of the inaugural AFL women's season, for example? What about the lack of a Tasmanian team in the national men's and women's football and AFL leagues, something I know Senator Duniam agrees with me on? What about how racist hate speech and structural inequality deny people their human dignity, with significant mental and physical health consequences? There are so many issues The Australian could be focused on, but again we see page after page, including the front page and a massive double-page spread in the middle of the Q Society gazette today, basically celebrating what they see as their victory on 18C.

Unfortunately, that is all going to turn a bit sombre when the reforms go down in this Senate, which I believe they are overwhelmingly likely to do when they are introduced. I make a prediction here: they will not be introduced into the House of Reps, because the government knows that Liberal members will cross the floor in the House of Reps. Those laws will undoubtedly be introduced into the Senate, where I believe they will go down and meet the fate that they deserve. Of course, when that happens, no doubt they will break out the black obituary borders down there at Holt Street, and we will be forced to sit again through an orgy of mourning and article after article, photo after photo and cartoon after cartoon telling us how freedom of speech is dead in this country.

While I am talking about pretty awful newspapers, I want to mention the unofficial sponsors of the Cronulla riots, The Daily Telegraph.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, I will just pull you up at this point. You can read from documents, but you are not to hold up and use them as props.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Okay, I will not do that, but I do want to talk about the front page in The Daily Telegraph today, which is basically an attempt to frame up immigrants for the housing price bubble in Sydney. It is a disgusting article. I am tempted to call it dog-whistle journalism, but to be frank it is more like an air raid siren than a dog whistle. It is an appalling piece of racism and gutter journalism. The Daily Telegraph and presumably the government, which no doubt dropped this story as an exclusive to Sharri Markson last night, have completely ignored the major drivers of housing unaffordability in Sydney. There is nothing in there about a long-term structural underinvestment in public and social housing. There is nothing in there about all the public handouts to property speculators contained in things like the negative gearing policy that we currently have in this country and the obscene capital gains tax discount, which is also, tragically, tax policy in this country. There is nothing about property speculators leaving houses basically untenanted because they cannot be bothered to go through what they see as the hassle of getting tenants, because their profits are quite reasonable, thanks very much, thanks to the booming house prices in Sydney and the ongoing taxpayer handouts that they get through the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing.

It is worth reminding The Daily Telegraph that in fact, if you are a property speculator buying your 50th investment property in this country, you get more direct taxpayer subsidy from the government than a young couple trying to buy their first home. It makes me sick, it makes a lot of Australians sick, and it is one of the prime drivers of economic inequality in this country that will end up, ultimately, in shaking the very foundations of our society. I refer members to academic studies that have looked at what brings down civilisations in human history. There are two common factors in the crumbling and collapse of every human civilisation that we know about. One is environmental degradation. Tick, it is happening in front of our eyes. And two is a very big gap between the haves and the have nots in the relevant societies. Again, tick, it is happening before our eyes. I know people will have a little bit of a chuckle and a bit of a smirk about what I am saying, but unless we address environmental sustainability and unless we address economic inequality the foundations of our society will continue to crack. These are now no longer hairline cracks that we are seeing; they are broader than hairline cracks, and they exist right down to the bottom of the foundations of our society.

I am bracing myself for what we are going to see in the Q Society gazette when 18C goes down in this place. I am predicting more than what we saw today, which was most of the front page—an entire double page spread and about half of the editorial page. I think it will be worse. I think the black borders will be pulled out and we will see an obituary for their much beloved love child, 18C reform, and, quite frankly, that is one time I will be celebrating, when the attempt of this government, bullied by The Australian and those editorial writers down at Holt Street into trying to make it easier to be a racist in this country, goes down in the screaming heap that it deserves to go down in.