Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every day, First Peoples are under attack and dealing with racism in this country, whether it is what people say to us in the street or what they at the supermarket, online, in our workplaces or in schools. What I've been seeing and hearing from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across this country shows that this has been relentless. For First Peoples, this isn't new. Every day is Invasion Day. This violence takes its toll on our minds, our bodies, our families, our children and our health. When that violence escalates, when our people are attacked, terrorised or killed, the response is silence. We lock up 10-year-old children in this country and we torture them. We put them in the back of a ute like a dog and we imprison them at 10 years of age.

When we talk about attacks, we know about the recent Boorloo terror attack and the Camp Sovereignty attack. Not only is there silence on those 10-year-old babies being tortured in this country for being black, but there's silence in this place. There's silence from the so-called Prime Minister. The silence on the recent events tells the perpetrators that, when they commit violence against us, they will not be held to account and that violence against us is completely normal. Violence against our people is not seen as serious enough to warrant proper police investigations, justice in the courts or media attention. This country's history books, parliamentary debates and media are littered with evidence of genocide, racism, apartheid and White Australia policies—all deliberate attempts to erase us and reduce our power.

Guess what Gough Whitlam's Minister for Health during the 1970s said? He's your icon prime minister. The Minister for Health under him called for the sterilisation of First Peoples to stop Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies being born. This is an act of genocide. Not to mention that Gina Rinehart's father said exactly the same thing: poison the waterways and sterilise the Aboriginal population.

These ideas haven't disappeared; they've evolved. They become law, bureaucracy, policies. And the world can see it for what it is. Last week the United Nations evaluated the human rights record of this colony. I wrote to every embassy asking for urgent intervention to hold so-called Australia accountable for its breaches of international law against First Peoples in this country. I did this because Prime Minister Albanese represents a state that, according to the Bringing them home report and the Europe justice commission, has committed genocide. It's been proven. In the UPR, country after country at the United Nations made recommendations addressing the mass incarceration of First Nations people, calling to raise the age of criminal responsibility and for this government to implement a federal human rights act. No single policy will end racism. We need a national anti-racism framework that has teeth to be implemented and enforceable, and we need a human rights act that actually protects people in this country.

To First Peoples, to my mob out there: I stand with you in solidarity. I know what you're dealing with, with the racist online trolls, the racist media and a government that does not care. As Aunty Rosalie Kunoth-Monks says, we're not broken, and we are not the problem. We have to continue to fight for justice on our own terms, remembering who we are and what our old people fought so hard to protect.